Looking to the West 18601900

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Looking to the West (1860-1900)

• Moving West

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The West

• Push Factors
• Crowding back East
• Displaced farmers
• Former slaves
• Eastern farmland expensive
• Ethnic and religious repression in Europe
• Haven for outlaws

• Pull Factors
• Government incentives
• Pacific Railway Act
• Morrill Land-Grant Act
• Homestead Act
• Private Property
• Miners
• Ranchers
• Farmers

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The Lure of the West
When geographers study reasons for major
migrations, they look at what they call push-pull
factors-events and conditions that either force
(push) people to move elsewhere or strongly
attract (pull) them to do so. Here are some
push-pull factors for moving west.

• Push Factors
• The Civil War had displaced thousands of farmers,
  former slaves, and other workers.
• Eastern farmland was too costly.
• Failed entrepreneurs sought a second chance in a
  new locations.
• Ethnic and religious repression caused people to
  seek the freedom of the west.
• Outlaws sought refuge.

• Pull Factors
• The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864
• Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862
• Land speculators
• Homestead Act, 1862
• Legally enforceable property rights

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GO WEST, YOUNG MAN!

• The Myth of the Frontier
• Manifest Destiny
• Civil War over
• Adventure
• Resources
• Wealth (Gold, Cattle, Land)

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Settlers From Far and Wide

• German-speaking immigrants arrived seeking
  farmland. They brought the Lutheran religion
  with its emphasis on hard work and education.
• Lutherans from Scandinavia settled the northern
  plains from Iowa to Minnesota to the Dakotas,
  many pursuing dairy farming.
• Irish, Italians, European Jews, and Chinese
  settled in concentrated communities on the West
  coast. They took jobs in mining and railroad
  construction that brought them to the American
  interior.
• After the Civil War, thousands of African
  Americans rode or walked westward, often fleeing
  violence and exploitation.
• Benjamin Pap Singleton led groups of southern
  blacks on a mass Exodus, a trek inspired by the
  biblical account of the Israelites flight from
  Egypt to a prophesied homeland. Hence, the
  settlers called themselves Exodusters. Some
  50,000 or more Exodusters migrated west.

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Pacific Railway Acts

• 1862, 1864
• Large land grants to Union Pacific RR and Central
  Pacific RR
• 175 million acres

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Morrill Land Grant Act

• 1862
• State governments received millions of acres of
  land to
• Sell
• Create land grant colleges for agricultural and
  mechanical arts

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Homestead Act

• 1862
• Small fee, settlers received 160 acres if
• 21 yrs old
• Citizens or immigrants filing for citizenship
• Minimum sized house
• Lived on claim 6 months out of the year
• Farm the land for 5 years in a row
• 372,000 farms
• 80 million acres

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Exodusters

• Free blacks looking for new start after the Civil
  War
• Most headed to Kansas (pulled by the Homestead
  Act and free land.
• Exodusters based on the biblical Exodus of the
  Hebrews from Egypt - leaving bondage for freedom
  in the Promised Land

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Exodusters - Nebraska Connection
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Homesteader Homes

• Built with available materials (sod)
• Small
• Functional as a shelter

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Homesteader lifestyle

• Difficult
• Subsistence farmers
• Some livestock
• Grasshoppers
• Storms
• Distance
• Lack of building materials

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Homesteader Conclusion