What Made it Possible?
• Pacific Railway Act
– Passed July 1, 1862
– Created Union Pacific to build road from the
East and meet the Central Pacific
– Provided companies 5 alternating plots of land
on each side of the road for each mile along the
route
– Allowed $16,000 for each mile of flat land,
$32,000 for hills, and $48,000 for mountain
terrain
– Revised in 1864 to allow companies more land
and privileges
The Game Plan
• Central Pacific Railroad
– Begin in Sacramento, CA
– Broke ground January 1863
• Union Pacific Railroad
– Begin in Omaha, NE
– Broke ground in late 1863 but no
tracks laid until 1865
• Route along the 42nd Parallel
• Meeting place: Promontory Summit,
UT
Significance of the Railroad
• Biggest and best engineering project of
its time
• Made the country smaller
• Helped spur interest in Homestead Act
• Improved communication
• The beginning of the end for Native
Americans
• Led to other transcontinental railroads
and shorter branches
Morrill Land-Grant Act
• 1862
• Gave millions of acres of
land to the states.
– Land speculators
Money was to be used to
create colleges and
universities.
Justin S. Morrill (1810-1898)
Homestead Act
• Passed by Lincoln in
1862
• 160 acres
– 21 years old or head of
house
– House at least 12 x 14 ft
– 6 months
– Farm 5 years
Soddie – home made from sod
Discussion question:
What did the Morrill Land-Grant
Act have in common with the
Homestead Act?
Who were the homesteaders?
• Immigrants
• Freedmen
– Exodusters
– Benjamin “Pap”
Singleton
Boomers
• Settlers who ran in
land races to claim
land
Sooners
• Settlers who illegally
claimed land by
sneaking past the
government officials
• In the mid 1880’s, following a series of
droughts, people starting returning east
again.
– 18,000 in 1891 alone
Women’s Suffrage
• Wyoming 1869
– Would not accept statehood unless Union
allowed women to vote
1893 – Colorado
1896 – Idaho
Why would these states have granted women
the right to vote before it was nationally
recognized by the 19th Amendment?
Dawes Act
• Divided reservation land into individual
plots
– Each Native American family received a 160
acre plot
• Granted U.S. citizenship and subject to local laws
“You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men!
But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?” - Smohalla
Discussion question!
What was the difference between the
Native Americans and settlers in their
views about land ownership?
Indian Removal
• Pressure
increased on
Native American
territory
• Indian Removal
Act of 1830
• Forced
relocation to
Oklahoma
Territory
A map showing the major tribes and the routes by
which the government relocated them
Buffalo
• 25 million in 1840
• By 1889, around
1,100.
Factors:
Easy to hunt
Buffalo fur was popular in the East.
Buffalo hide was tough, and the leather was used in
machinery.
Hopes it would force the Native Americans into
farming
Native Americans
BIA – Bureau of Indian Affairs
managed delivery of critical supplies to the
reservations
Disagreements and frustrations resulted in
anger, some groups sought revenge.
Army life
• $13/mo
• Leftover Civil War uniforms
• Rotten food
• 1/3 deserted
Sand Creek Massacre
•
•
•
•
1864
Colorado Territory
Cheyenne and Arapaho Native Americans
Colonel John Chivington took 700 men to
the camped Cheyenne and Arapaho
– Chief Black Kettle tried to raise a white flag of
surrender, but the army slaughtered between
150-500 people. The camp largely held
women and children.
From Lt. Joseph Cramer to Maj. Edward Wynkoop, Dec. 19, 1864:
"This is the first opportunity I have had of writing
you since the great Indian Massacre, and for a
start, I will acknowledge I am ashamed to own I
was in it...It is no use for me to tell you how the fight
was managed, only I think the Officer in command
should be hung...After the fight there was a sight I
hope I may never see again...Bucks, woman and
children, were scalped, fingers cut off to get the
rings on them...little children shot, while begging for
their lives...I told the Col. I thought it was murder to
jump them friendly Indians. He says in reply; Damn
any man or men who are in sympathy with them."
Battle of Little Bighorn
• 1876
• Also known as “Custer’s Last Stand”
• Sioux from Dakota, Wyoming and
Montana Territories
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
2,000 Native American warriors to
Custer’s little more than 200
soldiers in an hour.
