Abstract: The antiferromagnetic ground state of the two-dimensional Hubbard model on a square lattice at half-filling was shown to become ferromagnetic with the addition of a single hole for infinite e-e repulsion (Nagaoka, 1966). However, Nagaoka ferromagnetism has not been seen in naturally occurring solid-state materials. The advent of synthetic platforms - atoms in optical lattices, and quantum dots/dopant clusters in semiconductors has led us to study Hubbard-like models on large finite lattices using DMRG techniques. We show that in the strongly interacting regime, ferromagnetism at long length scales emerges from local ferromagnetic polarons dressing the charge carriers. Our results are in quantitative agreement with experiments on ultracold atoms on a triangular lattice, and provide specific suggestions for seeing ferromagnetic behavior in square arrays in semiconductor platforms.