Daily Thesis Tuesday, September 21st United States citizens would be very hungry if advancements during industrialization never occurred. Life and Working Conditions for Homesteaders Lecture 2 Everyday Life ➔ Farmers were PULLED west ◆ Homestead Act, 1862: Anyone over the age of 21 could apply for 160 acres of land in the newly acquired territories in the west ● US citizens, freed slaves, new immigrants ◆ Expensive land in the East ➔ Life was not easy Working Conditions ➔ Backbreaking labor, bugs that ravaged the fields, money troubles, falling crop prices and rising farm debt ◆ Many homesteaders failed and went back east ➔ Settlers had to rely on each other ◆ Raising horses and barns together Industrial Technology Helped Farmers Mechanized Reaper Reduced labor force needed for harvest. Allows farmers to maintain larger farms→ McCormick Reaper Company, today makes spices Barbed Wire Keeps cattle from trampling crops and uses a minimal amount of lumber, which was scarce on the plains. (Invented by Joseph Glidden) Dry Farming Allows cultivation of arid land by using drought resistant crops and various techniques to minimize evaporation Steel Plow Harrow Steel Windmill Hybridization Improved Communication Grain Drill Allows farmers to cut through dense, root-choked sod (Introduced by the John Deere Company) Smoothes and levels ground for planting Powers irrigation systems and pumps up ground water Cross breeding of crop plants, which allows greater yield and uniformity Keeps cattle from trampling crops and uses a minimal amount of lumber, which was scarce on the plains Array of multiple drills used to carve small trenches in the ground and feed seed into the soil Other Problems Besides Natives and Weather Problem 1: Tariffs ➔ Helped farmers: Protected them against competition from imported goods ➔ Hurt farmers: Raised prices of manufactured goods, such as machinery ◆ Foreigners could not earn U.S. money and could not buy American crops ● Needed to buy cheaper imported crops Problem 1: Money ➔ Wanted to increase the amount of money in the economy (the supply) ➔ More money printed= value of money dropped ➔ Value of money dropped= raise prices to makeup for the lowered value ◆ INFLATION Problem 3: Railroads ➔ The Pacific Railroad ◆ Stanford, Huntington, Crocker and Hopkins (California’s Big Four) provided financial backing for a railroad ◆ Envisioned a connection between the East and West that would make them a ton of money ➔ Why is this a problem?
