The Great West: Who went, why did they go and what did they experience?
Why Go West? Push Factors: things that make (usually bad) settlers want to leave their homes Political instability Economic hard times Racial discrimination for AA Pull Factors: things (usually good) attracting settlers Get rich fast Gold Silver (Comstocke Lode) Private property Gov’t was practically giving the land away (Homestead Act and Oklahoma Land Rush) Independence and spirit of individualism
Homestead Act Another pull factor Government offered farm plots of 160 acres to anyone willing to live on the land for five years, dig a well, and build a road Many were former slaves
Life in the West Morrill Land Grant: Plagued by windstorms, blizzards, droughts, locusts and loneliness Tough life but were inventive Create sod homes Build wind mills to harness wind for electricity Used the steel plow to help cultivate land Morrill Land Grant: Passed by Congress to give lands to states so they could establish higher education agricultural schools A&T University NC State
“Exodusters” African Americans who fled the South after Reconstruction and headed West to Oklahoma and Kansas looking for more opportunities Get their name from the Book of Exodus when Moses led his people to the Promised Land which was Oklahoma for the Exodusters
Exodusters in Nicodemus, Kansas
Problems in the West To keep order, vigilantes (self-appointed law enforcers) settled disputes but still lots of crime Cities only “boomed” when the resources were plentiful…when they were gone (the bust) so were the people and the town became a Ghost Town
Ghost Towns?
Transcontinental Railroad A railroad between the East and West to transport goods Built by private companies, not the government but still gave their support by giving loans for the land to companies Central Pacific laid tracks east of Sacramento, CA Use Chinese immigrants for labor Union Pacific laid tracks west from Nebraska Use Irish immigrants for labor Two tracks met at Promontory Point, Utah
Union Pacific Central Pacific Chinese Immigrants Irish Immigrants
Promontory Point, Utah
More Pull Factors Comstock Lode: Oklahoma Land Rush: first major discovery of silver in U.S. discovered under what is now Virginia City, Nevada Helped spur advances in the technology of mining Oklahoma Land Rush: Gov’t going to sell plots of land in Oklahoma 50,000 line up but only 42,000 plots Biggest rush to the West in one single day (April 22, 1889) Major pull factor
Cattle Kingdom The Texas longhorn roamed freely on open range (not fenced in) Were branded for identification Ranchers hired cowboys to round up their cattle, took them on cattle drives to the railroads for eastern markets Invention of refrigerated railcars by Gustavus Swift…meat can be shipped not the entire cow…much cheaper…decreases need for cattle drives and cowboys The age of open range ends because of barbed wire
Cattle Drive
Closing the Frontier? In 1890 Census, government said that the frontier (place of uninhabited wilderness in the West) was closed No more empty land in America? Frederick Jackson Turner writes his Frontier Thesis encouraging “rugged individualism” Meaning that people can support themselves out West