10/4 Objectives and Warm Up

1
10/4 Objectives and Warm Up

• SWBAT identify conditions that lured people
  westward.
• SWBAT compare different westward settlers and
  where they came from.
• What difficulties would you face if you were
  leaving Fairview and moving to a new region of
  the US?
• Why might you want to move?
• What factors of the Industrial Revolution might
  make westward expansion easier or more
  attractive?

2
Westward Migration

• Why move west? Feed the American Spirit
• Adventure
• New opportunity / new life
• Economic profit and conquest
• Manifest Destiny
• White Mans Burden

3

• Push-pull factors events and conditions that
  either force (push) people to move elsewhere or
  strongly attract (pull) them to do so

4

• Push Factors
• Post Civil War conditions
• Displacement of people
• Farmland to costly, especially for immigrants and
  blacks

5

• Push Factors
• Second chance for failed entrepreneurs
• Ethnic and religious freedom
• Open spaces sheltered outlaws

6

• Pull Factors
• Government Incentives
• A. Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 1864
• Large grants to the Union Pacific Central
  Pacific railroads
• Railroads sold land to arriving settlers for huge
  profit

7

• Pull Factors
• Morrill Land-Grant Act 1862
• Millions of acres of land given to states
  governments to sell for the creation of land
  grant colleges. (agriculture and mechanical
  arts)
• Most sold to bankers and land speculators

8

• Pull Factors
• Homestead Act 1862
• a. 160 acres (1/4 mile) given to settlers who
  met the following conditions
• 1. At least 21 years old or head of family
• 2. An American citizen or immigrant filing for
  citizenship
• 3. Built a house on land at least 12 X 14 and
  lived in it for 6 month to a year
• 4. Had to farm land for 5 years in a row

9

• b. Homestead Act creates more than 372,000
  farms. By 1900 600,000 settlers had filed claims
  for more than 80 mill. acres
• Private Property
• 1. Legal ownership of land attracted many

10

• Settlers from far and wide came
• German immigrants seeking to farm
• Lutherans from Scandinavia seeking dairy farming
• Irish, Italian, European Jews, Chinese took jobs
  mining, railroad construction
• Mexican contributed to the growth of ranching
• African Americans fleeing the oppression of the
  south following Reconstruction Exodusters
  (50,000)
• ProblemThe west was already occupied- by Native
  Americans!

11
Questions

• How did the Government go about promoting
  westward expansion?
• Why would the Government want people to settle
  west during this era?
• If you were someone considering westward
  settlement during this era, which government
  incentive would have attracted you the most?
  Explain.
• Why would the west be a great option for many
  blacks living in the America in the late 1800s?