Grade 3: Social Studies Academic Standards

3.2 The student will examine Oklahoma's geography and how people of Oklahoma interact with their environment.

2. Examine the interaction of the environment and the peoples of Oklahoma.

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Richard Lowitt, "Environment and Cultural Ecology"

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A. Describe how early Native Americans used Oklahoma's natural resources to survive such as bison, fur trading, and farming.

Oklahoma History Center Education Resources

History Alive! Living History
Bison Hunter

Traveling Trunks
Fur Trade in Oklahoma

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Robert L. Brooks, "Precontact Agriculture"
Robert L. Brooks, "Prehistoric Native Peoples"
Susan C. Vehik, "Coalesced Villagers"
Susan C. Vehik, "Precontact Trade Patterns"
Susan C. Vehik, "Precontact Hunting Patterns"
Micah Holmes, "Hunting"
Douglas A. Hurt, "Three Forks Area"
Douglas A. Hurt, "Chouteau, Auguste Pierre"
Brad Agnew, "Fur Trappers and Traders"

Research Center Resources

Mary J. Adair, Prehistoric Agriculture in the Central Plains (The Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, 1988)

Larry Barsness, Heads, Hides & Horns: The Complete Buffalo Book (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1985)

Robert E. Bell,  Oklahoma Archaeology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969)

Leland C. Bement, Bison Hunting at Cooper Site: Where Lightning Bolts Drew Thundering Herds (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999)

Jennifer S. H. Brown, Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996)

William E. Foley and C. David Rice, The First Chouteaus: River Barons of Early St. Louis (Urbana [etc.]: University Press of Illinois, 1983)

Arrell Morgan Gibson, Spiro: The Golden Age (Oklahoma City: OHS, 1992)

Claudette Marie Gilbert and Robert L. Brooks, From Mounds to Mammoths: A Field Guide to Oklahoma Prehistory (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000)

Norman Arthur Graebner, "Pioneer Indian Agriculture in Oklahoma," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 23 (Autumn 1945)

Stan Hoig, The Chouteaus: First Family of the Fur Trade (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008)

R. Douglas Hurt, Indian Agriculture in America: Prehistory to the Present (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, c. 1987)

Frances H. Kennedy,  American Indian Places: A Historical Guidebook (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2008)

David La Vere, Looting Spiro Mounds: An American King Tut's Tomb (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007)

Oklahoma Indian Artifacts (Norman: Stovall Museum, 1980)

Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Spiro Mounds: Prehistoric Gateway--Present-day Enigma (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 1994)

Maryruth Prose and Towana Spivey. Bison: From the Prehistoric Past to the American Frontier (Duncan: Cross Timbers Heritage Association, 1983)

Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986)

Waldo Wedel, Prehistoric Man on the Great Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961)

Audio/Visual

Fur Trade (Frederick S. Barde Collection, OHS)

The fur trade in Oklahoma [videorecording]. Oklahoma City, Okla. : Oklahoma Historical Society, c2000.

Online Primary Sources

Bison hunt, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
George Catlin, Buffalo Chase in Winter, Indians on Snowshoes, 1832–1833, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Rath & Wright's buffalo hide yard in 1878, showing 40,000 buffalo hides, Dodge City, Kansas, 1878, National Park Service, DocsTeach
Bison Coat, 1880s, Google Cultural Institute
Hide Scraper, 1872, National Museum of Natural History
George Catlin, Wichita Village drawing, 1834, National Anthropological Archives
List of goods bartered and sold in a Choctaw Trading House, 1811, DocsTeach
Indian Trade Musket, c. 1820, National Museum of American History
Trade pipe bowl, 1740-1800, National Museum of the American Indian
Wampum beads made for trade or sale to Indians, 1800–99, National Museum of the American Indian
An act for establishing trading houses with the Indian tribes ..., February 11, 1796, Library of Congress
August Choteau's House, c. 1820, Library of Congress
Advertisement for Milliner, c. 1840, Library of Congress
Beaver Hat, c. 1840, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Additional Resources

Jack L. Hofman and Russell W. Graham. "The Paleo-Indian Cultures of the Great Plains," in Archaeology of the Great Plains, edited by W. Raymond Wood (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998)

Scott Taylor. Buffalo Hunt: International Trade and the Virtual Extinction of the North American Bison NBER Working Paper No. 12969 March 2007 JEL No. F1,Q2,Q5,Q56 

All About Bison

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B. Describe how pioneers to Oklahoma adapted to and modified their environment such as sod houses, windmills, and crops.

Oklahoma History Center Education Resources

History Alive! Living History
Pioneer
Bison Hunter

Teacher Resource
Plan a Pioneer Day at Your School

Traveling Trunks
Dust Bowl and Great Depression
Oil and Gas
Oklahoma Agriculture
Pioneer Life

Teacher Resource
Plan a Pioneer Day at Your School

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Melvena Thurman Heisch, "Sod House"
Alyson L. Greiner, "Dugout"
Lindsay Baker, "Windmills"
Gilbert C. Fite, "Farming"
Larry O'Dell, "Agricultural Mechanization"
Brett Adams, "Irrigation"
John Caddel, "Hay"
Howard L. Johnson, "Climate"
Garry L. Nall, "Cotton"
Paul D. Travis and Jeffrey B. Robb, "Wheat"
Paul D. Travis and Jeffrey B. Robb, "Corn (crop)"

Research Center Resources

Howard L. Meredith and Mary Ellen Meredith, Of the Earth: Oklahoma Architectural History, (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma 1996)

"Utilizing the Wind Power," Claremore Progress 23 March 1895: 4.

