THE WEST

Chapter 5

New Frontiers, New Resources

(1860 - 1900)

I. The Geography of the Frontier

Frontier - an imaginary line dividing civilization from wilderness

(census bureau definition - 6 people/sq. mi.)

A. How does geography influence settlement?
B. Location of the frontier moved over time
- a. 1607-1789 : Appalachian Mts.
- b. 1789-1849 : Mississippi River
- c. 1849-1865 : Moving east from California
- d. 1865-1890 : Great Plains
  - 500 mi. wide region located between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mts.
  - soil is fertile/level and treeless/little rainfall
  - last area to be settled
  - environment made it almost impossible to settle
  - (sod, buffalo, Indians)
  - called the Great American Desert
C. From 1607 to 1890 the frontier has had a tremendous impact on forging our national character
- and has played a key role in history
D. 1890+ Frontier closed had to look elsewhere (expansion, oceans, space)

II. Reasons for Westward Expansion

A. Economic - land of opportunity
- 1. Horace Greeley - "Go west young man."
- 2. Factory workers looking to strike it big
- 3. Women and Blacks looking for equal economic opportunity
- 4. Land provided main opportunity
  - a. Mining - discover the mother lode and become wealthy
  - b. Ranching - successful cattle drives returned 10x investment
  - c. Farming - large amounts of free/cheap land provided the age old dream of economic independence
B. Social Equality
- 1. No rigid class distinctions - improving standing on "social ladder"
  - a. Appealed to blacks escaping black codes and Jim Crow laws
  - b. Women and the poor sought escape from a developing class system which left them on the bottom
- 2. Old Immigrants sought equality of opportunity here
- 3. Adventure and fame of discovery
- 4. Mormons escaping religious persecution - 40,000 in Utah by 1865
- 5. Manifest Destiny
- 6. Population boom - 2x = overcrowding in the east
C. Political Democracy
- 1. Scalawags and Carpetbaggers looking for fresh opportunity after Reconstruction
- 2. Mugwumps and Googoos looking for a place to introduce good government without political machine interference (terms used in Gilded Age Unit) - escape corruption
- 3. Blacks escaping KKK pressure (Poll Taxes, etc.)
- 4. Women looking for the opportunity to prove self - Wyoming - first to give women vote
Focus on the development of civilization!
The Civil War provided the catalyst to create rapid westward expansion
- 1. disruption, free land, trans = rr, heavy immigration
  - government encouraged people to go west
  - needed food and raw materials
- 2. 1865 - 1890 west rapidly settled
  - ex-soldiers looking for a fresh start

III. The Adventurers

A. Lewis and Clark - 1803 - Louisiana Purchase
B. Mountain Men - Created maps, stories, and interest, but no civilization
- Jedediah Smith / John C. Fremont / Kit Carson

IV. Why was settlement and civilization made possible?

A. Transportation System - Transcontinental RR(people and markets)
B. Technological Developments (farming implements, refrigerator cars, guns, etc.)
C. New Farming Techniques (irrigation, improving crops, dry-farming and windmills)
D. Suppression of the Indian

I. The Conquest of the Indians

A. Background to Hostilities

Differences - Could they have coexisted?
- Concept of land ownership
  - Communal/Tribal ownership vs. Individual Ownership
- Language, Religion, Ways of life, view of nature
- Feelings of Superiority used to justify robbing Indians and forcing them to change
- Indians valued - bravery and generosity
- Culture - Man hunted, women grew food
Indian Removal Act - 1830 - Andrew Jackson (later Dakota territory)
- Trail of Tears to Oklahoma - Indian Territory
- wars, bribes, lies removed the Indians
  - despite Supreme Court decisions allowing them to stay
- By 1831-32 Sup.Ct. characterized Indians as domestic dependent nations
- By 1838 the Indians had been moved west of the Mississippi
- The Great Plains were viewed as one big reservation
Fort Laramie Council - 1851 - 1st agreement between the US govt. and the Plains Indians
- Plains Indians - 225,000 Indians total
  - Sioux, Apache, Cheyenne, Comanche, Nez Perce
  - Lifestyle based on the buffalo - nomadic (no horses before Spanish came)
    - mobility created by the horse had led to increased tribal contact
    - Tribal wars were conducted to steal horses and to prove individual worth
    - They did not fight to exterminate their enemies or to claim territory
- First extensive contact came with Manifest Destiny in the 1840s
  - By the mid 1840s settlers headed to California and Oregon
  - relations were generally friendly and free passage was allowed
  - disruption of the migratory path of the buffalo
    - began to create tensions between Indian tribes and the settlers
    - Discovery of gold sent 20,000 across the Great Plains in 1849 alone
      - disease
      - starvation
      - created desperation
- Concentration Policy - Indians must stay in clearly defined areas apart from white civilization
  - US government would compensate for the destruction of
    - grass
    - timber
    - buffalo
    - with annual payments of goods and services
  - Failed for two reasons
    - dependence on the buffalo meant that the Indians failed to stay inside boundaries
    - discovery of gold - Colorado - 1858
      - sent a second surge of people into the area - taking lands
      - followed by ranchers and farmers
  - had postponed the problem until after the Civil War
    - Indians took both sides in the Civil War
    - Indians and whites were thus fighting each other when the war ended
- Indians blamed government officials for cheating, robbing them, and breaking promises

