1. Settling The Great Plains

2. Railroads open in the west
From 1850 to 1871 the federal government gave hug land grants to railroad companies
The Central Pacific moved eastward from Sacramento while the Union Pacific moved westward from Omaha to complete the transcontinental railroad.

3. Railroads in the United States 1850-1861

5. The Homestead Act 1862
Offered 160 acres of land free to a any citizens who was head of the household
Several thousand settlers were exodusters-African Americans who moved form the south to Kansas

6. Problems with the Homestead Act
Lands were worth unequal values
State governments and business’s took a lot of the land

7. Isolation meant… self-sufficiency harvesting plowing well digging
making candles
educating
doctoring
making clothing
making soap

8. and … ingenuity
How do you build a house with no wood?

9. Soddies Pluses Minuses easy to build fire proof warm in winter
cool in summer
small
dark
leaked in rain
bug and snake infested

10. Support for farming from technology
barb wire
Deere steel tipped plow
steel windmill
McCormick reaper

11. Farmers in debt Elaborate machinery was often expensive
When wheat prices fell farmers could not pay back the debts
Bonanza Farms were an attempt to help farmers out but they were replaced by small family farms that were more flexible