Part 3: North Dakota Pioneers

Part 3: Vocabulary

Anderson, Elizabeth Preston:

  • Organized alcohol education efforts in the state
  • Helped get women’s suffrage law passed in North Dakota

Binder:

  • Machine that cut grain, gathered it into bundles, and tied the bundles with twine

Breaking plow:

  • Implement with a heavy, curved blade to turn over sod
  • Pulled by a horse or an ox

Buffalo chips:

  • Dried buffalo droppings
  • Used as fuel in pioneer stoves

Cellar:

  • Dug-out room below the house or outside of the house
  • Stayed cool so was used to store fruits, vegetables, and meat

Churn:

  • Device that stirred cream to make butter

Cistern:

  • Holding tank for rainwater or water hauled in

Claim shanty:

  • One-room, wood-frame house used on homestead claim

Colorizing:

  • Hand-coloring black and white photographs to make subjects look more real

Cook car:

  • A small house on wheels used for cooking for threshing crews

Disk:

  • Harrow with sharp, circular plates instead of teeth

Drill:

  • Implement that plants crop seeds

Firebreak:

  • Strip of plowed land surrounding the house and other buildings to stop prairie fires

Furrow:

  • A long, narrow groove cut in the ground

Harrow:

  • Implement with sharp teeth that digs into the soil
  • Breaks up clods of earth

Hay:

  • Grass that has been cut and dried to be used as livestock feed

Immigrant trains:

  • Trains that carried immigrants from a port to western points
  • Boxcars could be rented by families to transport their belongings

Lignite:

  • Very soft coal found in western North Dakota

Livery stable:

  • Barn in town that rented out horses and buggies
  • Place for keeping horses temporarily

Mule:

  • Offspring of a male donkey and a female horse
  • Not able to reproduce themselves

Outhouse:

  • Outdoor toilet

Ox:

  • A full-grown bull that has been neutered
  • Huge animal, stronger than a horse

Oxen:

  • More than one ox

Poultry:

  • Birds raised for eggs or meat

Scythe:

  • Long, curved blade with a handle
  • Used for cutting grain

Shocking:

  • Picking up bundles of grain from the ground by hand and placing them upright in groups to dry

Sod:

  • Grass-covered soil held together by matted roots

Soddie:

  • Sod house

Speculator:

  • A person who bought land at a cheap price for the purpose of selling it at a higher price

Stoneboat:

  • A type of sled that could glide over fields, grass, snow, or ice
  • Pulled by a team of horses

Tar paper:

  • Heavy paper covered with tar and used for waterproofing

Threshing:

  • Separating the grain from the straw

Threshing machine:

  • Separated the kernels of grain from the stalks
  • Operated by a crew of workers

Whitewash:

  • Mixture containing water and lime used as paint