B. Conflict on the Plains

Indian Wars - 1860 to 1890

Many were fought
Cost $100,000,000 or $1000 per Indian killed in the 1860s alone

White Settlers/Army Advantages	Indian Advantages/Disadvantages
Weapons - Colt revolver	poorly equipped
Transportation - RR	horse was much slower
Communication - telegraph	blocked by multiple languages
Immunity to Diseases
Political Organization	lacked unity
Manpower
Large professional army including the 9th-10th Negro cavalry	biggest Indian advantage guerilla warfare -knowledge of the land
	the more boxed in the harder they fought

Sandy Creek Massacre - 1864
- Cheyenne Indians led by Black Kettle assured safety on reservation
- army heard rumors of Indian violence started by whites who wanted land
  - as a result of gold discoveries on reservation land - Colorado - 1858
- Indian braves were away hunting
  - army led by Col. John M. Chivington surrounded camp and
  - wiped it out despite attempts to surrender
    - 450 Indians killed
    - 105 women and children and 28 old men were killed
- Significance - convinced many tribes to fight rather than negotiate
First Sioux War (1862 - 1867)
- Fetterman massacre - 1866
  - Red Cloud and the Sioux massacred 82 soldiers led by Fetterman
  - soldiers sent to control Indians fighting the building of a road through their reservation
- Significance
  - Led whites to create a peace commission - 1867-68 - to propose a solution
    - Accepted that whites would now occupy most of the West
    - Two options were considered
Reservation Policy - tightened the previous concentration policy
- Francis A. Walker - commissioner for Indian Affairs - 1872
  - buy the "savages" off with promises of food and gifts
  - move them onto smaller reservations in the western half of
    - South Dakota
    - Oklahoma
  - teach them the "civilized" ways of white society
    - agriculture
    - mechanics
  - teaching them would require "rigid reformatory discipline"
    - thus these places would resemble prisons more than schools
  - Indians should "yield or perish"
- Some Indians agreed to move to reservations
- Others refused - for another 6 years these Indians continued to battle army troops
Extermination Policy - General Philip Sheridan
- "All who cling to their old hunting ground are hostile and will remain so till killed off"
- "The more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next war."
- Introduced the new tactic of winter campaigning - 1867
  - The intent was to seek out the Indians during the winter
  - when they divided into small groups
  - this would make it easier to exterminate them
- Role of the Transcontinental RR
  - Union - Pacific RR / Central - Pacific RR completed in 1869
    - RR needed right of way through Indian lands
    - needed to be able to bring large numbers of settlers to the region to ensure profitability
  - Upsetting the traditional migratory paths of buffalo herds - rr
    - Buffalo Bill Cody - hired by the railroads to eliminate the problem
    - Tracks were destroyed by herds
    - Slaying buffaloes for pelts and sport
  - Then as a policy to remove the Indians - by starvation
    - 65 million existed in the early 1800's / 15+ million still existed in 1865
    - By 1891 only 551 remained
Reservation Policy replaced Concentration Policy
- some Sioux refused to move to the reservations

