Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Farming, Ranching and Mining in the West

For Wednesday, 1/25; Railroads Open the West: Read pages 530-538 & 604-611.
1. What effect did railroads have on populating the West and promoting the economy there.
2. How did the government enable and support the railroads?
3. How did railroads abuse their clients, investors, and the government?
4. How did the government try to control these abuses? Were they successful?
5. How and why did cattle-raising evolve from the “Long Drive” to an organized “big business?”
6. What were the factors that led farmers to settle the West? How did government laws, the military, railroads, economic and environmental factors impact this movement?
7. Was the Homestead Act successful? Why?
8. What obstacles did the western environment present to farmers? How were they overcome? What problems were not overcome?
9. What was Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis?” Was it a realistic and accurate explanation of American history?


For Thursday, 1/26; Success and Defeat for the American Farmer: Read 612-625.
1. How and why did farming become an “industrialized” big business? What effect did this have on farmers and farming?
2. How did immigration affect the West? From what countries did immigrants to the West come?
3. Why did so many farmers get caught up in a cycle of debt that they could not get out of?
4. How and why did farmers organize themselves for their benefit?
5. Were the National Grange, the Farmer’s Alliance and the Populists successful? Why?


Know the significance of the following:
Union Pacific Railroad; Central pacific Railroad; Land grants; Credit Mobilier scandal; Cornelius Vanderbilt; Wabash case; Interstate Commerce Commission; “49ers”; Comstock Lode; “Long Drive”; Homestead Act; 100th Meridian; dry farming; “sooners”; Frederick Jackson Turner; Montgomery Ward Catalog; “combine” harvester; “bonanza farms”; National Grange; Farmer’s Alliance; Populist Party; William McKinley; William Jennings Bryant; Cross of Gold Speech; “gold standard

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