Unit 3: Birth of Modern America

Chapter 8

Settling the West

After the Civil War ended in 1865, a restless generation of Americanstook the advice of New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley:

“GO WEST YOUNG MAN, AND GROW UP WITH THE

COUNTRY.”

And so began the taming and settling of

The West

Frontier • a region that forms the margin of settled

or developed territory

• The frontier was more than a place on a map. It was an experience that shaped many American institutions and ideas

• The frontier experience promoted democracy

• The frontier experience also encouraged the development of certain "American" characteristics – self confident, optimistic, innovative, self-reliant

Frontier film 26 mins

The Great Plains

100ºW

I. Introduction to the West

A. Geography of the Frontier

1. Location of the Great Plains

a. 100ºW to Rocky Mts

b. Canada to TX

2. Largely unsettled before 1860s due to Myth: Great Plains = The “Great American Desert”

a. From 100ºW to Rockies, annual rainfall

b. Thus, a belief that the West was an uninhabited wasteland

3. Reality = West has many riches to offer

a. Fertile plains for farming & ranching

b. Valuable minerals in the mts

c. Not uninhabited! Home to Plains Indians (& Mormons who settled earlier – other grps

had passed through region on way to CA or OR)

4. Geographical Characteristics of the Great Plains

a. Dry, level, treeless area

b. Poor soil/drainage

c. Intense cold in winters; intense winds

d. 1/5th area of USA

5. So why did settlers eventually come to the Great Plains? (5 factors)

a. Natural Resources!

- minerals fueled/funded industrial revolution in East

b. Transcontinental RR (1869)

- carried settlers west

- supplied them w/ products from east

- transported western products to eastern factories

-marked end of West’s isolation from the rest of the country

- sealed the fate of the Indians

c. Land Policies of Fed. Gov’t

- Homestead Act of 1860 ***

- Timber Act

- Desert Act Free

Land..C

ome and

Get it!

d. Technological Advances – inventions that tamed the Great Plains

Historian Walter Webb’s description of the Great Plains: “East of the Mississippi,

civilization stood on 3 legs: land, water and trees. West of the Mississippi, civilization

stood on one leg: land”

1) Barbed Wire – allowed farmers to build fences despite lack of wood

2) Colt Revolver – gave settlers an advantage in fighting Indians (who

could shoot many arrows by the time it took to reload a rifle)

3) Windmill – crucial to pumping water from deep wells

e. Gov’t readiness to police and subdue Indians

Shoshone Indians at Ft. Washakie, Wyoming Indian reservation

6. Role of Civil War in Western Settlement

a. Union (North) encouraged W. settlement

- needed food for soldiers

- needed raw materials for factories

b. War over – soldiers head W

- fresh start

- avoided rebuilding E

II. Groups that tamed the West

A. The Miners – brought in 1st wave of settlers

1. 1848 – Gold Strike at Sutter’s Mill – begins series of gold/silver rushes

a. Miners poured into West

b. Workers also came for rich timber supply

c. Western resources fueled the Industrial Revolution in E

- g & s from mines provide capital ($$) to build industries

2. Pattern of Mining Settlement

a. Prospectors/discovery: news spreads

b. Influx of miners – but few ever strike it rich

c. Camp followers – supplied miners (JCPenney, Sears, Levis Jeans)

d. Wild Period

e. Organization/

Civilization

- sort of

f. Statehood!

- Dakota Territory ÷ ND, SD, MT

3. Boom town to Ghost towna. Mineral Strike – prospectors come

running!

b. Early prospectors mined by hand: Placer Mining – “poor man’s”

- needed very little experience or $$ or equipment (picks, shovels

pans)

- mine deposits in stream bed1889 photo - prospectors in the Dakota Territory

C. When surface supplies dwindle – Corporation moved in: Quartz Mining

- rock blasted from inside – crushed to separate gold/silver

Quartz Mining Works at Gold Hill, CA

d. As gold/silver depleted, some towns became ghost towns (others

diversified and became cities – Denver et al.)

Ghost Town today City Today

St. Elmo, CO

Goldfield, NV

And

ma

nymor

e!!

