Transcript Looking to the West (1860-1900) ◊Miners, Ranchers, Farmers, Cowboys

Looking to the West (1860-1900)
◊Miners, Ranchers, Farmers, Cowboys
The Spread of Western Mining
Mining
◊ Young, single men
◊ Desire to strike it rich
◊ Cherry Creek, CO
• Other CO places in the
mountains
◊ Helena, MT
◊ Virginia City, NV
◊ Black Hills (South
Dakota)
The Mining Frontier
◊ Some small prospectors made
fortunes
◊ Most money made by large mining
corporations.
◊ Mining towns had high populations
of foreigners.
◊ Environmental destruction due to
blasting, chemicals, and water
pollution.
Mining’s Economic Impacts
◊ The added gold
(and silver)
• Boosted U.S.
economy
• Increased foreign
investment
• Stimulated U.S.
involvement in global
economy
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Ranching
◊ Fences
◊ Large
tracts of
land
◊ Huge
herds of
cattle
◊ Rise of
the Cattle
Barons
The Cattle Trails
◊ file:///Users/jcorn/Desktop/An
imations/Cattle%20Trails.htm
Texas Longhorn Cattle
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Durable
Tough
Ornery
Good sense of smell
- could locate
sources of
groundwater
Longhorn Cattle
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Trail Drivers
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The American Cowboy
◊ Romanticized
◊ Mythologized
◊ Lonely, rugged
existence
◊ Necessary for Cattle
business
◊ “The Virginian”
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The Cattle Drives
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◊ Romanticized,
difficult
◊ Spurred growth of
RRs
◊ Food “on the hoof”
fed growing demand
in Eastern Markets
and for Miners
◊ Depended on the
Open Range
Farming as Business
◊ Improved farming
technologies:
• Mechanical Reaper (Early
Combine)
• Barbed wire
• Dry farming
• Steel Plow
• Windmills
• Hybridization
• Seed drills
◊ Led to Bonanza farms:
• Specialized in a single
cash crop
• The rise of ‘agribusiness’.
New Technology Eases Farm Labor
Mechanized
Reaper
Barbed Wire
Dry Farming
Steel Plow
Harrow
Reduced labor force needed for harvest. Allows farmers to maintain larger farms.
Keeps cattle from trampling crops and uses a minimal amount of lumber, which
was scarce on the plains.
Allows cultivation of arid land by using drought-resistant crops and various
techniques to minimize evaporation.
Allows farmers to cut through dense, root-choked sod.
Smoothes and levels ground for planting.
Steel Windmill
Powers irrigation systems and pumps up ground water.
Hybridization
Cross-breeding of crop plants, which allows greater yields and uniformity.
Improved
Communication
Grain Drill
Bonanza Farm
Keeps cattle from trampling crops and uses a minimal amount of lumber, which
was scarce on the plains.
Array of multiple drills used to carve small trenches in the ground and feed seed
into the soil.
Farms controlled by large businesses, managed by professionals, raised massive
quantities of a single cash crop.
Farming Technologies and Innovations
Bonanza Farms
10,000 acre farms
Wheat boom of the 1880s
Population in Dakotas tripled
Overproduction, high investment
costs, droughts, and reliance on onecrop agriculture brought an end to the
boom
◊ 1890 prices fell, some lost everything
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The Wild West
◊ Gunfights
◊ Outlaws (Billy
the Kid)
◊ Marshals and
Sheriffs (Wyatt
Earp)
◊ Mythical
◊ Dodge City, KS
◊ Tombstone, AZ
Myth vs. Reality
◊ Myth
◊ Reality
◊ Cowboys were
romantic, self-sufficient,
and virtuous
◊ All were white
◊ Ideal, garden of Eden
◊ Could make a fortune in
the west
◊ Western towns were
lawless
◊ Cowboys were young, poorly
paid, and did hard labor
◊ 20% were black or Mexican
◊ Harmonious race relations
on the trail
◊ Harsh conditions
◊ Most made little, if any
money
◊ There were police forces and
order in the West
The Western Myth
◊ Some (Roosevelt) saw
social Darwinism in the
west.
◊ Perceived as the last
chance to build a truly
good society
◊ Novels and accounts
glossed over hard labor
and ethnic strife.
◊ Reality, western settlement
depended more upon
companies and railroads
than individuals.
Frontier Myths
The Wild West: Some elements of the frontier myths were true. Yet, many wild towns
of the West calmed down fairly quickly or disappeared.
Taming the
Frontier
By the 1880s, the frontier had many churches and a variety of social groups. Major
theatrical productions toured growing western cities. The East had come West.
The End of
the Frontier
By 1890, the United States Census Bureau announced the official end of the frontier.
The population in the West had become dense, and the days of free western land
had come to an end.
In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner claimed that the frontier had played a
key role in forming the American character. The Turner Thesis, as his view came to
be called, stated that frontier life created Americans who were socially mobile, ready
for adventure, bent on individual self-improvement, and committed to democracy.
Turner’s
Frontier
Thesis
Myths in
Literature,
Shows, and
Song
The Wild West remains fixed in popular culture and continues to influence how
Americans think about themselves. Many stereotypes–exaggerated or
oversimplified descriptions of reality, and frontier myths persist today despite our
deeper understanding of the history of the American West.
◊ Still lives in
the
American
imagination
◊ Depicted in
movies
◊ TV shows
(Frontier
House,
Little House
on the
Prairie,
Gunsmoke,
etc.)
The Frontier Myth
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