American West

Gold Rush

1800s “49ers” Conflict between

Americans and immigrants

Ghost towns Hoping to “get rich

quick”

Mining

Silver mines Turned into an industry Miners tended to be fairly rough men Women ran businesses

Led to early suffrage in western states Environmental impact Encroached on natives’ land Anti-Chinese = Chinese Exclusion Act

(1882)

Mining Towns

Boomtowns- popped up overnight

Well-known Mining Centers Pike’s Peak, Colorado Sacramento San Francisco Denver Virginia City (Comstock Lode)

Cattle Kingdom

Cattle Frontier

Grasslands of Texas Longhorn cattle Cowboys Cattle drives- drive the cattle to the

RR for shipment to the East Land known as the “open range” Numerous cattle trails

Cattle Trails

Well-known trails included: The Goodnight-Loving Trail, the Chisholm Trail and the Sedalia Trail. All cattle trails led to a train station. Cattle were loaded onto railcars and taken to stockyards in Chicago where they were sold by head. Ranchers became rich.

The Cowboy

Click icon to add pictureRuggedSelf-reliantIndependentRoughLonelyHeroic

Popular dime novels about cowboys were written. Most of them depicted battles between “Cowboys and Indians.”

Barbed wire

Invention of barbed wire put an end to the open range- farmers protecting farms from cattle

Destroyed the cattle drives and the cattle kingdom

Cowboy lifestyle ended

Hurt Native Americans further

Farming

The Great American DesertIn 1820 Major Stephen Long explored the region now known as the Great Plains. He termed it the “Great American Desert.” The climate inspired him to say the land was “almost wholly unfit for cultivation and of course uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence.”

Sodbusting

New agricultural technologies needed to break up the land

Sod homes

Why sod and not trees?

Homestead Act (1862)

BENEFITS

Encouraged westward expansion

Inexpensive land

PROBLEMS

Land speculation Corruption Families unprepared

for life in the West Climate extremes Land Isolation “dry farming”

Homestead Activity

Complete the reading and questions about the passage of the Homestead Act

Look at the primary source documents regarding a homestead in the Nebraska Territory

Frontier Thesis

Frederick Jackson Turner 1893 “The Significance of the Frontier in

American History” The frontier promoted a spirit of

independence and individualism among Americans

Helped breakdown class distinctions and place everyone on a level playing field

Fostered a system of democracy Promoted inventive and practical

thinking Concerned about the “closing” of the

frontier- disappearance of open land Loss of the ability for a fresh start Would America follow the pattern of

social conflict and class division that plagued Europe?