From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple, agrarian self-sufficiency.

Contents 1 History 1.1 North America 2 Current Practice 3 See also 4 Influential People 5 Notes 6 External links 6.1 Magazines 6.2 Websites

In the United States, the Homestead Act (1862) allowed anyone to claim up to 160 acres (647,000 m²) of land. After clearing and working the land for five years, the homesteader would receive title to the land from the government. In this sense, homesteading provided a legal and viable means of obtaining land and precluded widespread squatting on the frontiers, and was the most important and prevalent means of settlement in the late 19th century. The Act was an embodiment of the broader legal homestead principle. Daniel Freeman (1826–1908) was the first person to file for a claim under Homestead Act of 1862. Similar provisions were in place for what is now Western Canada (see Last best West and Dominion Land Survey).

Currently the term homesteading applies to anyone who is a part of the back to the land movement and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading remains as a way of life. A new movement, called "urban homesteading," can be viewed as a simple living lifestyle, incorporating small-scale agriculture, sustainable and permaculture gardening, and home food production and storage into suburban or city living.

Homesteading may also refer to the practice squatting—the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use.^[1]

• Self-sufficiency
• Simple living
• Permaculture
• Back to the land
• Foxfire books
• Seasteading

• John Seymour (author and smallholder)
• Carla Emery
• Henry David Thoreau
• Wendell Berry

1. ^ Gregory Heller, "Self Help Housing: An Historical Overview of Squatting in New York City," no date. Accessed Feb. 1, 2007.

• Backwoods Home Magazine
• Countryside & Small Stock Journal
• Down to the Roots Homesteading Magazine
• Mother Earth News - Changed over the years but still helpful.

• Survival Strategies
• Backwoods, Homesteading and Survival Information
• Carla Emery - Memorial and Encyclopedia of Country Living
• Deliberate Life
• Organic Homesteading & Gardening Group
• Homestead.org: Rural Living Principle and Practice.
• Homesteading Information Directory
• Homesteading Today Bulletin Board - a 16,000 member virtual community
• Path to Freedom - An Urban Homestead Model
• Notes from the book Country Property Dirt Cheap
• The Homestead Forum Conversations with Homesteaders
• The Modern Homestead
• The Free-Soil Movement by Wendy McElroy A history of the homestead movement
• Homesteading Times Community - Virtual Community - Faith Based