Reasons for Westward Expansion6th Grade Social Studies

Mrs. Brown

USII.4a

Reason #1

Opportunities for Land Ownership

Homesteaders Circa 1880 – 1900’s

1. Opportunities for Land Ownership

• The Homestead Act– January 1, 1862– Anyone could file for

160 acres of free land

– The land was yours in 5 years if you:

• Built a house on it• Dug a well• Broken (plowed) 10

acres of land• Fenced in a specific

amount of land• Actually lived there!

What inventions and adaptations helped the homesteaders fulfill the requirements set forth

by the Homestead Act?

• Building a house

• Digging a well

• Farming 10 acres

• Fencing in land

Soddies…Sod Houses

Windmills

Steel Plow

Barbed Wire

Reason #2

Technological Advances – Transcontinental

Railroad

Click

Here for

Video

Transcontinental Railroad

• Pacific Railway Act– Transcontinental

Railroad– Passed by Congress

in 1862– Authorized 2

companies to construct the railroad

• Union Pacific• Central Pacific

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=32#

• Union Pacific– >8,000 German,

Irish, & Italian immigrants employed to built railroad

– Built West from the Missouri River in Omaha, Nebraska

– Constructed a total of 1,087 miles of railway

http://www.apa.si.edu/ongoldmountain/gallery2/X46214_6.jpg

Transcontinental Railroads

• Central Pacific– Built East from

Sacramento, California

– Employed over 10,000 Chinese immigrants as laborers

– Constructed approx. 690 miles of railway

– Cross California’s Sierra Nevada Mountain Range

• Blasted 15 tunnelshttp://www.nps.gov/archive/gosp/research/workmen.htm

Transcontinental Railroads

• “The last rail is laid. The last spike is driven. The Pacific Railroad is completed.”

• May 10, 1869 in Promontory, Utah

• Travel Time = less than 1 week, coast to coast

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/transcontinental-railroad-2.jpg

Transcontinental RailroadsThey met in the middle…

Reason #3

Possibility of Wealth from Gold and Silver Mines

The California Gold Rush…mines dried up!

• By mid-1950’s• California miners who

still hoped to strike it rich headed east to the Colorado Rockies in search of gold and silver.

• Prospectors from the east continued to head west, through the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains in search of their fortune.

http://www.ghostcowboy.com/files/images/goldmine_gc.preview.jpg

Pike’s Peak or Bust!

• Pike’s Peak, 1858– Colorado Rocky Mountains– By the spring of 1959, fifty

thousand prospectors had fled to Pike’s Peak

– Skimmed gold particles & gold dust from the streams

– They scratched particles of gold from the surface of the ground

– Newspapers reported that prospectors were making $20 a day…that was quite a lot back then! http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/f/f5/270px-Pikes_Peak_miners.jpg

The Comstock Load, 1859

• Virginia City, Nevada: Silver Mining– The largest Discovery

of Silver Ore• $8,000,000 silver

per month• Hundreds of

millions of dollars worth of silver & gold ore

• Helped establish Nevada as a U.S. State

http://members.aol.com/gsahoard/carsoncitymint.jpg

Carson City Mint, Carson City, Nevada*Built in Response to the Comstock Lode

The Comstock Load: Mines

Mining Business: Boomtowns

• Boomtowns – “Towns that grew up almost overnight around mining sites.” (Appleby, p.529)

• Mining camps would evolve into thriving towns within a year, but as soon as the mines dried up, some towns turned into “ghost towns”

• Virginia City, Nevada at it’s peak in 1861 had banks, hotels, newspapers, an opera company, and a stock exchange

• In the 1870’s, Virginia City had 30,000 residents; by 1900, only 4,000 remained

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-nevada/VirginiaCityNV1866-5-500.jpg

Virginia City, Nevada, 1886

Virginia City, Nevada

Then: 1860’s Now: 2008

http://renoscasinos.com/virginia/street2.jpghttp://www.collectsource.com/Image17.gif

The Homestake Mine South Dakota, 1889

The Homestake Mine was one of the top producers of gold ore in the United States. It was owned by George Hearst, a successful miner in the Great Plains who held shares of the Compton Lode in Virginia City, Nevada. Known to be “almost illiterate” he became a millionaire industrialist, politician and publisher. When he died, he was a United States Senator. He is the father of Media Mogul, William Randolph Hearst, who founded the Hearst Publishing Empire.

Hearst’s Mines: Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Mexico, and California

Homestake Mine, Cut Open Today, July 2006-Photo by Kathy Weiser

Homestake Mine, Cut Open in 1888-Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

Source: www.legendsofamerica.com

Expansion of the Mining Industry & Boomtowns

• In the late 1800’s, the mining industry in the Great Plains expanded to include:– Lead & Zinc

• Colorado– Copper

• Montana, New Mexico, Arizona

• Provided the Raw Materials needed for the industrial revolution taking place on the east coast

http://middle.usm.k12.wi.us/faculty/taft/Unit5/westwebquest/boomtowns/west153utah.jpg

• Factors that helped establish permanent settlement– Increased Mining

Industry – Railroads– Settlers creating

permanent homes, businesses, schools and churches

Expansion of the Mining Industry & Boomtowns

http://middle.usm.k12.wi.us/faculty/taft/Unit5/westwebquest/boomtowns/houses.jpg

How did Boomtowns contribute to the growth of the United States?

New TownsIncrease in

Settled Territory

Increase of Industry,

Population & Wealth

New States admitted to the United States of

America

New States Admitted to the Union:

• Colorado, 1876• North Dakota, 1889• South Dakota, 1889• Washington, 1889

• Montana, 1889• Wyoming, 1890

• Idaho, 1890

Reason #4

Desire for Adventure!

I’m Bored…Heading West!

Reason #5

A New Beginning for Former Slaves

Father of the Exodus:Benjamin “Pap” Singleton

“Those who answered Singleton's call to head west became known as "Exodusters," and Singleton himself was described as the "Father of the Exodus." But the massive migration of African Americans from the South that reached a peak in 1879 was not inspired by Singleton alone. The driving force was the withdrawl of federal troops from the South in 1877, which marked the official end of

Reconstruction and the return of racial oppression through segregation laws and the terrorist activities of groups like the Ku Klux Klan. By 1879, which became known as the year of the "Great Exodus," some 50,000 blacks had fled to freedom in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois, while thousands more had been turned back by whites patrolling the rivers and roads.”● A runaway slave who

returned to the South after the Civil War to help freed slaves establish a better life

Source - http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/singleton.htm

Freedman: The Exodusters

Waiting for the steamboat to Kansas

Advertisement for the migration of freedman to Kansas

http://middle.usm.k12.wi.us/faculty/taft/Unit5/westwebquest/Exodusters/levee.gif

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/images/gotokansas.jpeg

Freedman: The Exodusters

Nicodemus, Kansas Nicodemus, Kansas

http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/west/black%20homesteaders.jpg

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-kansas/ExodustersNicodemusKS-500.jpg

Life in the Great Plains

• Extensive Photo Collection”– Miners & Prospectors– Native Americans– Exodustors & Runaway Slaves– Civil War– Teddy Roosevelt & Abraham Lincoln– http://old-photos.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_arch

ive.html

• Additional Website: – Mining in the Great Plains

Primary Resources: Library of Congress

• Pacific Railway Act (1862)– http://www.ourdoc

uments.gov/doc.php?doc=32

• The Homestead Act (1872)– http://www.ourdoc

uments.gov/doc.php?doc=31

• Document Website:– www.ourdocument

s.gov

http://www-tc.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/images/wimg670/organ.gif