Transforming the Nation

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Transforming the Nation
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Big Idea

• How can people change the world they live in?

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Connecting the East to the West

• In the early 1800s news was spread by letters
  sent on horse or boat. News might be old before
  the newspaper was printed.
• In 1844, Samuel Morse invented a code of dots and
  dashes to send messages across a wire telegraph
  line on a telegraph machine that used electric
  signals, called Morse Code.

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Transcontinental Railroad

• Because settlers were heading west and were
  having to go by ship around South America, or by
  railroad and then wagon, a group of entrepreneurs
  in California planned to build a railroad.
• A transcontinental railroad is a railroad that
  crosses a continent.

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Transcontinental Railroad

• In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act
  that allowed the government to loan money to the
  Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroad
  companies.
• The Union Pacific railroad started in Nebraska
  building east to west and the Central Pacific
  railroad started in California building west to
  east.

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Transcontinental Railroad

• On May 10, 1869 both tracks joined at Promontory
  Point, Utah, where railroad officials tapped in
  gold and silver spikes in the last piece of
  track.

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Transcontinental Railroad

• After the Civil War ended, the Union Pacific
  hired former soldiers and freed African Americans
  to work on the railroad. They also hired Irish
  immigrants that moved west to work on the
  railroad.
• The Central Pacific hired Chinese workers. These
  immigrant workers faced prejudice, unfair,
  negative opinion that lead to unjust treatment
  from other workers. They often worked for less
  wages and were asked to do more dangerous jobs.

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Transcontinental Railroad

• The transcontinental railroad helped settlers in
  the west ship their goods to the east. Also
  businesses and factories in the east shipped
  tools, clothing and other goods out west.

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Time Zones
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Life on the Great Plains

• The Great Plains are found in the middle of the
  United States. This large area is mostly grassy
  and flat.
• Because the area is not good for farming or
  building homes, settlers passed right through the
  Great Plains and traveled further west.

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The Homestead Act

• Congress passed a law called the Homestead Act in
  1862. A homestead is a settlers land and home.
  This act offered 160 acres of land to adults who
  were U.S. citizens or wanted to become citizens.
  They had to pay a small fee and promise to farm
  the land for 5 years. This offer was to entice
  people to move to the Great Plains area.

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The Exodusters

• Because African Americans were still facing
  prejudice, they decided to move to the Great
  Plains. Benjamin Pap Singleton visited Kansas
  and liked it. He printed advertisements to ask
  the African Americans to move out west. These
  that moved called themselves Exodusters. They
  called themselves this after Exodus, a book of
  the Bible, that tells about how the people of
  Israel escaped slavery in Egypt.

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Settlers Face Hardships

• All those that moved to the Great Plains faced
  several hardships. Winters were long and very
  cold. Summers were very hot and dry. Droughts,
  long periods without rain, often occurred.
• Droughts made farming very hard. Because the land
  was so dry, prairie fires were common too.

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Settlers Adapt to the Great Plains

• Settlers could not build homes from wood because
  the Great Plains had very few trees. So they
  built their homes out of sod. Sod is
  grass-covered dirt held together with thick
  roots. Because the sod was so hard to cut, the
  farmers became known as sodbusters. They used
  heavy iron or steel plows to cut the sod.

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Growing Crops

• Another hardship faced by the settlers was
  growing crops in such a dry climate. Settlers
  finally tried wheat seeds brought from Eastern
  Europe and were able to have a crop that was
  successful.
• Because farming was so difficult and workers were
  scarce, new and improved farming machines were
  invented.