C. The End of the Indian Wars

Battle of Little of Big Horn, Montana - 7/25/76
- caused by miners trespassing into Sioux territory after gold (Black Hills)
  - discovered in 1875
  - on land promised to Red Cloud "forever" in a treaty signed in 1866
- Sitting Bull (Sioux Chief) and Crazy Horse v. (US Army)
- General George Armstrong Custer
  - ignored orders and was trapped (265 vs. 4000 - all killed)
- Significance
  - Last major Indian victory
  - convinced many whites of the need to wipe them out
  - reinforced support for the Extermination Policy
Nez Perce and Chief Joseph - 1877
- Treaty guaranteed land to the peaceful Nez Perce "forever"
- Told they would have to go to Oklahoma
  - Chief Joseph chose to go to Canada instead
- All of tribe covered 1300 miles on foot through the Rockies
- 200 warriors won 3 separate battles against 6 US armies
- tribe surrounded 30 miles from Canadian border sent to Oklahoma
- Most were dead of starvation within 2 years
Geronimo - 1860-1886
- led Apache raids from Mexico into the US (Texas)
- eventually captured
- General Sherman
Wounded Knee Massacre (South Dakota) - 12/29/1890
- Indians began practicing Ghost Dance religion
  - prophet Wovoka predicted that natural disasters would eliminate the white race
  - mixed Indian and Christian beliefs
  - sense of worth and afterlife
  - discouraged hostile action against whites - but scared them anyway
- US Cavalry led by Major Whiteside
  - came to arrest Sitting Bull
  - Sitting Bull was killed and some of the Sioux fled the reservation
  - motive for attack - fear of the religious movement
  - army chased those who left the reservation
  - surrounded the Sioux camp
  - the Indians agreed to surrender, but their was a struggle over weapons
  - and the army attacked using Gatling guns
  - 200 men, women and children were killed, 24 soldiers died - last Indian battle

D. A Way of Life Destroyed

In 1871 Congress ended the practice of treating the tribes as sovereign nations
- attempted to undermine tribal integrity
- undermine the prestige of tribal leaders
By 1880's confined to reservations
- Treatment was very poor
  - more Indians died from white man's diseases
  - and malnutrition than were killed in the wars
- Could no longer resist - no longer free or independent
- Massacre of buffalo herds made starvation the key weapon
- Became wards - dependent on the government
  - food
  - clothing
  - shelter
  - legal protection
- Bureau of Indian Affairs - Indian agents were corrupt and unsympathetic
  - William W. Belknap - Secretary of War under Grant
  - accepted bribes from traders - designed to cheat the Indians

E. The Dawes Act

Improved Indian Treatment
- A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson, 1881
  - revealed the shameful treatment of the Indians led to Dawes Act
  - reservations, wards
  - those who sought to take advantage still controlled the system
- Dawes Allotment Act - 1887 - similar to Homestead Act
  - Americanization - assimilation - to be absorbed into white culture
  - divided reservations into 160-acre farms (47 million acres)
    - distribute the land to private individuals
    - hoped to change Indian concepts of land ownership
    - hold out the lure of private ownership
  - dissolved the tribes
    - Christianize them
    - create reservation schools
  - given American citizenship
    - if you became a farmer and gave up tribal practices for 25 yrs.
  - lands were poor - Indians were unskilled farmers
  - Miners and speculators were allowed to buy all land left over (90 million acres)
    - after reservation breakup - Indians lost 60% of their land
    - Oklahoma Sooners - 1889
      - 50,000 settlers rushed into Oklahoma
      - pistol shot at noon - April 22
- Snyder Indian Citizenship Act - 1924
  - Congress grants full citizenship and voting rights to all Native Americans
- Wheeler-Howard Indian Reorganization Act - 1934
  - Ended land allotments restored surplus and repurchased Indian lands
  - tribes formed corporations
  - provided elected tribal councils
  - reversed trends - a step backward for Americanized Indians
- Indian Termination Policy - 1953 to 1970's
  - legacy - illness
  - alcoholism
  - unemployment
  - dropouts

