The Wild, Wild West

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The Wild, Wild West
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Frederick Jackson Turner

• Western historian best known for his paper,
  speech, and later book The Frontier in American
  History.
• His thesis was that the existence of the frontier
  unified and defined the unique American
  character.
• Taming the wilderness shaped the rugged
  individual spirit, and the diverse European
  cultures brought by settlers in the Great Plains
  intermingled to produce the American character.
• Turner was refuting the idea that American
  culture was directly linked to English roots.

Modern edition of his book
Print shows the frontier as the meeting point of
civilization and savagery
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Horace Greeley

• In 1841, Greeley started the New York Tribune.
• Greeley was an egalitarian.
• He advocated distributing free government land to
  settlers.
• Greeley once advised, Go west, young man.

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The West was a place of greater opportunity for
women and minorities.
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Deadwood, South Dakota, was home to several
notorious figures, including Wild Bill Hickok and
Calamity Jane

• Calamity Jane served a as a scout for the U.S.
  army in conflicts against Native Americans.
• Jane worked various jobs in Deadwood.
• Jane appeared in Buffalo Bills Wild West Show as
  a horse rider and trick shooter.

Hickok was famous for his skills as a gunfighter
and sheriff
Calamity Jane
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Chinese miners
After the completion of the transcontinental
railroad in 1869, some Chinese moved to the
mining areas of Idaho, Montana, and Colorado.
Most, however, moved to California.
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John Mackay
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However, discrimination in boom towns often
resulted in the mistreatment of non-whites,
especially Mexicans, Chinese, and African
Americans.
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Anti-Chinese feelings often led to whites
refusing to support Chinese businesses
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Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• The law excluded Chinese from entering the
  country for 10 years. Later the law was extended
  and not repealed until 1940s
• Any Chinese in the country had to reapply for
  entry. They were given permanent alien status and
  denied citizenship.

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Women in boom towns

• Some of the jobs women pursued included owning
  and working in
• Boarding houses
• Laundries
• Restaurants
• Saloons

Mrs. Christine Berg, boarding house owner during
the Deadwood gold bonanza, photographed in 1903
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Women often took jobs as entertainers (dancers,
singers, and other occupations) in saloons
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Mining became big business

• Hydraulic mining, invented by the ancient Romans,
  used water pressure through a hose to quickly
  search large areas of soil for minerals.
• The gold and soil was sorted on sluices and under
  currents.
• Sometimes the water was located as far as 100
  miles away. Small-time miners could not create
  the infrastructure needed to transport it, which
  changed mining into big business.

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Quartz mining

• Most gold and silver was located within quartz
  rock.
• The only way to get at it was to blast through
  the quartz with heavy machinery, which most
  individuals could not afford.
• Big mining companies hired unskilled laborers,
  many of whom were immigrants.

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Impact on the environment

• Mining techniques were often harmful to the
  environment.
• Since the goal was to get at underground
  minerals, mining technology often completely
  destroyed existing mountains.
• Some of the major effects of mining on the
  environment were
• Contaminated water
• Loss of habitat for wildlife
• Erosion of land

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Hydraulic mining washed away entire mountainsides
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After the ore was mined, there was no major
industry left to sustain the local economy, and
the boom towns were often abandoned. These
abandoned towns are often called ghost towns.
Abandoned mine and towns
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12 NFL championships. No one can touch that.