President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act

President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law.  It provided 160 acres of public land to any man or woman over the age of twenty-one willing to develop it for five years.  It came into effect on January 1, 1863. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Joseph Nathan Kane, ed., Famous First Facts (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1981), 304.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Lawmaking/Litigating
    How to Cite This Page: "President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/11845.