II. The Cowboys and the Ranchers

A. Start of the Cattle Industry

A. Long Drives - driving 1,000s of cattle from Texas to Kansas to the nearest RR (1,000 mi.)
- cattle populations had ballooned in Texas during the Civil War
  - the Union had cut off the South from Texas
Open range - unowned Great Plains were crossed free of charge
- 1. Joseph McCoy - 1867 - 1st cattle drive linked cattle trails to RR
- 2. Abilene, Kansas = first cow town or railhead
- 3. Cattle worth $5/head in Texas was worth $40/head in Kansas
- 4. Chicago meat packers made even more shipping beef to cities in the north
  - a. Swift
  - b. Armour
- 5. $20/head = break even point due to losses and expenses
B. Cattle Trails
- 1. Shawnee Trail - Sedalia, Missouri - (1866 - 260,000 head on one trip) 1st
- 2. Chisholm Trail - San Antonio to Abilene and Ellsworth
  - (1.46 million from 1867 to 1871) biggest
- 3. Western Trail - Bandera to Ogallala, Neb.
  - trails moved west as the farmers fenced the range - Dodge City
- 4. Goodnight-Loving Trail - San Angelo to Pueblo, Col. /Denver / Cheyenne, Wyoming (ave. herd 2-5,000)
C. Cowboys
- 1. Few were over 20 yrs. old
- 2. All of the following groups were cowboys - 1/3 Spanish and black
- 3. $1/day no where to spend it
- 4. boring job/difficult and dangerous/homosexual aspect
- 5. Describe long drive
- 6. Samuel Colt - Colt 45
- 7. Our image - EZC Judson (Ned Buntline) - Western glorification
  - Wyatt Earp
  - Wild Bill Hickok

B. Ranching as a Big Business

A. Causes of the collapse by the 1880s
- 1. oversupplied market - drove the prices down - $8 a head
- 2. overgrazing of the open range
  - destroyed the environment
  - turned prairie into deserts of sagebrush and weeds
- 3. cattle lost weight along the way
- 4. farmers fenced in the open range - barbed wire - Joseph Glidden
- 5. range wars - farmers v. ranchers
- 6. severe weather - 1885-1887 harsh winters - dry summers - destroyed entire herds
- 7. Railroads stretched into Texas ending the cattle drives
  - ranches were moved further north
- 8. big businessmen took over cattle industry marking the beginning of cattle ranches
  - new breeds of cattle
  - fenced in herds feed grain in the winters

III. Farming the Frontier

A. Who Were the Settlers?

A. Before the Civil War farmers led the settlement of the west
- 1. Exhausted land in east and south still motivated war veterans
- 2. After the war however they lagged behind - The Great American Desert
B. After the Civil War new factors motivated farmers to settle
- 1. Miners / Ranchers moved to the forefront of the settlement of the west after the Civil War
  - farmers came only after the others had settled the area
  - disliked by everyone there ahead of them
- 2. Easterners and Europeans
  - respond to advertising campaigns by steamship companies
  - and transcontinental rr
- 3. RR built to profit from mining and cattle
  - brought farmers
  - and gave them a way to get their product to market
C. Benjamin "Pap" Singleton - Exodus of 1879
- 15,000 Exodusters - migration of poor southern blacks
- Kansas and Nebraska
D. Old Immigrants - from Western Europe
- most from Germany, British Isles, Canada (also Scandinavia, Czech., Poland)
- lured by railroad companies to build RR in exchange for land
  - "This is the sole remaining section of paradise in the western world"
  - "All the wild romances of the gorgeous orient dwindle into nothing when compared to the everyday realities of the Dakota's progress."

B. Encouraging Settlement

Land Grants - the idea of exploiting the resources of the environment
- Southern States had blocked the US government from giving large grants of land
  - they seceded in 1861
  - Acts were passed to help the average citizen start a new life on the frontier
    - Speculators often bought the land and resold it at a profit
- Homestead Act - 1862
  - a. passed to encourage farmers to move west
  - b. granted free federal land to settlers over 21
  - c. 160 acres free
    - must live on it for 5 yrs.
    - and make improvements
    - or live on it for 6 months and pay $1.25/acre
  - d. too little land - needed twice that
    - land was often less desirable than that owned by the RR
    - most settlers bought land instead
      - cost was often $500 for a good quarter section
      - machinery often cost $700
      - farmers often (20%+) forced to lease land due to lack of capital
  - e. By 1900 2/3 had failed - about 400,000 succeeded
    - "In God We Trusted: In Kansas We Busted."
    - Many returned east
- 1873 - Timber Culture Act
  - 160 more acres
  - if trees planted on at least 40 acres
- 1877 - Desert Land Act
  - 640 acres
  - $1.25/acre
  - required to irrigate land within 3 years
- 1878 - Timber and Stone Act - $2.50/acre
  - allowed the sale of 160 acre plots which were unfit for agriculture - valuable chiefly for timber
  - Timber companies hired men to register for the land and then turn it over to the company
  - 3.5 million acres - most went into corporate hands
Military Outposts
- to protect settlers
- and to build roads
Department of Agriculture - 1862
- research into crops that could grow in the dry conditions
  - Russian wheat
- taught new farming techniques
  - Dry Farming
    - Deep plowing techniques
Hatch Act of 1887
- Experiment Stations created
- worked to solve problems facing farmers

