While homesteading was a hard life, millions succeeded. It gave a fresh start and new hope to a huge variety of people from formerly enslaved people to single women and immigrant families. By 1910, nearly half the settlers in the northern plains states came from Britain, Germany, Russia and Scandinavia.

However, it made a lasting and damaging impact on America's indigenous peoples, continuing to push them from their native lands and onto poor-quality reservations that still exist today. Despite this, the Homestead Act was expanded and officially ran until 1976. The last land patent was awarded in Alaska in 1988.

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Go West! Incredible archive photos of America’s pioneering homesteaders