Denver, CO

Helena, MTCurrent population:27,196

Current population:4,166,855

Boom to bust

4. Big Strikesa. Sutters Mill, CA 1848 - gold

b. Pike’s Peak, CO (Denver area) 1858 – gold

c. Comstock Lode, NV 1859 – silver

d. Black Hills, SD

5. Life during Boomsa. Crime a problem

- prospectors fought over claims

- thieves in streets & bars

b. Territory grew fast – no time to create law & order – so made up their own

- vigilance committees – volunteers who tracked down and punished

wrongdoers

c. Mostly men at first – women followed –life diff than E

- could own property, biz

- cooks, laundry, “saloon girls”

West led the way in women’s voting rights

6. Mining as Business – by 1890s, mining had become big biza. Few individual miners prospered

b. Gold/silver hard to get to – embedded in quartz rock beneath surface

c. Most sold out to large mining companies

- hired unskilled laborers (Mexican, Chinese)

- $13B in gold/silver taken

- also copper, tin, lead, quartz, zinc etc.

7. Impact of the Minersa. Fueled Industrial Revolution in US

b. Led to debates over currency

c. Led to rapid development of Plains

d. Contributed to RR growth thru Rocky Mts

e. Led to growth of amenities

- Pony Express

- Wells Fargo

- Great Stories

g. Led to addition of new states: ND, SD, MT

The Pony Express

What was the importance of the Pony Express?The Pony Express was important because they got mail to the east coast west coast In a shorter amount of time. This was important because sometimes mail would not reach it's destination for months. This had a big impact on politics and communications. Even though the Pony express lasted only a year it changed the way people were informed about the latest events.

Gold is valuable largely because it is scarce. Reputedly, all of the pure gold ever mined would only fill about two Olympic-size swimming pools. Gold is a soft metal with properties that make it beautiful, durable, resistant to most chemicals and useful in certain industrial and electronic applications. Gold mining is developed countries is very restricted as the mining process is environmentally destructive

Top Gold Consumers1.India2.China3.USA

Top use for goldJewelry

Gold Mining Today

B. The Ranchers

1. Start of the Cattle Industrya. Role of Civil War – Americans developed taste for beef

- where’s the beef? TEXAS

b. Role of Mexico (area that is now TEXAS)

- Vaqueros – Mexicans who rounded up wild steers

- after Mexico driven from TX, millions of cattle left just roaming, unowned

- if these cattle could be gotten to Eastern markets, someone could make a fortune!!!!

2. The Open Rangea. US gov’t owned vast area of grassland

b. Ranchers could graze their cattle free of charge & unrestricted by boundaries of pvt farms

3. Price of Beef soars after Civil Wara. Made it worthwhile to round up the

Longhorns in Texas – a breed adapted to Great Plains environment

b. Challenge to find a way to move cattle to E markets

4. RRsa. By 1860s, RRs had reached Great Plains

5. The Long Drive – the movement of cattle north from TX

a. TX ranchers would drive their herds to railheads (shipping stations) where they were sold for high profit – shipped E to market

b. Joseph McCoy organized 1st “long drive” in 1867- established railhead in Abilene, KS

- took herd along Chisholm Trail (~1,500mi. northward)

c. Many others followed

d. Btwn 1866 – 1890, 6m cows taken from TX

e. Cattle drives lasted until RR extended into TX

T h e T e x a s L o n g h o r n

Longhorn cattle, a hardy hybrid of Spanish criollo stock and English cattle," thrived on the Texas plains and prairies

The Long Drive

6. Life as a Cowboya. ¼ of all cowboys were Mexican or black

- lots of diversity

b. Boring job, dangerous, hot or cold, dusty

c. Fun at the Railtown, though. Cowboys had $$

- drank and gambled

- famed law enforcement to check rowdy behavior – Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill

Hickock

7. Cattle Drives ended. Why?a. Economics:

- skinny cows – (you’d lose weight too if you walked

1,500 miles!) – cattle lost weight & value on long drive

- KS: NO TX cows – disease!- overproduction drove down prices

b. Expansion of RR - RRs moved S- ranchers moved N

c. Range Wars: cowherders vs. sheepherders- competition for grazing land

d. Mother Nature – drought, floods, blizzards in the 1880s

Vs.

e. Fencing in the Open Range: Barbed Wire

- patented by Joseph Glidden

- treeless fencing!