Kathy Dickson, Farming in Oklahoma Territory: A Case from Noble County. 2004.

Gilbert Courtland Fite, Oklahoma's Reconstruction League: An Experiment in Farmer-Labor Politics. (Baton Rouge: Southern Historical Assn., 1947)

Donald E. Green, "Beginnings of Wheat Culture in Oklahoma," Rural Oklahoma, ed. Donald E. Green. (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1977)

Frank H. Greer, Oklahoma Farmer (Guthrie, Okla.), 376 issues available.

Melvena Thurman Heisch, "The Soddy," in Of the Earth: Oklahoma Architectural History, ed. Howard L. Meredith and Mary Ellen Meredith (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1980)

John C. Hudson, "Agriculture," in Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, ed. David J. Wishart (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004)

Bonnie Lynn-Sherow, Ordering the Elements: An Environmental History of West Central Oklahoma, 1889–1914, (PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 1998)

Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Helping Build Oklahoma Agriculture (Oklahoma: 1941)

Garry L. Nall, "King Cotton in Oklahoma, 1825–1939," in Rural Oklahoma, ed. Donald E. Green (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1977)

"Sod Houses," (Historic Oklahoma Collection, OHS)

Agricultural Aerial Photographs of Blaine, Kingfisher, Major, and Noble Counties, Oklahoma, taken for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1937)

Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1931)

Brochures about the windmill industry (M1998.001, T. Lindsay Baker Collection, OHS)

Audio/Visual

Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection

Sod House and Cattle Ranching
Interview with John McFarland, 1984/06/06 (H1984.076, Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Building Sod House and Prairie Fire
Interview with Charles Loomis, 1967/11/14 (H1987.136, Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Sod House, Dust Storms, and Tornado
Interview with Bessie O'Hair and Roy Hoch, 1984/10/16 (H1984.153, Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Cotton Farming
Interview with Lucian B. Jackson, 1983/05/03 (H1983.100, Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Sharecropping
Interview with J. C. Burris, 2002/09/17 (H2002.026, Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Online Primary Sources

Remains of Sod House, 1978, Library of Congress
Elihu Bowles, In a Sod-House (Kansas: 1897) Internet Archive
Teacher and Children in Front of Schoolhouse, c. 1895, DocsTeach
Smith's Patent Model of a Windmill, 1878, National Museum of American History
Thomas Hart Benton, Threshing Wheat, 1938–1939, Picturing the Americas
Scenes from Oklahoma Farm mid to late 1920s, Rev. S.S. Jones Home Movies: Reel 7, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Additional Resources

Howard L. Johnson and Claude E. Duchon, The Atlas of Oklahoma Climate (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995)

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C. Summarize how the weather and the environment have impacted the economy of Oklahoma in events such as the Dust Bowl, floods, and tornadoes.

Oklahoma History Center Education Resources

Traveling Trunks
Dust Bowl and Great Depression
Oklahoma Agriculture

E-Exhibit
The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the New Deal in Oklahoma

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Donald A. Wilhite, "Dust Bowl"
Derek Arndt, "Drought"
Leo Kelley, "Tornadoes"
William H. Mullins, "Great Depression"
William H. Mullins, "Okie Migrations"
Chongo Mundende, "Soil and Water Conservation"
Chongo Mundende, "Conservation Districts"
Suzanne H. Schrems, "Civilian Conservation Corps"

Research Center Resources

Ray J. Dyer, "Oklahoma Fears Further Storms," The El Reno Daily Tribune (El Reno, Okla.), Vol. 43, No. 309, Ed. 1 Monday, April 15, 1935

Jerry Stanley, Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp (New York: Crown, 1992)

National Geographic Society (U.S.), John B. Garver, John F. Shupe, D. W. Meinig, and Michael P. Conzen, The Making of America (Washington, DC: The Society, 1985)

Caroline A. Henderson and Alvin O. Turner, Letters from the Dust Bowl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001)

William Durbin, The Journal of C.J. Jackson: a Dust Bowl Migrant (New York: Scholastic, 2002) 

Fred Floyd, A History of the Dust Bowl (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1950)

Suzanne H. Schrems "A Lasting New Deal Legacy: The Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Park Service, and the Development of the Oklahoma State Park System," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 72 (Winter 1994–95).

