Sarah Sim and her husband Francis Sim migrated to Otoe County, Nebraska Territory, in 1856 to start a farm. Their trials and travails included the death of three of their children, the near suicide of Sarah, and the difficulties of moving to and farming in the Great Plains in the 1850s. Their letters are online at The Railroads and the Making of Modern America. This podcast with Will Thomas and Leslie Working explores the significance of these letters and of the Sims’ experience in the years before the Civil War.

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