Gold Rush
1800s “49ers” Conflict between
Americans and immigrants
Ghost towns Hoping to “get rich
quick”
Mining
Silver mines Turned into an industry Miners tended to be fairly rough men Women ran businesses
Led to early suffrage in western states Environmental impact Encroached on natives’ land Anti-Chinese = Chinese Exclusion Act
(1882)
Mining Towns
Boomtowns- popped up overnight
Well-known Mining Centers Pike’s Peak, Colorado Sacramento San Francisco Denver Virginia City (Comstock Lode)
Cattle Frontier
Grasslands of Texas Longhorn cattle Cowboys Cattle drives- drive the cattle to the
RR for shipment to the East Land known as the “open range” Numerous cattle trails
Cattle Trails
Well-known trails included: The Goodnight-Loving Trail, the Chisholm Trail and the Sedalia Trail. All cattle trails led to a train station. Cattle were loaded onto railcars and taken to stockyards in Chicago where they were sold by head. Ranchers became rich.
The Cowboy
Click icon to add pictureRuggedSelf-reliantIndependentRoughLonelyHeroic
Popular dime novels about cowboys were written. Most of them depicted battles between “Cowboys and Indians.”
Barbed wire
Invention of barbed wire put an end to the open range- farmers protecting farms from cattle
Destroyed the cattle drives and the cattle kingdom
Cowboy lifestyle ended
Hurt Native Americans further
The Great American DesertIn 1820 Major Stephen Long explored the region now known as the Great Plains. He termed it the “Great American Desert.” The climate inspired him to say the land was “almost wholly unfit for cultivation and of course uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence.”
Homestead Act (1862)
BENEFITS
Encouraged westward expansion
Inexpensive land
PROBLEMS
Land speculation Corruption Families unprepared
for life in the West Climate extremes Land Isolation “dry farming”
Homestead Activity
Complete the reading and questions about the passage of the Homestead Act
Look at the primary source documents regarding a homestead in the Nebraska Territory
Frontier Thesis
Frederick Jackson Turner 1893 “The Significance of the Frontier in
American History” The frontier promoted a spirit of
independence and individualism among Americans
Helped breakdown class distinctions and place everyone on a level playing field