C. Life on the Farm

Sod Houses - thickly matted soil
- because there was so little timber
- dirt floors
- mud-plastered walls
- often built into the side of a hill - when possible
- cow chips for fuel
- loneliness was a major problem
  - no society
  - Giants of the Earth - 1927 - O.E. Rolvaag
    - immigrant farmers wife driven to madness and death
  - O Pioneers! - 1913 - Willa Cather
    - showed both the harshness and the appeal of the prairie
  - letters and diaries - many positive images of the frontier

D. New Technology

New Inventions
- Windmills - water
- Barbed Wire - Joseph Glidden - 1874
  - necessary because there was so little timber for fencing
- John Deere - steel plow - 1837
- James Oliver - 1857
  - new type of plow able to break tough sod
  - enabled farmers to take advantage of fertile soil
    - once considered the Great Sodbuster
- 1880 - lister
  - double plow - could be pulled by horses
- Environmental Damage
  - Deep plowing and the cutting of the soil for sod houses caused environmental damage
    - soil erosion
    - eventually dust bowl (1930s)
  - Lowering of the water table
  - Cutting of trees in other regions to build the RR and to meet other needs

E. Large-scale Farming

Thomas Jefferson Vision of a rural agricultural America
- described the farmer as the "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue"
- saw farmers as necessary for the health of the republic
- yeoman farmers - small town rural America
- Currier and Ives prints
  - implied that there need be no conflict between the new technology and this vision
Since the beginning of this nation farmers had been the central figure of this nation, but this changed with the coming of the industrial revolution
- Declining significance of the farmers
  - 1860 - farmers made up 60% of the labor force producing 33% of the wealth
  - 1900 - farmers made up 37% producing 25% of the wealth
- Rural myth - farmer no longer the independent yeoman farmer of TJ's vision
  - specialization - in the Great Plains this meant primarily wheat
  - specialized in cash crops for national and international markets
    - success depended increasingly on bankers and loan companies - capital
    - middlemen to store and sell the produce
    - Railroads to carry them to market
    - became dependent on international market forces
      - Russian and Argentinean wheat
      - Canada opened the high plains to wheat in the 1890s
  - Farmers had to become a modern business
    - which demanded particular skills and attitudes
    - "The work of farming is only half done when the crop is out of the ground."
    - "Watch and study the markets and the ways of marketmen [and] learn the art of'selling well.'"
  - Farming increasingly depended on machinery in the post Civil War era
    - Combine - 1880s
    - McCormick Reaper
    - Diminished the drudgery of farming life
    - Made the production of crops
      - easier
      - more efficient
      - cheaper
    - Allowed the farmer to cultivate far more land than he could by hand
      - 2X+ increase in land under cultivation between 1860 - 1900
  - They became much like other big businessmen
After 1865 farmers moved from subsistence farming to commercial farming
- a. Successful, yet it made them more dependent
- b. The purchasing of new machines meant debt
- c. overproduction meant that prices fell
American Desert - farmers came in a great rush during the 1880s
Bonanza Farms - large farms financed by outside capital
- took advantage of economies of scale - 1000s of acres
  - gardens, trees and outbuildings disappear
  - no churches, or villages
- Corporations owned many of them - they were dependent upon
  - machinery
  - hired workers
  - efficient managers
  - Example - One Bonanza Farm - North Dakota - 1882 - (owned by RR directors)
    - one manager
    - 200 pairs of harrows
    - 125 seeders
    - 155 binders
    - 26 steam threshers for harvesting
    - 600 men hired at peak times
    - produced 600,000 bushels of wheat
- small farmers became angry over this increasing trend - they couldn't compete
1885-1887 weather and overproduction led to problems and complaints
- Prices began to fall steadily throughout the period
  - prices for other goods were falling as well
  - falling prices had their greatest impact on farmers in newly settled areas who had borrowed heavily to finance their new operations
- RR
- Banks
- Organization by farmers was the key to fighting these problems
4/22/89 - Oklahoma Sooners
- a. last free land
- b. named because they jumped the gun

F. Farming Beyond the Plains

California farms reflected the advent of large-scale farming
- platations and estates
- depended on
  - the RR
  - irrigation
  - machinery
California farming led to water wars
1887 - California created irrigation districts

