36 Nebraskaland • July 2022
Custer County farmer Swain Finch demonstrates in 1900 how he fought grasshoppers during an 1876 infestation. The crop was
a total loss. Photographer Solomon Butcher added a cloud of "hoppers" by scratching some into the emulsion and drawing
others with India ink. History Nebraska RG2608-2156h
a few years earlier after the Great
Chicago Fire. Using public funds for
disaster relief was almost unheard of,
Wagner explains, but private charity
came with social stigma and strict
conditions. Farmers seeking help
from the Nebraska Relief and Aid
Association had to swear that they
had no money and nothing left to sell
— not even animals or seeds — before
receiving food assistance.
In November, Army Major N.A.M.
Dudley warned his superiors of
appalling conditions he had seen in
southwestern Nebraska:
"Relief must be given these people or
hundreds will starve before the winter
is half over ... The present aid they are
receiving is only a drop in the bucket."
The region's newspapers had
been downplaying the disaster, not
wanting to discourage immigration
to the Great Plains. Now the Omaha
Daily Republican estimated that
