Looking to the WestChapter 141860-1900

Focus Questions

• Now: Why do people migrate or move?• What conditions lured people to migrate to

the West?• Where did the western settlers come from?• How did the American frontier shift

westward?

Key Terms

• Push-pull factors• Pacific Railway Acts• Morrill Land-Grant Act• Land speculator• Homestead Act• Exoduster

160 football fields next to one another is approximately 160 acres of land!

Settlers

• European immigrants– German settlers established farms in the Great Plains.

• New religions– Scandinavian Lutherans settled the northern plains

from Iowa to Minnesota• Concentrated communities (Irish, Italians,

European Jews, Chinese)• Dairy farming, mining, railroad construction• Ranching, farm labor

Northwest RegionSouthwest Region

Great Plains RegionMidwest Region

Northeast RegionSoutheast Region

The Shifting Frontier

• Various regions were settled at different times.

• Settlements dotted the prairie every 10 miles or so.

• Native Americans

Write Now!

• You were an unemployed eastern factory worker with a family who moved to Kansas. Write a letter to a friend back East, describing this new place and why you made this risky move.

TRUE OR FALSE??

• American expansion into the West led to the near destruction of Native American societies?