WHAT ABOUT THE WEST

APUSH MS. VARGAS

RAILROADS

Recap: RR and the Civil War North was more Industrialized The Role of Transportation in connecting the East and West The Importance of Western Movement to Civil War and American Life Antebellum to 1900
Manifest Destiny

RAILROADS

Transcontinental Railroad Begun 1863-1896

Transportation Costs From 1,000 and 5-6 month by stagecoach to 150 and 5-6 days by RR Government Funds and Subsidies for RR development

Immigrant Labor
At one point 8,000 out of 10,000 workers on one of the rail lines was Chinese An English-Chinese phrase book from 1867 translated the following phrases into Chinese: Can you get me a good boy? He wants $8 a month? He ought to be satisfied with $6.... Come at 7 every morning. Go home at 8 every night. Light the fire. Sweep the rooms. Wash the clothes. Wash the windows. Sweep the stairs. Trim the lamps. I want to cut his wages.

THE WEST

The Great Plains, Mountains, Pacific

Plains: Farms, Wheat, Cattle Feeding the East Coast and Cities Required Technology of Industrialization (pumps for wells, steel tipped plows, mechanical threshing, methods of shipping) Homestead Act in 1862. This act allowed any citizen or any immigrant intending to become a citizen to get title to 160 acres of land by paying a small fee, living on the tract for five years, and making a few improvements. It also allowed settlers to pay $1.25 an acre and own the land immediately. 1/3 of Homesteads Failed Although the popular image of the cowboy is of John Wayne or Roy Rodgers, many of the cowboys were African Americans or Mexican Americans. About one in five cowboys was a Mexican American and one in seven was black. Cattle Era ended 1880s Coinciding with RR and Shipping Cattle

Mountains: Minerals Silver, Coal (1850s, 1860s)

Financing the Civil War Life and Work in Mining Towns and Mines

Pacific Gold, Farms,

OIL

Spindletop, Texas 1901 Found new oil reserves (previously Ohio, Pennsylvania Rockefeller)
Before 1901 At most 50 barrels a day could be produced by one oil well

At Spindletop 100,000 per day were produced Now with the internal combustion engine oil had new lease on life Andrew Mellon Rockefeller was not allowed into Texas because of Anti-Trust Laws (anti-monopoly) Mellon creates Gulf Oil Company (sound familiar)

SETTLED ALREADY?

Contrary to the popular image of the West as a rural region, by 1890 most of the West's population lived in cities. Not only was the Trans-Mississippi West the country's most culturally diverse region, it was also by 1890, the most urbanized. Contrary to popular view (all white, homestead)

TURNER THESIS MYTH OF THE WEST

Frederick Jackson Turner: University of Wisconsin Conquest of the Frontier had given America its special character (American exceptionalism, ability to take risk and adventure) - Formative Experience
Western expansion accounted for Americans' optimism, their rugged independence, and their stress on adaptability, ingenuity, and self-reliance for the Nation. (Not really true because the federal government sponsored for a lot of things like railroads, homestead)

WHY WAS THE WEST SETTLED THEN?

The Federal Government

Grants for RR construction Homestead Act Native American policies Internal Improvements (dams, waterways)

Unique Character of Americans

Immigration Get Rich Quick Rags to Riches The American Dream

ANTI-CHINESE POLICIES

Irish fill the almshouses and prisons and orphan asylums, Italians are among the most dangerous of men, Jews are unclean and ignorant. Yet they are all let in, while Chinese, who are sober, or duly law abiding, clean, educated and industrious, are shut out . - Lee Chew, The Biography of a Chinaman, Independent, 15 (19 February 1903), 417 423.
This state of things brings about a terrible competition between our own people, who must live, if they live at all, in accord with American civilization, and the labor of a people, who live like what in fact they are, degraded serfs under masters who hold them in slavery. We should all understand that this state of things cannot be much longer endured . - A speech to the workingmen of San Francisco on August 16, 1888.