Oklahomans Oklahoma has only been a state in the U.S. since 1907, yet Oklahomans were around well before then. Oklahoma is known as the “sooner” state because settlers had arrived in the territory before it had even been declared part of the United States. In the first half of the 19th century, the region was part of Arkansas Territory. The Native Americans were forced on the Trail of Tears and made to settle in Indian Territory in modern-day Oklahoma. In the latter half of the 19th century, cattle ranchers from Texas drove their cattle through Indian Territory to states up north and out west, paving cattle trails along the way. More and more whites began to settle in the area as a result of these cattle trails and the expansion of the railroad. Then when oil was found, Oklahoma became a major focus for the oil industry and Tulsa became known as the oil capital of the world for a brief time. However, in the 1930s a terrible drought brought pain and suffering to Oklahomans: this was known as the Dust Bowl and it caused many farmers in the state to leave their homes and travel out west. After WWII, Oklahoma became a place where many conservation plans were put into effect: many dams and lakes were created and reservoirs helped to support farming. In 1995, tragedy struck once more as a homegrown terrorist attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed more than 150 people,...
This paper will show how the character of the Oklahomans has been through a lot in the last 100 years—and why, as Helen Keller points out, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, starkly and vividly describes the mass westward immigration of tens of thousands of displaced American Midwestern migrant workers, and the symbolically representative Joad family in particular. Steinbeck's editor Pascal Covici states: "John Ernst Steinbeck was born February 27, 1902, in Salinas California" (p. xxxvii). After graduating from Salinas High School, he attended Stanford University, but did not obtain a
Fowler is the one who is truly upset about the bomb in the square and the innocent peoples who are killed. He says, "A two-hundred pound bomb does not discriminate. How many dead colonels justify a child's or a trishaw driver's death when you are building a national democratic front" (Greene 163). Fowler may not believe in God but he seems more moral than Pyle who is idealistic and
This second violent incident forced Stoops to take a harder stand against one of his most popular players and suspend him." Sooners used a crisis management plan to deal with the university's decision, in an effort to prevent bad publicity for the school and the team (Forde, 2004). The following describes how the university handled the crisis the day before it hit the newsstands. In the early afternoon, OU issued
But the value and meaning of life and love described by Casy is manifested by the outsiders, the Okies, the rejects, the wanderers, the strangers, and the oppressed. They are the socially marginal characters of a self-satisfying culture. They are the ones Steinbeck admires in his novel for they are the ones who "wander through the wilderness of hardships, seeking their own Promised Land" (Shockley 87). They await the
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