“I am the last Indian.” Chief Sitting
Bull
Chief Crazy Horse
Lt Colonel George Armstrong Custer 1839-1876
Ghost Dance
Purification ceremony in which
people joined hands and whirled
in a circle
Sioux Indians hunting buffalo 1835
Art by George Catlin
Sioux war council
Massacre of Wounded Knee
• 1890 - Sioux
• Ghost Dance
• Chief Sitting Bull
– When he hesitated being arrested, he was
shot by the army officers. His followers, 120
men and 230 women & children surrendered
and were rounded up. As they were being
disarmed, someone fired a shot. More than
200 Sioux were killed.
Soldiers pose with three of the four Hotchkiss Guns used against the Lakota at Wounded Knee.
The caption on the photograph reads:
Famous Battery "K" of the 1st Artillery
These brave men and the Hotchkiss guns that
Big Foot's Indians thought were toys,
Together with the fighting 7th what's
Left of Gen. Custer's boys,
Sent 200 Indians to that
Heaven which the ghost dancer enjoys.
This checked the Indian noise,
And Gen. Miles with staff
Returned to Illinois.
Photo by Grabill, Deadwood, South Dakota.
Assimilation
• Process by which the people of one
culture merge into and become part of
another culture.
Cowboys and the Gold rush
GOLD!
• Not just in California
• Colorado, Nevada
– Placer mining
• Shallow, anybody could do it
Huge corporations moved in
after to get the larger,
underground ore deposits
Barricks Ruby Hill Mine outside Eureka, NV
Major mining strikes
Discussion
• What creates the mining boom that started
with the California Gold Rush?
• Bonanza farms
– Farms controlled by
large businesses that
are managed by
professionals and
produce massive
amounts of cash crops
• Dry farming
– Planting crops that
don’t require very
much water
Technology in Farming
1860-1900
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mechanized reaper
Barbed wire
Dry farming
Steel plow
Harrow
Steel windmill
Hybridization
Improved communication
Grain drill
Cattle boom
• Cattle barons were wealthy ranchers,
owning more than 100,000 cattle.
Why would cattle be developing as such a huge industry?
Buffalo
• 25 million in 1840
• By 1889, around
1,100.
Factors:
Easy to hunt
Buffalo fur was popular in the East.
Buffalo hide was tough, and the leather was used in
machinery.
Hopes it would force the Native Americans into
farming
Chisolm Trail
The Long Drive
Factors that ended the cattle boom
•
•
•
•
•
Over-expansion
Prices dropped
Cold winters
Droughts
Diseases – cattle fever
Frederick Jackson Turner
Turner Thesis
Emphasized individual effort, but down
played federal involvement, Native
American life, and contributions of women
and other ethnic groups.
Wild West is romanticized
• Stereotypes of western heroes
– Wyatt Earp
– Calamity Jane
– Wild Bill Hickok
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody
wild west shows became incredibly popular
and helped shape the image of the West.
The Rise and Fall of the
Populist Party
1867-1896
Farmers’ Problems:
• Lower prices for crops
• Farmers had no cash . . .went further into
debt. . . foreclosed on mortgages
• Railroads charged outrageous prices to
ship crops (no regulation!)
Lending practices
• Inflation
– The money you pay
back is less than what
you originally
borrowed
• Deflation
– The money you pay
back is more than
what you borrowed
Example: If you borrowed $100 in 1880, you could buy 80
acres of land. What can you buy today for $100? This is
inflation. Your money today is “worth less” than it was
then.
Money Supply
• Money supply is the
amount of money in
the national economy.
– If the government
increases the money
supply, the value of
the dollar drops
• Called Inflation
• After the Civil War,
the money supply
shrank
– Deflation
Originally the US is on a bimetallic
standard of using gold or silver coins
• Gold bugs
– Conservative, big lenders
• Gold standard
– Money put in
circulation was
backed by gold.
Less money out
• Silverites
– Western miners and
farmers, called for
unlimited silver dollars,
hoping for better prices for
selling goods.