- prevented livestock from roaming

- shut out the competition

- kept animals closer to source of food & water

Aka: Devils Rope

more on barbed wire

8. Ranching becomes Big Biz- fell into the hands of a few

a. Bought new machines

b. Reduced size of herds

c. Fenced cattle in

d. Grew hay for winter feed

C. The Farmers – the group who really tamed the West1. Who were the settlers?

a. Former Civil War Soldiers, land speculators, children of eastern farmers, biz people etc.

b. Exodusters – black southerners who migrated to GP states in 1870s to

claim land for farming

c. Immigrants – lured to US by RRs – came for promise of cheap land/instant success

2. How did gov’t encourage settlement of the West?a. Kansas/Nebraska Act (1854) – opened

land to settlement – broke promises with Indians

b. Homestead Act of 1862 – gave 160 acres

- cultivate it for 5 yrs, pay filing fee – it’s yours!!

- provided a legal method for settlers to acquire clear title to property in the WestLots

came!!

c. Additional Gov’t acts – (160 acres not enough in semi-arid West)

- Timber Culture Act (1873); Desert Land Act (1877); Timber & Stone Act (1878)

d. Transcontinental RR ( 1st one 1869)

– gov’t gave land grants to RRs

- One goal was to encourage the RRs to construct their tracks where few people lived, and to help settle the country

- Another goal was to link E-W: hoped to open up trade w/ Asia

Promontory Point, Utah

– RRs recruited settlers (even overseas!)

- for construction of RRs

- for potential markets

- RRs anxious to sell the land beside the tracks as quickly & profitably as possible - wanted paying

customers who would ship goods to markets and buy things from the urban retailers.

- From the settler's perspective, the closer a farmer was to the RR, the easier it was to ship crops and livestock

e. Morrill Act (1882)

- gave states tracts of land to set up & maintain land grant colleges to provide knowledge and information - particularly to help farmers farm.

- 4-H programs

- ROTC programs

Morrill Hall: University of Idaho

3. Life on the Farming Frontiera. Environmental problems

- lack of water forced them to drill wells up to 300 ft deep

- danger of grass fires in hot, dry summer; danger of blizzards, extreme cold in winter

- grasshoppers destroyed crops

b. Other problems

- lack of trees forced them to build homes out of sod “soddies”

- lack of trees for fencing (barbed wire?)

“soddies”

4. Solutions to problems on the farma. Morrill Act

b. Dept of Ag. Hatch Act 1877

- goal to develop crops suitable for region

- set up experimental stations – worked to solve problems facing farmers

- Taught new farming techniques- dry farming: method of farming in dry region w/o

irrigation

c. Technology- windmills

- sodbuster plow/ mechanical reaper

- drought resistant crops

- barbed wire

Better Farming Special Train: a traveling agricultural demonstration, on behalf of the Agricultural Extension Service, College of Agriculture, Ohio State University, 1909.

d. New Laws- state gov’ts pass laws concerning irrigation, pollution of

waterways etc.

5. Wheat becomes most important crop in GPa. More drought resistant

b. New farming technology

- result? Great Plains becomes new “breadbasket”

6. Farming as Big Biza. Like cattle & mining biz, farming becomes dominated by

big biz: bonanza farms

b. New machinery for harvesting increased acreage manageable

- John Deer

- McCormick Reaper

- but equipment is expensive so harder for small farmer to purchase

c. Bonanza farms owned by lg corps – could lower costs through economies of scale

- RRs gave them bulk shipping rates

- suppliers gave them seed/equipment at discounted prices

Small farms to Bonanza Farms

7. Farmers fall on hard timesa. Overproduction = price

b. Worldwide competition

c. Prolonged drought

d. Bought farms & expensive machinery on credit

- banks foreclosed

- some farmers lose farms – forced to become tenant farmers working for someone else

farm foreclosure sale in Iowa

III. Closing the FrontierA. 1890 Census

1. Census Bureau reports settlement was so rapid, that frontier now closed (actually, lots of land still unoccupied)

2. Many saw it as an end of an era

B. Turner Thesis

1. Fredrick Jackson Turner saw absence of a frontier as a threat to America’s unique character

2. Believed the opportunities & challenges of frontier life defined American lifestyle

“Up to our own day, American history has been in a large degree the history of the organi-zation of the West. The advance of American settlement westward explains American development.”

Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893) by Frederick Jackson Turner

C. The West Lives On….

1. Dime Novels – cheap fictional books

- tales of Cowboys & Indians

2. Buffalo Bill Cody & his Wild West Show

- featured real cowboys, Indians (Including Sitting Bull), Buffalo

Annie Oakley

3. New Literary Genre – The Western

- The Virginian, by Owen Wister – love story btwn cowboy & school teacher

4. Western Art