Lesson 19.3: Life in

the West

Today’s Essential Question: How did

diverse groups help to shape both the reality and the

myth of the Old West?

Vocabulary • myth – widely-held belief in something

that is not true• territory – what a state usually is before

it is officially admitted to the Union• transcontinental – across an entire

continent

Check for Understanding• What are we going to do today?• What was Wyoming before it was a

state?• What is a transcontinental railroad?

What We Already KnowTens of thousands of people poured into California, Colorado, and other western territories where gold or silver had been

discovered.

What We Already Know

When the war with Mexico ended, 80

thousand citizens of Mexico suddenly found themselves living as a minority in a nation with a strange culture,

language, and legal system.

What We Already Know

Women like Susan B. Anthony and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton had worked unsuccessfully for years to win voting rights for women.

Women in the West

In their letters and diaries, many women recorded the harshness of pioneer life. Others talked about

the loneliness.

Women in the West

While men went to town for supplies or did farm chores with other men, women rarely saw their

neighbors.

Women in the West

Living miles from others, women were their

family’s doctors—setting broken bones and

delivering babies—as well as cooks.

• Western lawmakers recognized the contri-butions women made by giving them more legal rights than women had in the East.

• In most territories, women could own property and control their own money.

Women in the West

• In 1869, Wyoming was the first territory in the nation to give women the vote.

• When Wyoming sought statehood in 1890, Congress demanded that the state repeal its woman suffrage law.

Women in the West

• But Wyoming law-makers stood firm and Congress backed down.

• By 1900, women had also won the right to vote in Colorado, Utah, and Idaho.

Women in the West

Get your whiteboards and markers ready!

How were women’s contributions to the West recognized by Western

lawmakers?A. They were given the right to vote

before Eastern states did.B. They were appointed to serve in

several territorial governments.C. Statues of prominent pioneer women

were erected.D. They were honored with state holidays

in several states.

The Rise of Western Cities• Cities seemed to grow overnight in the

West. Gold and silver strikes made instant cities of places like Denver and San Francisco.

• These cities prospered, while much of the area around them remained barely settled.

The Rise of Western Cities• Miners who flocked to

the “Pikes Peak” gold rush of 1859 stopped first in Denver to buy supplies.

• By 1867, Denver was the capital of Colorado Territory and the state capital when Colorado was admitted into the Union.

The Rise of Western Cities

• The key to Denver’s growth the construction of a railroad link to the transcontinental railroad.

• Between 1870 and 1890, its population grew from about 4,800 residents to nearly 107,000.

• The railroads also brought rapid growth to other towns in the West.

• Omaha, Nebraska, flourished as a meat processing center for cattle ranches in the area.

• Portland, Oregon, became a regional market for fish, grain, and lumber.

The Rise of Western Cities

Get your whiteboards and markers ready!

What factors led to the growth of cities in the West?

A. Gold and silver strikesB. TourismC. Expansion of railroad linesD. Introduction of the meat-packing and

food processing industriesE. Publication of Western 'dime novels'

Choose all that are true!

Mexicanos and Buffalo Soldiers

The Southwest included what are now New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and California and had been home to

Mexicanos, people of Spanish descent whose ancestors had come from Mexico.

Mexicanos and Buffalo Soldiers

• After the Mexican War brought much of the Southwest under U.S. control, English-speaking white settlers began arriving.

• These Anglo pioneers were attracted to the Southwest by opportunities in ranching, farming, and mining.

• Their numbers grew in the 1880s and 1890s, as railroads connected the region with the rest of the country.

• As American settlers crowded into the South-west, the Mexicanos lost economic and political power.

• Many also lost land they claimed through grants from Spain and Mexico, because U.S. courts did not usually recognize these grants.

Mexicanos and Buffalo Soldiers

• In 1866 the U.S. Army created African-American regiments to serve mainly in the West and Southwest.

• Nicknamed “buffalo soldiers” by the Indians, African-American troops helped keep the peace on the frontier and fought in campaigns against the Indians.

Mexicanos and Buffalo Soldiers

Although there were still racial conflicts within the

military and among civilians, Army life

provided opportunity and a basic education for

many African Americans.

Mexicanos and Buffalo Soldiers

The Myth of the Old West

• America’s love affair with the West began just as the cowboy way of life was vanishing in the late 1800s.

• To most Americans, the West had become a larger-than life place where brave men and women tested themselves against hazards of all kinds and won.

The Myth of the Old West

• “Dime novels” told tales of daring adventure.

• Even when the hero was a real person like Wyatt Earp, Kit Carson, or “Calamity Jane,” the plots were fiction or exaggerated accounts of real-life incidents.

• Even serious works of fiction still showed little of the drabness of daily life in the West.

• White settlers played heroic roles in novels, plays and, later, in movies.

• Indians generally appeared as villains, and African Americans were not even mentioned.

The Myth of the Old West

• “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a buffalo hunter turned showman, brought the West to the rest of the world through his Wild West show.

• His show, with its reenactments of frontier life, played before enthusiastic audiences across the country and in Europe.

The Myth of the Old West

• The myth of the Old West overlooked the contributions of Mexicanos and African Americans to cattle ranching.

• The railroads would not have been built without Chinese immigrant labor.

The Real West

• Western legends often highlighted the attacks by Native Americans on soldiers or settlers without considering the broken treaties that led to the conflicts.

• Even the self-reliant Westerner who tamed needed the help of the government to fight Indians, help build the railroads, and give the free land that drew homesteaders to the West.