Life as a Cowboy DIRECTIONS: As we watch the video write down descriptions of the living and working conditions of a cowboy on the western frontier. Think about sleeping, eating, job requirements….

Westward Movement

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, economic opportunity, industrialization, technological change, and immigration fueled American growth and expansion. Late 1800s - Early 1900s

Westward Movement The American West was the last frontier left unsettled After the Civil War, westward movement of settlers intensified between the Mississippi River & the Pacific Ocean

Achieving Manifest Destiny –Fate of the U.S. to expand and control all the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean

The American Cowboy Cowboys were in high demand before AND after the Civil War Cowboys took cattle on long cattle drives to market (sale) 100s of miles over unfenced open land

Cattle drive was the only way to get cattle to market This was a hard life Rode hours/day Risked losing cattle Slept on the ground, bathed in rivers Life as a Cowboy

Growth of railroads led to the decline of the cowboy Railroads made it possible to send raw materials and foodstuffs east and receive finished goods from the industrialized North Decline of the Cowboy

WHO moved west? –African Americans and Southerners…. WHY? –The South after the Civil War was DESTROYED!! –Economy declining –African Americans were FREE but couldn’t afford to buy land Left to start a new life!!! Westward Settlers

Homestead Act: 1862 Offered 160 acres of land free to any citizen (head of the household) who would move WEST & FARM the land Over 600,000 families took advantage of the government’s offer

Frontier Hardships Droughts Floods Fires Blizzards Locust plagues Native American raids Worked 160 acres BY THEMSELVES!!

New Technology Barbed wire: prevented animals from trampling crops & wandering off Reaper: made harvesting faster and saved crops from inclement weather

New Inventions Steel Plow: made planting more efficient in root- filled soil Steel windmill: prevented crop dehydration by bringing up underground water for irrigation

New technologies opened the land in the West for settlement and made farming profitable by increasing the efficiency of production and linking resources and markets

Impact of Westward Movement By the turn of the century, the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the American West were no longer a mostly unsettled frontier, but was fast becoming regions of farms, ranches, and towns.

Impact on Native Americans? The forcible removal of the American Indians from their lands, onto reservations, continued throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century as settlers continued to move west following the Civil War.

Admission of New States By the early 20 th century (1900s) all the states that make up the continental United States, from Atlantic to Pacific, had been admitted.

News Ad & Job Advertisement Create a news ad encouraging Americans to move to the western frontier AND Create a job advertisement for a cowboy to work on the western frontier