Period 6 Lesson 1

Context

  • Post-Civil War expansion accelerated by:

    • Federal land policy

    • Railroads and new technologies

    • Demand for resources and markets

  • Westward expansion reshaped the economy, environment, and American society

  • Sparked more conflict with Natives

Transcontinental Railroad

  • “Iron Horse”

  • Railway system connecting east and west

  • Met in Promontory, Utah in May 1869

    • Central Pacific (west to east, Chinese)

    • Union Pacific (east to west, Irish)

  • Increased settlement of the Great Plains

  • Stimulated trade

  • Led to the rise of cities in the West

The Homestead Act of 1862

  • Gave 160 acres of public land to settlers

    • Live on the land for 5 years and improve it

  • Aimed to promote family farming and settlement

  • Challenges:

    • Poor soil, drought, harsh winter

    • Isolation and lack of resources

  • Many homesteads failed

Settlers and their New Life

  • Exodusters

    • African Americans who moved west to escape segregation

  • Improved machinery (steel plow, reaper) made farming more efficient

  • An increase in western settlers and farms created a surplus of food and lower prices, causing a cycle of debt

  • A lot of the land in the west was not suitable for farming

    • Droughts, isolation, tornados, conflict with Natives, blizzards

Cattle Ranching

  • Open Range System

    • Cattle grazed freely on public land

      • Ended with the introduction of barbed wire in the 1870s

  • Cowboys drove cattle railheads

  • They learned from vaqueros who had been ranching cattle in the southwest for generations

  • Ideas of the “wild" west” mythologized through dime novels and pop culture

    • i.e., Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show

Mining

  • 1849 California Gold Rush

  • Boomtowns grew rapidly, lawless

  • Mining corporations eventually replaced individual prospectors

  • Consequences

    • Environmental damage

    • Exploitation of immigrant labor (Chinese, Mexican)

    • Increased demand for Native land

Farmers’ Struggles

  • Failing crop prices

  • High railroad shipping rates

  • Dependence on banks and middlemen who charged high interest rates and prices

  • In order to increase production, farmers needed to buy new technology

    • But increases production further decreased prices

The Granger Movement

  • Founded in 1867 as the Patrons of Husbandry

    • Support farmers socially and economically

    • Educate farmers

    • Fight railroad monopolies

  • Munn v. Illinois (1877)

    • Allowed government regulation of private industry

      • But railroad power remained strong

  • Set up cooperatives to cut out the middleman

  • Led to the Populist Party