T. Lindsay Baker and Julie P. Baker, eds., The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives (Box 52, Federal Writers' Project Collection, OHS)

Audio/Visual

Ray J. Dyer, "85 Known Dead, 1,000 Hurt in Tornado at Woodward," The El Reno Daily Tribune (El Reno, Okla.), Vol. 56, No. 35, Ed. 1

"Black Sunday," Radio Broadcast, K-101 Woodward, 3/24/1935 (H1984.112, Oklahoma Historical Society Audio Collection, OHS)

News report on lakes, 1955, WKY News Can #28 (F2013.134.1.00017, WKY-TV Film Collection, OHS)

Threlkeld, Dan, Mike Morgan, Steve Carano, David Payne, Mike Duncan, and Jim Gardner, May's Fury. [Oklahoma City; News Channel 4].

American Red Cross, "Tornado Town," 1947 (F2010.108.1.003, OHS)

Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection

Dust Storms and Tornados
Interview with Houston Youngblood, 1984/08/20 (H1984.097, Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

1947 Tornado
Interview with Agnes M. Giddens, 1985/04/12 (H1985.079, Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Online Primary Sources

Arthur Rothstein, Buried Farm Machinery, Cimarron County, Oklahoma 1936, Library of Congress
Arthur Rothstein, Wind Erosion, Cimarron County, Oklahoma 1936, Library of Congress
Interview about dust and sleet storms, 1940; part 1, part 2, Library of Congress
Alexander Hogue, "Dust Bowl," painting, 1933, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Drought and dust storm conditions in the Great Plains area and preventive treatments, 1934–1935, Library of Congress
Memories of Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, PBS

Additional Resources

The Black Blizzards of Oklahoma, Smithsonian Channel

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D. Summarize how Oklahomans affect and change their environments such as the construction of the Kerr-McClellan Navigation System, creation of recreational lakes by the building of dams, irrigation of croplands, and the establishment of wildlife refuges.

Oklahoma History Center Education Resources

Traveling Trunks

Oil and Gas
Oklahoma Agriculture

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Larry O'Dell, "McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System"
Michael J. Hightower, "Tulsa Port of Catoosa"
Michael J. Hightower, "Port of Muskogee"
Kenneth S. Johnson, "Lakes and Reservoirs"
Larry O'Dell, "Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge"
Larry O'Dell, "Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge"
Linda D. Wilson, "Ozark Plateau National Wildlife Refuge"
Larry O'Dell, "Optima National Wildlife Refuge"
Larry O'Dell, "Deep Fork National Wildlife Refuge"
Thomas L. Hedglen, "Great Salt Plains State Park and National Wildlife Refuge"
Larry O'Dell, "Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge"
Larry O'Dell, "Little River National Wildlife Refuge"
Larry O'Dell, "Washita National Wildlife Refuge"
Brooks Flippen, "Lake Texoma"

Research Center Resources

John W. Morris, ed., Geography of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1977)

Donald Edward Green, Rural Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1982) 

A. F. Miller, Don G. Wyckoff, Lois E. Sanders, and John D. Northcutt, A survey and assessment of the cultural resources of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River navigation system in Oklahoma, 1976 (Norman: Oklahoma Archaeological Survey, 1977)

Forest Heritage and Educational Center, Forest Heritage (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture, Forestry Division, 1900)

Mark Hufstetler, Lon Johnson, and Gregory D. Kendrick, Watering the Land: The Turbulent History of the Carlsbad Irrigation District (Denver: National Park Service, Rocky Mountain Region, Division of National Preservation Programs, 1933)

Charles Newton Gould, Geology and Water Resources of Oklahoma (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905)

Water, 1935–42 (Federal Writers' Project Collection, OHS)

United States. Economic survey: farm tenantry, farm and crop values, land utilization, education as they affect the WPA case load. [Works Progress Administration Oklahoma. Division of Employment, 1938?].

Jack Dan Haley, A History of the Establishment of the Wichita National Forest and Game Preserve, 1901–1908 (Norman; University of Oklahoma, 1973)

Howard Lynn Meredith, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge: an historical conservation survey (Oklahoma City: Historic Conservation Programs, Oklahoma Historical Society, 1978)

Audio/Visual

Tomorrow Belongs to Oklahoma, 1964 (F2013.134.2.0054, WKY-TV Film Collection, OHS)

News footage, WKY NEWS CAN #539, 1958 (F2013.134.1.00075, WKY-TV Film Collection, OHS) 

Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection

Building Dams
Interview with Leonard Baker, 1982/12/13 (H1982.057. Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Irrigation
Interview with Robert E. Kohler, 1983/03/14 (H1983.053. Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)
Interview with Marcus Williamson Terry, 1985/11/05 (H1987.019 Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Wichita Wildlife Refuge
Interview with Julian Howard, 1992/05/07 (H1992.056. Oklahoma Historical Society Oral History Collection, OHS)

Online Primary Sources

Veterans Lake Dam, Sulphur, Murray County, Library of Congress
Bison Herd, Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, 1948, Google Cultural Institute
Plant sample, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, 1941
McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, US Army Corps of Engineers, Tulsa District
"Lakes of Oklahoma," Oklahoma Water Resources Board
Interactive maps and GIS data, Oklahoma Water Resources Board
"Reclamation: Managing Water in the West,"United States Department of the Interior Department of Reclamation
"Refuges By State," US Fish and Wildlife Service

Additional Resources

Interactive map, Google Maps

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