Alice Day Pratt
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| name =Alice Day Pratt
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1872|6|16}}
| birth_place = near Mankato, Minnesota
| death_date = {{Death date and age|mf=yes|1963|1|11|1872|6|16}}
| death_place = New York City
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| known_for = Homesteading alone in the high desert
| education = Home schooling
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| occupation =Homesteader, writer, teacher
| parents =William and Sophie Pratt
| relatives =Julius (brother), Marjorie (younger sister)
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Alice Day Pratt was a teacher and author who at age 40 joined the last wave of government-sponsored homesteading in the U.S. state of Oregon.{{cite encyclopedia|last=Alzner|first=Cathy|title=Alice Day Pratt (1972–1963)|encyclopedia=The Oregon Encyclopedia|publisher=Portland State University and the Oregon Historical Society|url=http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/pratt_alice_day_1872_1963/#.U3uOWyiorqw|access-date=May 20, 2014}} Pratt, who was single, established a dryland farm and ranch near Post, about {{convert|60|mi|km}} east of Bend.{{sfn|Shirley|1998|pages=88–100}} The {{convert|160|acre|ha|adj=on}} parcel of land became hers through provisions of the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. Living on her ranch, Broadview, from 1912 through 1930, she kept dogs, cats, horses, chickens, and cows and sometimes produced enough surplus to sell alfalfa, hay, grain, milk, eggs, and vegetables.{{sfn| Shirley|1998|pages=88–100}} To supplement her income, she taught school in Post, Prineville, and Conant Basin.
Biography
Born in Minnesota in 1872, Pratt grew up there and in South Dakota, later teaching in the South before moving to Oregon to start a new life. Living at first in a tent, Pratt worked Broadview primarily by herself with occasional help from neighbors and other homesteaders. They eventually helped her build a barn and a wooden house consisting of a single room measuring {{convert|12|by|20|ft|m|0}}. She wrote about her initial Broadview experience in A Homesteader's Portfolio, first published in 1922. Cold, wind, snow, and drought eventually forced her to sell her dairy herd to repay a loan, and in 1930 she gave up dryland farming and moved east to Niagara Falls, to live with her mother and sister. Later relocating to New York City, she retained possession of Broadview until 1950.{{sfn| Shirley|1998|pages=88–100}}
First published by The Macmillan Company, A Homesteader's Portfolio was reprinted by the Oregon State University Press in 1993.{{cite web|title=Formats and Editions of A Homesteader's Portfolio|publisher=WorldCat|url=http://www.worldcat.org/title/homesteaders-portfolio/oclc/28374978/editions?editionsView=true&referer=br|access-date=April 21, 2014}} Pratt's other work includes Animal Babies and Animals of a Sagebrush Ranch, both for juvenile readers, as well as Three Frontiers, and the Alice Day Pratt Papers, 1960.{{cite web|title=Pratt, Alice Day|publisher=WorldCat|url=http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3APratt%2C+Alice+Day.&qt=hot_author|access-date=April 21, 2014}} Unpublished work includes a novel called Sagebrush Fires, several short stories, and Teacher's Trek, a memoir about her teaching experiences.{{cite web|last=Gloss|first=Molly|title=Alice Day Pratt and the Homestead Dream: Introduction to A Homesteader's Portfolio|publisher=Oregon State University Press|url=http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/homesteaders-portfolio/intro|year=2011|access-date=April 27, 2014|archive-date=March 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304045842/http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/homesteaders-portfolio/intro|url-status=dead}}
See also
- Julius W. Pratt, Alice Pratt's brother, a noted historian
References
{{Reflist}}
Sources
- {{cite book|last=Shirley|first=Gayle C.|title=More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Oregon Women|publisher=Falcon Publishing|location=Helena, Montana|year=1998|isbn=1-56044-668-4}}
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Category:20th-century American writers
Category:20th-century American women writers