1. Homestead Act
-passed in 1862
-to encourage settlement of the Plains area
-gave 160 acres of land to settlers if they improved the land and lived on it.
-land speculators
-Oklahoma giveaway, 1889
-people continued to come for the cheap lands and opportunity

2. Homestead Act
-passed in 1862
-to encourage settlement of the Plains area
-gave 160 acres of land to settlers if they improved the land and lived on it.
-land speculators
-Oklahoma giveaway, 1889
-people continued to come for the cheap lands and opportunity

3. Homestead Act
-passed in 1862
-to encourage settlement of the Plains area
-gave 160 acres of land to settlers if they improved the land and lived on it.
-land speculators
-Oklahoma giveaway, 1889
-people continued to come for the cheap lands and opportunity

4. New Technology
-deeper wells
-steel plows
-better farm equipment
reaper, harvesters
-Morrill Land Grants
-railroad expansion
transcontinental railroad, 1869

5. Life on the Farm
-sod houses
-weather extremes
-drought
-isolation

6. Life on the Farm
-sod houses
-weather extremes
-drought
-isolation

7. Life on the Farm
-sod houses
-weather extremes
-drought
-isolation

8. -Frederick Jackson Turner “Frontier Thesis”
Decline of Farming
-rise of industry
-urbanization
-end of the frontier
-Frederick Jackson Turner
“Frontier Thesis”
-great debts
-Railroad charges