IV. Mining and Lumbering

A. Prospectors and Boom Towns

A. 1849 California gold rush populates the west
- 1. Sutter's Mill/Fort - 49ers
- 2. 440,000 by 1865
- 3. Led to proposals for transcontinental RRs to develop and use gold
- 4. When California gold slowed down miners went east into the Rockies
- 5. Great Plains had been bypassed
B. How to get there?
- 1. (wagon train, Donner party)
- 2. Western settlers wanted services
  - a. transportation - Butterfield Stage, RR
  - b. mail - Pony Express
    - 50-75 miles in a "run" - sleep in saddle
    - Telegraph (1861)
  - c. protection - law and order / criminals and Indians
C. Stages of Settlement
- 1. individual prospectors - placer mining
  - mining the deposits of a stream bed
  - using shovel and washpan
  - few found gold - most moved on - looking for the next mother lode
  - little or no permanent civilization - Ghost Towns
- 2. camp followers
- 3. hustlers and desperados
- 4. vigilantes - created their own law and order
  - Vigilante Law - mob rule - no court systems to protect from theft
  - Speculative get rich attitude dominated every aspect of life
D. 1859 Comstock Lode - Henry Comstock
- 1. Largest silver ore and gold find in U.S. mining history
- 2. $306 million (25x to get today's value) between 1860-1880
  - He received only $10,000 and died penniless
- 3. Led to the development of Virginia City, Nevada (Bonanza)
  - Mark Twain - Rough It - 1872
  - RR key ingredient to development
  - Without RR ore had to be packed on mules - lowered profit and increased risk
  - Inflation - Eggs $2
- Mining the miners led to towns and spread civilization - came with RR
  - Levi Strauss - blue jeans - 1874
  - J.C. Penney
- Supplies shipped in from California
E. Other discoveries
- 1. Pike's Peak (Denver), Colorado - 59ers
- 2. Tombstone, Arizona - 1870
- 3. Deadwood Gulch, S. Dakota - Black Hills - 1874
  - a. Rapid growth was a characteristic of all mining centers
  - b. Areas not near RRs became ghost towns once the ore ran out
- 4. Carson City, Leadville
- 5. Mining in the continental US declined abruptly after 1880
- 6. Alaska gold rush - Juneau - 1880
F. Miners trespassing on Sioux lands in the Black Hills led to the outbreak of wars in the 1870's

B. The Business of Mining

Mining Companies using hydraulic water power (Clint Eastwood) at first then
- Quartz Mining
  - dynamite (Alfred Noble)
  - heavy machinery - to crush ore
mining corporations - more civilization which could still disappear
- Hired 100s of unskilled workers
  - hired
    - new immigrants from the East
      - many gave up on the hard life of the placer miner
    - Mexicans
    - Chinese
  - work was hard and the pay was poor, but steady
- They earned most of the riches from strikes like the Comstock Lode
Former prospectors turned ranchers and farmers created permanent economy and civilization
Transcontinental Railroads - created to get gold and other resources out of the wilderness and back to civilization
- 1. 1st trans rr - Union Pacific - Central Pacific
  - a. Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, California
  - b. Promontory Point, Utah 5/10/1869
  - c. Two competing rr
  - d. Golden Spike now in Stanford Museum
  - e. East to West in one week
- 2. 2nd trans rr - 1883 - St. Paul, Minnesota to Portland, Oregon
- 3. 3rd trans rr - 1883 - Chicago, Illinois to LA
- 4. 4th trans rr - 1893 - St. Paul to Everett, Washington
- 5. Uses
  - a. gold and mineral transportation
  - b. war
  - c . cattle
- 6. Lines were built to large mining strikes where companies were located
  - the intersection of these things helped to create permanent civilization
- 5. RR terms
  - a. Gandy Dancers - rr construction crews
  - b. George Pullman - sleeping cars
  - c. Refrigerator Cars
- 7. Led to the elimination of the buffalo - need to remove Indians
- 8. Sold more land to homesteaders than had been settled under the Homestead Act

C. Other Riches From the Earth

Anaconda Copper - 1881
- Montana
  - one of the nations largest mining companies
  - copper wiring for electrical use
Lead
- Idaho, Utah
  - used for
    - electrical cables
    - paint
    - pipes
Borax
- Death Valley, California
  - used for ceramics and glass

