| Competitors for the West and Environmental Impacts of Western Settlement (1851-1910) |
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Sections:- Homestead Act of 1862
- Uriah W. Oblinger: Life on the Great Plains in the 1870s: A Letter to Mattie V. Oblinger and Ella Oblinger (March 9, 1873)
- Building a Sodhouse
- Sod Houses Dot the Plains of the Dakotas in the Late 1800s: Photographs from the “Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection”
- Gold and Silver Production in the United States (1840 – 1910)
- Life at A California Gold Mining Camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains (1851)
- George Martin: The Recollections of an American Cowboy: Reflections Upon the Life on the Range
- Capturing the American Cowboy Experience: Films made by Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
- S. Augustus Mitchell: Mid-Nineteenth Century Views of Native Americans: Excerpts from “A System of Modern Geography” (1852)
- Cattle Trails and Early Transcontinental Railroads
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The Homestead Act of 1862 was a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The purpose of the legislation was to encourage settlement of the Plains by giving government-owned land to small farmers. Some 400,000 homesteaders became landowners as a result of the act.
Questions to Consider
1.Who was eligible to obtain land through the Homestead Act of 1862?
2.What did a homesteader have to do to fulfill the act’s requirements?
3.Was a homesteader allowed to obtain additional land?
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| Historical Context
In September 1872, Mr. Uriah W. Oblinger traveled from Indiana to Fillmore County, Nebraska with his wife’s two brothers in order to claim a homestead. Between September 1872 and May 1873 when his wife Mattie and their child joined him in Nebraska, the couple exchanged letters.
Attached Documents
The letters paint a vivid and detailed picture of the homesteading experience. His anticipation for Mattie’s arrival is illustrated in his letter dated March 9th, 1873.
Questions to Consider
1.What is the landscape like around the Oblinger Homestead?
2.Why were sod houses constructed by homesteaders on the Plains?
3.How were sod houses constructed?
4.How was life on the frontier different from life in the Ohio River Valley?
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Houses made of sod were built on the Great Plains well into the 20th Century.
Attached Documents
In this photograph taken in the early 1900s, farmers in Arthur County, Nebraska were using a grasshopper plow to break the land. The man at the left holds the shovel used to cut the sod to length, while the other man is loading the sod “bricks” onto a wagon.
Questions to Consider
1.Why did homesteaders use sod as their source of building material?
2.What tools were be needed by settlers to build sodhouses?
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When the first settlers entered river valleys of northern Dakota they were greeted by a sea of grass which extended across the territory. Building shelter would not be easy without logs and lumber. The earliest settlers claimed the land along the few wooded rivers and streams, which provided timber for log homes and wood for fuel. But land adjacent to the rivers was quickly taken, and those who came next had to settle on the treeless prairie. Lumber was not readily available and very expensive. The prairie did, though, provide an unlimited resource that the settlers could use—sod.
Questions to Consider
1.What do all the sod houses have in common?
2.What are several negative aspects of living in a house made of sod?
3.What are several positive aspects of living in a house made of sod?
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| Historical Context
One of the factors that led to western expansion of the United States was the mining industry. Individual prospectors found many of the West’s richest gold and silver deposits. The majority of the gold and silver produced was mined by corporations.
Questions to Consider
1.In what year shown on the graph was gold production the highest in the USA?
2.In what year shown on the graph was silver production the highest in the USA?
3.What discovery would account for the dramatic increase in gold production between 1840 and 1850?
4.How did the introduction of hydraulic mining in the 1880s affect the production of gold and silver in the United States?
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| | | | Citations: | Source: Historical Statistics of the United States
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The author of this letter, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp, used the pseudonym “Dame Shirley.” The letter was written to Clapp’s sister, Molly, in Massachusetts, but was subsequently published as one of a series of twenty-three in the Pioneer, a California literary magazine.
Clapp’s subject in the letters was life at the gold mining camps of mid-19th-century California. Clapp knew about life in the world of California gold mining from first-hand experience. With her husband, a doctor, Clapp left the East Coast for California in 1849. At first the couple settled in San Francisco, but in 1851 they left for the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the Sierra Nevadas, they spent more than a year at two gold mining camps: Rich Bar and Indian Bar.
Questions to Consider
1.How much area did the Rich Bar mining camp encompass?
2.What was Mrs. Clapp’s knowledge of geology?
3.What did Dr. Clapp’s office like?
4.How did the area change when gold was first discovered at the site?
5.What happened to many of the first men that found gold in Rich Bar?
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| Historical Context
The life of a cowboy on the Great Plains in the 1800s was challenging. Working in all types of weather conditions, searching for lost cattle, mending fences, and eating the same food day after day was common place for these men. The work was hard and dangerous; pay averaged from $25 to $40 a month. Many men became cowboys because of a lack of other job opportunities. One of every three cowboys was Mexican or African American.
Attached Documents
George Martin reminisced with an interviewer from the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s. Martin recalled the tough work, difficult conditions, and long days required of ranch hands in Texas.
Questions to Consider
1.How did George Martin begin working at a cattle ranch?
2.What was the diet of the American cowboy?
3.How did stampedes challenge cowboys?
4.What were the divisions of labor among ranch hands?
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In the late 1890s and early 1900s, the Thomas A. Edison, Inc. recorded the life of the American Cowboy by using the recently invented motion camera.
Attached Documents
The cameraman in “Driving the Cattle to Pasture” attempted to capture as many cattle as possible on film.
In the clip entitled “Cattle Branding” the cameraman placed the camera near a fire where some branding irons were being heated. Three men can be seen branding calves.
The final clip, “Cattle Leaving the Corral” captures six ranch hands moving cattle on a ranch.
Questions to Consider
1.Why did Thomas A. Edison, Inc. record the work of ranch hands?
2.Why are cattle branded?
3.What was the landscape of the ranches?
4.Why did people like John S. Morton advocate the planting of trees?
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The status of Native Americans has changed several times throughout the history of the United States. After the American Revolution, national leaders stated that Native Americans owned the soil they occupied. In the 1830s, though, the United States government implemented a policy of removal. The President of the United States was given the authority to move Native Americans onto land west of the Mississippi River. Eventually most Native Americans tribes would be required to settle on reservations.
Attached Documents
Below is an excerpt from “A System of Modern Geography.” The geography textbook was copyrighted in 1852.
Questions to Consider
1. What is the author’s attitude toward Native Americans and their culture?
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| | | Citations: | Source: A System of Modern Geography(Philadelphia: Thomas Cowperthwait and Co., 1852)
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Ranchers in southern Texas met the East Coast’s demand for meat. In order for the demand to be met, ranchers would have to drive their cattle north to towns such as Dodge City, Abilene and Ogallala. At these railheads, the cattle would be loaded for the journey east of the Mississippi River.
Questions to Consider
1.In what part of Texas did the cattle trails begin?
2.What areas of the Great Plains were cattle trails cross?
3.Make a prediction. What would be one reason why cattle drives would eventually come to an end?
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