1. The West is Transformed Topic 2.2 Part 1

2. Moving West
Frontier - “the land or territory that forms the furthest extent of a country's settled or inhabited regions
Harsh weather
Vast area
Native Americans

3. Westward Migration Westward Migration “Push” Factors “Pull” Factors
Civil War displaced Thousands
Exodusters -50,000 migrated west
Farmland became costly in the East
Failed enterprises
Religious repression
Sheltered outlaws on the run
“Pull” Factors
Pacific Railway Acts
Morrill Land-Grant Act
Homestead Act
Property rights

4. “Pull”-Pacific Railway Acts
Passed in 1862 and 1864
Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads received land grants
1 mile of track=10 square miles of public land on both sides
Railroads sold portions of their land to arriving settlers for profit

5. “Pull”-Morrill Land-Grant Act-1862
Gave state governments millions of acres of western land
Sell the land to raise money for “land-grant” colleges specializing in agriculture and mechanical arts
Sold land to bankers and land speculators

6. Texas A&M

7. “Pull”-Homestead Act 1862
Settlers could receive 160 acres for a fee of $10
Settlers must meet Special Conditions

8. Special Conditions Had to be 21years old or head of family
American citizen or immigrants filing for citizenship
House at least 12’X14’
Lived on the land for 5 years
Farmed the land five years in a row before claiming ownership
Dig a well and build a road

9. “Push” Urged Settlers West
Civil War displaced thousands
Farmers
Former slaves
Other workers
Eastern farmland was increasingly costly
Failed entrepreneurs-second chance in new location
Ethnic and religious repression
Open space also sheltered outlaws on the run

10. Settlers from far and wide (DEMOGRAPHICS)
German immigrants built tight knit farming communities
Irish, Italians, European Jews, Chinese were drawn to the west
Mexican and Mexican Americans contributed to ranching
African Americans rode or walked westward to flee violence and exploitation

11. Frederick Jackson Turner
Historian that claimed the frontier played a key role in forming the American character
Frontier life created Americans who were socially mobile, ready for adventure, bent on individual self-improvement, and committed to democracy
“American intellect owes its striking characteristics to the frontier”
Turner thesis 1893

12. Causes Effects
Homestead Act of 1862 allowed citizens to claim 160 acres for $10.00 filing fee and a pledge to live on and farm the land for five years.
Between 1862 and 1900 nearly 600,000 families claimed homesteads
Timber Culture Act of 1873 allowed people to claim additional acres of land if they planted trees on one quarter of it within four years.
Farmers were able to increase their farms to a workable size.
The government encouraged completion of the transcontinental railroads by providing land and money.
The building of the transcontinental rail­roads became a race between the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads. The more track each company built, the more land and loans it would get.
The transcontinental railroads helped speed the settling of the West.
They gave hopeful settlers quicker routes to homesteads in the West.
The transcontinental railroads helped tie the East and West together.
Raw materials from mines, ranches, and (arms could be shipped to the East, while finished goods from the Eastern factories could be more easily shipped to settlers in the West.

13. Miners Ranchers Farmers
Topic 2.2 Part 2

14. Farmers

15. Farming
Homestead Act of acres
Life was relentlessly rugged!

16. Housing
Made of sod strips of grass with thick roots and earth attached
Dugout -carved out of the side of an embankment
No trees to make houses No trees to make fences

18. The Family Everyone had to work in order to survive
Men did heavy manual labor
Children collected wood & carried water
Women did chores around the house, managed the money, raised the children, provided food (crops, butter, chickens, milk)

19. Hard Times 2 of 3 farms fail by 1900
Livable homestead cost Beyond the reach of many newcomers
Mid-1880s after a series of droughts
wagons with returning homesteaders crossed over the Missouri river-headed back east!

20. Dry Farming
Techniques used to raise crops in area that receive little rain; water conservation techniques
Crops that don’t require much water
Keeping fields free of weeds
Digging deep furrows so water could reach the roots

21. Bonanza Farms New farm machines and techniques increased farm output
Run like big business
High volume
Drove down prices-supply of crop rose faster than the demand
Squeezed out the small farmers!!!!

22. Miners

23. Finding Gold
At first miners searched for gold in surface soil or streambeds
Shallow pan
Looked for traces of gold in mountain streams

24. New Gold Strikes! Tent communities popped up almost overnight!
Larger strikes led to settled towns and even cities
Merchants, farmers, entrepreneurs came to supply miners needs

26. The Klondike Gold Rush Last great American Gold Rush 1896-1899
Went to Klondike region of Canada through Alaska
Actually in Canada
Last great American Gold Rush

27. “Boomtowns”
Rich strikes created boomtowns saloons, dance-hall girls, Vigilantes
Many became ghost towns just a few years later.
Other towns that served the mines became important commercial centers.
San Francisco, Sacramento, Denver

28. Mining Towns Similar to industrial cities
Workers were also from Europe, Latin America, and China.
½ the population was often foreign born
Greatly increased Western population

29. Ranchers

30. Ranching Before the Civil War – pork Beef became more popular
5 million heads of cattle roam freely
TX cattle business – easy to enter
Vast numbers of cattle roamed wild on Texas grasslands! FREE CATTLE!

31. Buffalo 1840 - 25 million buffalo 1889 - 1,100 buffalo
Widespread cattle ranching becomes possible
Removal of Native Americans
Near-extinction of the buffalo
million buffalo
,100 buffalo

32. Railroads
RR starts in Kansas - Cow towns- built specifically for receiving cattle
RR goes to KC, St. Louis, Chicago
Cattle that sold for $5 a head at the end of the war sold for up to $80 a head!
Refrigerated railcars made it even cheaper to ship

33. Cattle Drives RR didn’t go into TX Cowboys drove cattle to Kansas
1 cowboy per cattle up to 1,500 miles to Kansas

34. Chisholm Trail
One of several trails that linked the good grazing land of Texas’s San Antonio region with cow towns in the north

38. End of Cattle Drives 1880s- overgrazing destroyed grass
blizzard and drought (90% of cattle die)
Invention of barbed wire-Settlers used barbed wire to make fences on their property
More railroads were built - closer to the ranches

39. The Closing of the Frontier
The move westward began in the 1860’s
In 1890, the Department of the Interior declared that the frontier was settled.
Government begins to reserve land.
The West opened and closed in a generation…

40. Minorities Encounter Difficulties
Chinese-San Francisco established segregated schools
Land loss for Mexican Americans
When Americans and Mexican Americans laid claim to the same land the U.S. courts put burden of proof on Mexican Americans
Used political connections to take land away from Mexican Americans