final reasons for westward expansion
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VA Standards of LearningTRANSCRIPT
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Reasons for Westward Expansion6th Grade Social Studies
Mrs. Brown
USII.4a
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Reason #1
Opportunities for Land Ownership
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Homesteaders Circa 1880 – 1900’s
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1. Opportunities for Land Ownership
• The Homestead Act– January 1, 1862– Anyone could file for
160 acres of free land
– The land was yours in 5 years if you:
• Built a house on it• Dug a well• Broken (plowed) 10
acres of land• Fenced in a specific
amount of land• Actually lived there!
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What inventions and adaptations helped the homesteaders fulfill the requirements set forth
by the Homestead Act?
• Building a house
• Digging a well
• Farming 10 acres
• Fencing in land
Soddies…Sod Houses
Windmills
Steel Plow
Barbed Wire
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Reason #2
Technological Advances – Transcontinental
Railroad
Click
Here for
Video
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Transcontinental Railroad
• Pacific Railway Act– Transcontinental
Railroad– Passed by Congress
in 1862– Authorized 2
companies to construct the railroad
• Union Pacific• Central Pacific
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=32#
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• Union Pacific– >8,000 German,
Irish, & Italian immigrants employed to built railroad
– Built West from the Missouri River in Omaha, Nebraska
– Constructed a total of 1,087 miles of railway
http://www.apa.si.edu/ongoldmountain/gallery2/X46214_6.jpg
Transcontinental Railroads
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• Central Pacific– Built East from
Sacramento, California
– Employed over 10,000 Chinese immigrants as laborers
– Constructed approx. 690 miles of railway
– Cross California’s Sierra Nevada Mountain Range
• Blasted 15 tunnelshttp://www.nps.gov/archive/gosp/research/workmen.htm
Transcontinental Railroads
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• “The last rail is laid. The last spike is driven. The Pacific Railroad is completed.”
• May 10, 1869 in Promontory, Utah
• Travel Time = less than 1 week, coast to coast
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/transcontinental-railroad-2.jpg
Transcontinental RailroadsThey met in the middle…
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Reason #3
Possibility of Wealth from Gold and Silver Mines
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The California Gold Rush…mines dried up!
• By mid-1950’s• California miners who
still hoped to strike it rich headed east to the Colorado Rockies in search of gold and silver.
• Prospectors from the east continued to head west, through the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains in search of their fortune.
http://www.ghostcowboy.com/files/images/goldmine_gc.preview.jpg
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Pike’s Peak or Bust!
• Pike’s Peak, 1858– Colorado Rocky Mountains– By the spring of 1959, fifty
thousand prospectors had fled to Pike’s Peak
– Skimmed gold particles & gold dust from the streams
– They scratched particles of gold from the surface of the ground
– Newspapers reported that prospectors were making $20 a day…that was quite a lot back then! http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/f/f5/270px-Pikes_Peak_miners.jpg
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The Comstock Load, 1859
• Virginia City, Nevada: Silver Mining– The largest Discovery
of Silver Ore• $8,000,000 silver
per month• Hundreds of
millions of dollars worth of silver & gold ore
• Helped establish Nevada as a U.S. State
http://members.aol.com/gsahoard/carsoncitymint.jpg
Carson City Mint, Carson City, Nevada*Built in Response to the Comstock Lode
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The Comstock Load: Mines
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Mining Business: Boomtowns
• Boomtowns – “Towns that grew up almost overnight around mining sites.” (Appleby, p.529)
• Mining camps would evolve into thriving towns within a year, but as soon as the mines dried up, some towns turned into “ghost towns”
• Virginia City, Nevada at it’s peak in 1861 had banks, hotels, newspapers, an opera company, and a stock exchange
• In the 1870’s, Virginia City had 30,000 residents; by 1900, only 4,000 remained
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-nevada/VirginiaCityNV1866-5-500.jpg
Virginia City, Nevada, 1886
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Virginia City, Nevada
Then: 1860’s Now: 2008
http://renoscasinos.com/virginia/street2.jpghttp://www.collectsource.com/Image17.gif
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The Homestake Mine South Dakota, 1889
The Homestake Mine was one of the top producers of gold ore in the United States. It was owned by George Hearst, a successful miner in the Great Plains who held shares of the Compton Lode in Virginia City, Nevada. Known to be “almost illiterate” he became a millionaire industrialist, politician and publisher. When he died, he was a United States Senator. He is the father of Media Mogul, William Randolph Hearst, who founded the Hearst Publishing Empire.