– Free silver - unlimited
silver coining
The bimetallism ratio
16:1
• 16 oz. of silver is equal to 1 oz of gold
• This has fluctuated over the years, but
the standard remains between 14:1
and16:1
Farmers’ Demands:
• Regulate the railroad companies! (stop them
from charging such high rates)
• Make cash more available (back the dollar
with silver, not gold, so dollar will be worth
less)
• Political demands: single term for President
and Vice-President; secret ballot; popular
election of Senators
• To get industrial workers to support them: 8hour workday; restrict immigration
Different Groups Representing
Farmers’ Interests
• 1867: The Patrons of Husbandry (The
Grange)
• 1880s: Farmers’ Alliance and Colored
Farmers’ National Alliance
• 1892: Birth of the Populist, or People’s
Party
• 1878
• Bland-Allison Act
– Favored silverites,
increased money
supply
– Vetoed by Pres.
Hayes, but Congress
overrode the veto
and passed it.
• Limited results.
Treasury department
refused to buy
anymore silver to be
able to circulate
more.
• 1890
• Sherman Silver
Purchase Act
– Increased the
amount of silver the
govt was required to
purchase
• People turned in their
notes for gold,
depleting gold
reserves.
Repealed by Pres.
Cleveland in 1893
Popular speaker for
women’s suffrage,
prohibition, and
Populists, she told
Kansas farmers to
“raise a little less
corn, and more hell.”
Mary Elizabeth Lease 1850-1933
James B. Weaver (1833 – 1912)
Populist Party candidate, election of 1892
The Populist Platform
•
Free silver
•
Graduated income tax
•
Public ownership of railroads, telegraphs and telephones
•
Restricted immigration
•
8 hour workday
•
Women suffrage
•
Secret ballot
•
Direct election of senators
Mary Elizabeth Lease (1850 – 1933)
“Queen Mary” or “Mary Yellin”
Populist political activist
• “Money rules. . . The parties lie to us and the political speakers
mislead us!”
• “We have advanced scientifically, ethically and otherwise, but in
finance we have followed the barbaric methods of our ancestors
and the teachings of college-bred idiots who tell us that gold is
the only desirable coin.”
In Reality
• Populists were not folk heroes
• The were coming up with new ideas to return America
to its agrarian past (negative reform)
• Populism represented a class movement that was
based on racism, anti-Semitism and sectionalism, but
not nationalism
• They turned to the city only for labor support
1892 Presidential Election: Populist
Candidate won over a million votes!
1896 Election
• Populists decide to improve their chances by
supporting a Democratic candidate: William Jennings
Bryan, who agreed to support the Silver-backed
dollar.
Democrats-1890s
Republicans-1890s
 Southerners
 Northerners
 Wealthy farmers
 Wealthy business
men (connected to
the railroad)
 Low tariff (want other
countries to buy their
crops)
 Southern Afr ican
Americans (poor
farmers)
 High tariff (donÕtwant
to compete with other
countriesÕproducts)
1896 Presidential Election: Bryan loses but
carries most of the South and West
L. Frank Baum (1856 – 1919)
author of
The Wizard of OZ
The Wizard of Oz
as
Political Allegory
The characters and who they represent
Dorothy represents the American people
The Scarecrow represents the western farmers
(Populists)
The Tin Woodsman represents the eastern workers,
victims of mechanization
The Cowardly Lion represents William Jennings Bryan (1860 – 1925):
Bryan, a Democrat, ran for the presidency in 1896 and lost to
William McKinley; thus Bryan had a load roar, but no power.
The Wicked Witch of the East
Represents the eastern banking interests
=
The Wizard of Oz
or
William McKinley (1843 – 1901)
25th President of the United States
(1897 – 1901)
Marcus A. Hanna (1837 – 1904)
Oz
The abbreviation for an ounce of gold or silver
The Yellow Brick Road
and
Silver (not ruby!)Slippers
The Panic Ends
• Congress passed a high protective tariff and the Gold Standard
Act in 1897
• Recovery began before passage of either act
• External factors:
• Increase in European demand on wheat: European wheat crop
was reduced by 1/3 for 1897. . . U.S. exported more wheat;
farmers were assuaged
• European money flowing into U.S. stopped the drain on gold, and
new discoveries of gold in ’96 helped ease the gold problem
• Europe recovered from the depression before the U.S.
• European industries could not keep up with product demand
• U.S. began to export goods – this meant more work for U.S.
industries and workers
• By 1900 prosperity was back