Closing of the Western Frontier
The Three key questions this week:
• What does a nation need to
industrialize?
• How did these come together between
the 1865 – 1920 time period in the
U.S.?
• What were the effects of this
industrialization process on the U.S.?
• Industrialization – Rapid Industrialization
occurs in the U.S. from 1865 to 1920.
• In general, industrialization refers to the
process through which machines replace
direct human manipulation of objects in
work (usually in specialized factories)
resulting in a process of social and
economic change whereby a society is
transformed from an agrarian, rural,
handcraft economy to one dominated by
industry and machine manufacture in
urban cities.
What does a country need to
industrialize?
Land/Resources
Includes both land but also what is in the
land – natural resources
Examples from the time period: The west,
gold, silver – iron, coal, oil
Labor
Labor = work force – needed to run new
machines
Examples from the time period: Immigrants from
Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia
Technology
Inventions and capital goods (machines used to
make consumer products also known as physical
capital
Examples from time period include Light bulb
(electric generator, Bessemer process, Assembly
line
Connections
Transportation of goods allowing resources to get to
factories and products to get to markets to be sold
Key example from the time period - Transcontinental
Railroad
Capital
• Money used investment in business –
needed to pay for technology, connections,
labor and resources
Key examples from time period - Corporations,
monopolies, trusts
Favorable Government Policy
A government that promotes industrialization
Key examples from time period – free land for
railroads, laissez-faire economic policy
Why does industrialization happen
when it does (1865-1920)
• Civil war settles question of the future of the
country – industry (Hamilton) or agriculture
(Jefferson)
– Industry wins
• Does not mean agriculture stops or is not
important
– Does not stop: Agriculture changes – it
industrializes (machines replace human labor)
– Still important: provide food for cities/factories
Today…
• Connections and land
– How did these come together between the
1865 – 1920 time period in the U.S.?
– What were the effects of this industrialization
process on the U.S.?
Connections
• The transcontinental Railroad was a key factor in industrialization
– Trans means across
– Continental means Continent
– Transcontinental railroad – railroad that runs from Atlantic to Pacific
• Trans RR is the key connection needed to:
– Move natural resources (beef, wheat, iron, coal) from West to the Eastern
factories/cities
– Move farmers (homesteaders), miners and cowboys from East to West
allowing for the settlement of the West after the Civil War
– Move products made in factories all over U.S. (allows companies to sell to
more people than ever before)
• Two companies built railroad
– Union Pacific worked East to West
– Central Pacific worked West to East
– Met at Promontory Point Utah
• Others followed –
– 1865: 30,000 miles or track
– 1900: 180,000 miles of track
Transcontinental Railroad
• Federal Government provides 100 million acres of public land
to railroads when it passed Pacific Railway Act of 1862.
– All republican congress (Civil War – no South)
– Republicans promote business and industry
Who Built the Railroad?
• From the East: Irish immigrants
• From the West: Chinese immigrants
• Faced terrible working conditions, low pay and
discrimination
• As many as 10,000 died while building the RR
How Did the Railroad Change the US?
• Creation of time zones
• Transportation of settlers to the West
• Transportation of products to/from the West is
more efficient then ever before (wagons before)
therefore, all types of businesses and farmers are
helped
Land/Resources
Includes both land but also what is in the
land – natural resources
Examples from the time period: The west,
gold, silver – iron, coal, oil
Before the Civil War…After Civil War
• Before the Civil War…
– The U.S. rapidly expanding West – Manifest Destiny
• God given right for the U.S. to control the land from the Atlantic to the
Pacific
• Louisiana Purchase (1803)
• Adams-Onis Treaty (Florida) (1819)
• Mexican American War (1846-48) – U.S. achieves Manifest Destiny
• However, the U.S. does not settle the area in great numbers partly
because the North and South are fighting over the extension of slavery
• After the Civil War…
– U.S. settles the slavery question allowing the area to be settled
in larger numbers (before the war, the only way to move west
was by wagon – Oregon trail – very difficult)
– West was essential to Industrialization
• Land/resources: (cowboys and farmers become the food basket for
eastern cities/factories & miners provides coal and iron that the 2nd
industrial revolution was built on)
What brought people West?
Land and economic opportunities
Farmers
Provide the food for Eastern factories
Cattlemen
Provide beef for eastern factories
Miners
Provide natural resources for Eastern factories
Railroad
How people moved west and how they supplied the east
Farming the West
• Between 1860 and 1910, the area farmed
more than doubled from 160 million to 352
million hectares.
• Why?
The Great Plains…the area settled
What was the
Homestead Act?
• Passed in 1862
– Claim land, improve land, make it primary
residence to gain ownership (5 years)
– 160 acres
• Life was very tough but it was a chance to own
your own land
Land Settled by Farmers
Why else did agriculture production increase?
• The farmer of 1800, used a hand sickle, could hope to cut a 1/5 of
a hectare of wheat a day.
• After the Civil War, farming was industrialized:
– Cyrus McCormick invented a reaper which could cut 2 ½ hectares a day
– John Deere invents steel plow – could till tougher soil
– Barbed wire – protected crops from wild animals
• This also effectively killed cowboys and their culture because once farmers
fenced their lands the long cattle drives on the Chisholm trail became
impossible.
– Steel Windmill – used underground water as a irrigation source.
– Finally the Transcontinental Railroad was the final key piece
• Transported products to the east.
• Impact of this industrialization of farming
– Before - Bushel of grain took 183 minutes to harvest
– After - Bushel of grain took 10 minutes to harvest
– Other effects:
• Farming becomes very expensive – need to borrow $ to pay for many of these
new machines
• Transporting goods on railroad will be expensive for smaller farmers
How does the movement West aid
industrialization?
• Became breadbasket for eastern cities
– Cattle – Americans become beef eaters
• Thanks to cowboys and the open trail
– Corn
• Natural resources
– Iron + Coal =
• Steel – industrialization in this time period was built on steel
• Transcontinental Railroad essential to get these
resources back to eastern factories
Rest of Today…and Tomorrow
• What were the effects of the industrialization
process?...
• What was life like as a person living in the
west?
• What would be the impact of the settlement
of the Western United States on the people
already living there?