THE MIDWEST:
TECHNOLOGY BRINGS CHANGE
TECHNOLOGY BRINGS CHANGES TO THE
MIDWEST
The Midwest is often called “the heartland”
because it is the agricultural center for our
nation.
 Technology helped make farms productive.
Inventions like the steel plow, windmill, and
barbed wire helped settlers carve out farms on
the plains.

FAMILY FARMS DWINDLE
Until the 1980’s small family farms operated in
this region, and many were mixed crop farms.
That is, they grew several different crops, so if one
crop failed, the farm had others.
 In the early 1980’s there was a country-wide
recession, or downturn in business activity. The
demand for farm products dropped at the same
time interest rates on loans increased.
 Over one million American farmers have left their
land since 1980.

CORPORATE FARMS EXPAND
Some of the farms that were sold were bought by
agricultural companies that combined small farms
to form large ones called corporate farms.
 Large agricultural companies had more capital, or
money used to expand a business.
 Corporate farmers rely on machines and
computers to do much of the work. In Kansas, 90
percent of the land is farmland or ranchland, but
less than 10 percent of the people are farmers or
ranchers.

THE MIDWEST GROWS CITIES
Chicago, Illinois was a city that got its start as a
place to process and ship farm products.
 By the late 1800’s it had become a steel-making
and manufacturing center. Farm equipment was
one of the most important manufactured products
made in Chicago.
 Detroit, Michigan is called “the Motor City.” You
will find the headquarters of the American
automobile industry.
 A huge stainless steel arch beside the river marks
St. Louis, Missouri as the “Gateway to the West.

THE WEST:
LAND OF PRECIOUS RESOURCES
A WEALTH OF RESOURCES
An incredible wealth of natural resources has
drawn people to the West for well over 400 years.
The Spanish were well established on the West
Coast even before the Pilgrims settled in New
England in the 1620’s.
 With the California Gold Rush in 1849, the
population of the region exploded. Miners head
off to the Sierra Nevada expecting to strike it rich.
 Further discoveries of valuable minerals drew
more and more people westward.

MANAGING RESOURCES IN THE SIERRAS.
The forty-niners, the first miners of the Gold
Rush, washed small bits of gold from the
streams, but to get at larger deposits, big
mining companies used water cannons to blast
away entire hillsides.
 After the Gold Rush, California's population
soared. Engineers built dams to send water
through pipes to coastal cities. Next to the
dams, they built hydroelectric plants.

USING AND PRESERVING RESOURCES
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Portland, Oregon was founded in 1845 near the junction
of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. It became a
trade center for lumber, furs, grain, salmon, and wool.
The area around San Jose, California was known as
“Valley of the Heart’s Delight” for its beautiful orchards
and farms. Now its called “Silicon Valley,” because it is
the heart of the computer industry.
San Jose has built a light-rail mass transit system. Mass
transit replaces individual cars with energy-saving buses
or trains.