Social Studies Chapter 8 Flashcards
What is the main physical feature in the Midwest?
Plains
What is most of the Middle West’s land used for?
farming and ranching
Name 2 bodies of water formed part of the boundary of the Northwest Territory?
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
What event doubled the size of the United States in 1803?
Louisiana Purchase
What process formed the Great Lakes thousands of years ago?
the moving and melting of glaciers
What advantage made steamboats a better transportation method than flatboats?
Steamboats could go upstream as well as downstream
How did the Midwest get settled?
The region was settled in in stages as different parts of the became part of the US
Who were the first people to live in the Middle West region?
Native Americans
The Midwest region has many __________ industries.
Food processing, steel, and furniture
The climate of the Middle West is ______________.
- warm and wet in the summer.
- cold and snowy in the winter.
- sometimes severe with tornadoes and heavy lake effect snow
The auto industry did well in the Midwest region because_____________.
The finished cars could be shipped out easily by water or by railroad and steel factories were close by
Many pioneers on the Great Plains frontier used _______ for their houses.
Sod
A long period of little or no rain.
Drought
A person who starts a new business
Entrepreneur
The process of making a product more quickly and cheaply using machines.
Mass Production
Rock that has mineral in it.
Ore
Changings way of life to survive in a new environment.
adapt
Movement of people from one place to another.
Migration
Place where livestock are bought, sold and held before shipment.
stockyard
set of laws
ordinance
Person who settles first in a place
Pioneer
Also known as the Corn Belt.
Central Plains
Has a lot of soybean and dairy farming.
Central and Great Plains
Part of the Interior Plains
Central and Great Plains
Is drier
Great Plains
Eastern side of the plains
Central
Wheat is the main crop
Great Plains
Geography - Droughts
A drought is a period of little or no rain. In the 1930s the southern Great Plains had the worst drought in the history of the US. For nearly 10 years, there was little rain for farmers to grow crops there. The drought caused the soil to dry out. The strong winds below the dry soil away in huge dust storms. These storms filled homes with dirt and destroyed farms. The entire area became known as the Dust Bowl.
Resources - fertile soil
The climate and soil of the Central Plains is perfect for growing crops. Crops has long been an important crop. In fact, much of the region is know was the Corn Belt. Farmers there grow soybean too. In the Great Plains the drier climate and harder soil are good for growing wheat. Most of this wheat is used to make flour because of this, the Great Plains are sometimes called America’s breadbasket.
History - Sioux
The Sioux were one of the many Native American groups in what is now the Midwest. They lived in villages along the rivers and lakes of the Central Plains. There, they fished the waters and hunted in the forests. Some also farmed. When the European settlers came to the area the Sioux moved west and had to adapt to their new ways of life, to survive in the new environment.
Growth - Steamboat
In the late 1700s and the early 1800s Robert Fulton an others developed a steamboat. A steamboat is a boat powered by a steam engine. The engine turns the boat’s large paddle wheel, causing the boat to move. Steamboats could travel upstream. They also traveled downstream must faster then flatboats. Trips that took weeks or months, took only days by steamboat. The coat of shipping goods dropped, and river travel increased.
