The CB&Q, Buffalo Bill, and the Development of Wyoming

This is Chapter 4 of the virtual exhibition “Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad” by environmental historian Eric D. Olmanson. The chapter focuses on “Buffalo Bill” William Cody and the development of Wyoming.

Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad

This virtual exhibition shows some of the many ways railroads reshaped landscapes of the American West between 1847 and 1965.

This version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2011 virtual exhibition (view PDF here) and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.

Eric Olmanson

About the author

Olmanson, Eric

University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Eric Olmanson studied geography and environmental history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing his PhD in 2000 he served as an institutional historian until 2008. Since then he has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked on various research and writing projects. His first book, The Future City on the Inland Sea: A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior, was published by Ohio University Press in 2007. It won the Great Lakes American Studies Association and Ohio University Press book award and was awarded the J. B. Jackson Prize by the Association of American Geographers. He is currently writing a book about the American Medical Center for Burma, 1945–1965.

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“Room eno’ for all”: Promotion of Settlement in Iowa and Nebraska

This is Chapter 3 is of the virtual exhibition “Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad” and focuses on the Burlington’s promotion of settlement in Iowa and Nebraska.

Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad

This virtual exhibition shows some of the many ways railroads reshaped landscapes of the American West between 1847 and 1965.

This version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2011 virtual exhibition (view PDF here) and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.

Eric Olmanson

About the author

Olmanson, Eric

University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Eric Olmanson studied geography and environmental history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing his PhD in 2000 he served as an institutional historian until 2008. Since then he has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked on various research and writing projects. His first book, The Future City on the Inland Sea: A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior, was published by Ohio University Press in 2007. It won the Great Lakes American Studies Association and Ohio University Press book award and was awarded the J. B. Jackson Prize by the Association of American Geographers. He is currently writing a book about the American Medical Center for Burma, 1945–1965.

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US Government Land Grants: “A pleasure to break the wild prairie”

This is Chapter 2 of the virtual exhibition “Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad” by environmental historian Eric D. Olmanson. The chapter discusses the impact of US land grants for railroad and settlement development especially in the states of Missouri and Nebraska.

Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad

This virtual exhibition shows some of the many ways railroads reshaped landscapes of the American West between 1847 and 1965.

This version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2011 virtual exhibition (view PDF here) and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.

Eric Olmanson

About the author

Olmanson, Eric

University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Eric Olmanson studied geography and environmental history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing his PhD in 2000 he served as an institutional historian until 2008. Since then he has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked on various research and writing projects. His first book, The Future City on the Inland Sea: A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior, was published by Ohio University Press in 2007. It won the Great Lakes American Studies Association and Ohio University Press book award and was awarded the J. B. Jackson Prize by the Association of American Geographers. He is currently writing a book about the American Medical Center for Burma, 1945–1965.

Browse the exhibition

Introduction: “Quite a chapter in the history of the West”

The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad played an important role in the transformation of settlement, agriculture, commerce, and recreation in North America. This is the introductory chapter of the virtual exhibition “Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad” by environmental historian Eric D. Olmanson.

Promotion and Transformation of Landscapes along the CB&Q Railroad

This virtual exhibition shows some of the many ways railroads reshaped landscapes of the American West between 1847 and 1965.

This version 2, published in 2020, includes minor updates to the original 2011 virtual exhibition (view PDF here) and applies the Environment & Society Portal’s responsive layout.

Eric Olmanson

About the author

Olmanson, Eric

University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Eric Olmanson studied geography and environmental history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing his PhD in 2000 he served as an institutional historian until 2008. Since then he has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked on various research and writing projects. His first book, The Future City on the Inland Sea: A History of Imaginative Geographies of Lake Superior, was published by Ohio University Press in 2007. It won the Great Lakes American Studies Association and Ohio University Press book award and was awarded the J. B. Jackson Prize by the Association of American Geographers. He is currently writing a book about the American Medical Center for Burma, 1945–1965.

Browse the exhibition

Changing land ownership, agricultural, and economic systems

This is a chapter of the virtual exhibition “Famines in Late Nineteenth-Century India: Politics, Culture, and Environmental Justice”—written and curated by sociologist Naresh Chandra Sourabh and economic historian Timo Myllyntaus.

Famines in Late Nineteenth-Century India: Politics, Culture, and Environmental Justice

Between 1850 and 1899, India suffered 24 major famines, a number higher than in any other recorded 50-year period, resulting in millions of deaths. This exhibition—written by sociologist Naresh Chandra Sourabh and economic historian Timo Myllyntaus—describes the environmental and social factors that contributed to these cataclysmic events, situating their causes and costs within the complex natural and cultural contexts of nineteenth-century colonial India.

Naresh Chandra Sourabh and Timo Myllyntaus

About the author

Myllyntaus, Timo

University of Turku, Finland

Timo Myllyntaus is Professor of Finnish history at Turku University. He earned his first two degrees at Helsinki University and a Ph.D. in economic history at the London School of Economics. His research interests stretch from economic and social history to environmental history. His edited volumes include Thinking through the Environment: Green Approaches to Global History (2011) and Invisible Bicycle. New Insights in Bicycle History (co-edited with Tiina Männistö-Funk, forthcoming in 2016). He has also published around one hundred scientific articles and fifty popular articles. Myllyntaus has directed more than a dozen research projects, participated in activities of various scientific organizations including the European Society for Environmental History, and acted as a peer-reviewer for several journals.

Sourabh , Naresh Chandra

Institute of Social Research and Development, India

Naresh Chandra Sourabh is professor and founder Director at the Institute of Social Research and Development, Patna, India. He received his M.A. degree in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in 1982 and his Ph.D. also in Sociology from the University of Helsinki in 2008. He is the author of the socio-ethnographic work The Culture of Women’s Housework. Previously, Dr. Sourabh lectured “Food in Indian History- Production, Consumption and Culture from the Colonial Times to the Present” at Turku University, where he was a fellow with the project Finnish Harvest Failures and Famines in the International Context, funded by the Academy of Finland.