D. The Lumber Industry

Decimation of the nation's forest
- tied to large-scale mining (shaft timber)
- and the RR (RR ties)
Weyerhaeuser Company
- developed along lines similar to mining and ranching
- individual loggers
- rough logging towns
- increased technology
- lumber companies
Environment impacted
- cutting down timber affected the flow of streams
- created soil erosion
- destroyed the habitat supporting birds and animals

E. Alaska: The Last Frontier

Secretary of State - William Seward
- purchased it from Russia in 1867
- paid less than 2 cents per acre
- Seward's Folly
In 1880 gold was discovered - Juneau gold rush
- 1896 Klondike and Yukon gold rushes
- 1899 Nome Gold Rush
- 1902 Fairbanks Gold Rush

V. The Impact of the Frontier

A.The West and the American Character

A. 1890 - Congress officially closed the frontier
B. Frederick Jackson Turner - Turner Thesis - 1893
- Influences of the Frontier according to Turner - Historian - University of Wisconsin
- 1. Social Equality - a man is judged by his deeds not his politics religion or nationality
- 2. Growth of Political Democracy
  - a. Believed in political equality - hated special privilege considered the government their servant
  - b. The west originated such reforms as:
    - 1. universal manhood suffrage
    - 2. women's suffrage
    - 3. direct election of senators
    - 4. initiative
    - 5. referendum
    - 6. recall
- 3. Nationalism - depended on federal government for
  - a. cheap land
  - b. acquisition of new territories
  - c. protection from the Indians
- 4. Faith in the future
  - a. vast size
  - b. large amount of resources
  - c. civilization would come making life better - optimism
- 5. Economic Independence - reduce US dependence on Europe
  - a. raw materials and food
  - b. market for goods from civilization
  - c. site to invest capital
  - d. encouraged isolationist foreign policy
- 6. Safety Valve for factory workers
  - a. wages and working conditions had to be improved
    - or workers would leave for better life in west
    - poorest could never afford the trip
- 7. Invention
  - a. Westward movement of workers required
    - labor saving devices to meet labor needs
  - b. Harsh environment in the west required new inventions also
- 8. Wastefulness
  - land in abundance often abused by all settlers
- 9. West Americanized immigrants
C. Effects of closing the frontier
- 1. New era of American history beginning in which the US would have to respond to
  - the problems and pressures created by the Industrial Revolution
- 2. Labor Unions formed when safety valve disappeared
- 3. Stricter Immigrant Laws were passed when
  - we began to feel their competition
  - felt that we no longer needed them
- 4. Conservation movement began
  - when we started to realized that the land was not unlimited
- 5. Imperialism
  - a. Capitalists needed new markets/resources
  - b. Adventurers wanted new challenges
  - c. Caribbean, South America, Asia, Far East

B. Visions of the West

Dime Novels - cheap and plentiful books from popular fiction writers
- Image of the west as exciting
Wild West Shows -1873 - 1900
- William F. Cody - Buffalo Bill
- Real Cowboys and Indians
The Virginian - Owen Wister - 1902
- created the novel style known as the Western
- Zane Grey
- Louis L'Amour
paintings
- Thomas Curtis
- Frederick Remington - romantic visions of cowboys and the west
TV, movies

C. Conserving the Land

Yellowstone - 1872 - world's first national park
- Frontier closed in 1890
- Lumber Companies had cut 80% of the nation's original forests
- Conservation - the preservation and wise use of the nation's resources
  - John Muir - Conservationist
  - 1890 - helped to create Yosemite National Park
  - 1891 - Forest Reserve Act - he helped to get it passed
  - 1892 - founded the Sierra Club
    - to keep the conservation movement going
    - consistent with the Indian's view of nature
    - preserve the beauty of nature for future generations
  - These ideas were actually more popular in the East than in the West where exploitation was the driving force
1916 - National Park Service created to protect parks

THE WEST

#1 - 1991

Although the economic development of the Trans-Mississippi West is popularly associated with hardy individualism, it was in fact largely dependent on the federal government. Assess the validity of this statement.

#2 - 1992

DBQ: To what extent did the natural environment shape the development of the West beyond the Mississippi and the lives of those who lived and settled there? How important were other factors? Use BOTH evidence from the documents AND your knowledge of the period from the 1840's through the 1890's to compose your answer.

#3 - 1987

"Popular fascination with the cowboy, the pioneer, and the stories of Horatio Alger in the period 1870 to 1915 reflected Americans' uneasiness over the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society." Assess the validity of this statement.

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