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Hearst’s Mines: Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Mexico, and California
Homestake Mine, Cut Open Today, July 2006-Photo by Kathy Weiser
Homestake Mine, Cut Open in 1888-Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
Source: www.legendsofamerica.com
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Expansion of the Mining Industry & Boomtowns
• In the late 1800’s, the mining industry in the Great Plains expanded to include:– Lead & Zinc
• Colorado– Copper
• Montana, New Mexico, Arizona
• Provided the Raw Materials needed for the industrial revolution taking place on the east coast
http://middle.usm.k12.wi.us/faculty/taft/Unit5/westwebquest/boomtowns/west153utah.jpg
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• Factors that helped establish permanent settlement– Increased Mining
Industry – Railroads– Settlers creating
permanent homes, businesses, schools and churches
Expansion of the Mining Industry & Boomtowns
http://middle.usm.k12.wi.us/faculty/taft/Unit5/westwebquest/boomtowns/houses.jpg
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How did Boomtowns contribute to the growth of the United States?
New TownsIncrease in
Settled Territory
Increase of Industry,
Population & Wealth
New States admitted to the United States of
America
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New States Admitted to the Union:
• Colorado, 1876• North Dakota, 1889• South Dakota, 1889• Washington, 1889
• Montana, 1889• Wyoming, 1890
• Idaho, 1890
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Reason #4
Desire for Adventure!
I’m Bored…Heading West!
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Reason #5
A New Beginning for Former Slaves
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Father of the Exodus:Benjamin “Pap” Singleton
“Those who answered Singleton's call to head west became known as "Exodusters," and Singleton himself was described as the "Father of the Exodus." But the massive migration of African Americans from the South that reached a peak in 1879 was not inspired by Singleton alone. The driving force was the withdrawl of federal troops from the South in 1877, which marked the official end of
Reconstruction and the return of racial oppression through segregation laws and the terrorist activities of groups like the Ku Klux Klan. By 1879, which became known as the year of the "Great Exodus," some 50,000 blacks had fled to freedom in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois, while thousands more had been turned back by whites patrolling the rivers and roads.”● A runaway slave who
returned to the South after the Civil War to help freed slaves establish a better life
Source - http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/singleton.htm
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Freedman: The Exodusters
Waiting for the steamboat to Kansas
Advertisement for the migration of freedman to Kansas
http://middle.usm.k12.wi.us/faculty/taft/Unit5/westwebquest/Exodusters/levee.gif
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/images/gotokansas.jpeg
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Freedman: The Exodusters
Nicodemus, Kansas Nicodemus, Kansas
http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/west/black%20homesteaders.jpg
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/ExodustersNicodemusKS-500.jpg
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Life in the Great Plains
• Extensive Photo Collection”– Miners & Prospectors– Native Americans– Exodustors & Runaway Slaves– Civil War– Teddy Roosevelt & Abraham Lincoln– http://old-photos.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_arch
ive.html
• Additional Website: – Mining in the Great Plains
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Primary Resources: Library of Congress
• Pacific Railway Act (1862)– http://www.ourdoc
uments.gov/doc.php?doc=32
• The Homestead Act (1872)– http://www.ourdoc
uments.gov/doc.php?doc=31
• Document Website:– www.ourdocument
s.gov
http://www-tc.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/images/wimg670/organ.gif