Western Jobs-Agricultural Issues Flashcards
When was gold discovered in California?
late 1840s
where was gold discovered in 1858?
Pike’s Peak CO
How long did it normally take before the Fifty Niners took all the gold?
a month or two
What is the Comstock Lode?
Nevada
1859
Large amount of gold and silver worth more that $340 million was found there
Where were the smaller lucky strikes for gold?
MO
ID
other western states
What type of government seemed to rule in gold towns and what resulted?
Anarchy
Ghost towns
What happened after all the surface gold was found?
ore breaking machinery was brought in to break the gold bearing guartz (very expensive to do)
What was the first state to allow women suffrage and when?
WY 1869
What other states allowed for women suffrage and when?
UT 1870
CO 1893
ID 1896
What did mining also add to American arts?
folklore and American literature (Bret Harte and Mark Twain)
As cities back east boomed in the later half of the 19 centurary, what demand increased sharply?
food and meat
The problem of marketing meat profitably to public markets and cities were solved by what?
new transcontiental rr
What was cattle being shipped under to the stockyards?
beef barons like Swifts or Armours
What industry sprang up?
meat packaging
What is the Long Drive?
emerged to become a feeder of the slaughterhouses
Texas cowboys herded cattle across desolate land to railorad termals in KS
What were famous cattle stopovers?
Dodge City
Abilene
Ogallala
Cheyenne
Who was the Marsall for Dodge City who helped to maintain order?
Wyatt Earp
Who was the Marshal for Abilene?
James B Hickok
What did RRs do to the cattle hearding buisness?
made it prosper then destroyed it
brought sheepherders and homesteaders
Who invented the barbed wire fence and why?
Samuel Glidden
erased the open range days of the long cattle week
When was the blizzard that left cattle starving and freezing?
1886-1887
What was the first organization of cattle breeders?
Wyoming Stock Growers Association
What was the Homestead Act?
1862 free 160 acres in the west for: living on it 5 years improvement paying a $30 registration fee
It allowed folks to get land after only 6 months residence for $1.25 an acre
What did the government do before the Homestead Act?
sold land for revenue
How many families went to live in the west
500.000
Why was the Homestead Act considered a hoax?
dry Great Plains, 160 acres was rarely enough for a family to earn a living and survive
families were often forced to give up their land early due to droughts, bad land, and lack of necessities
How many times did land end up in the hands of land grabbing promoters than in real farmers?
almost 10x
How would people cheat into keep the but not live on it?
They would say they had a 12x14, but it turned out to be 12x14 inches
What did RRs such as the Northern Pacific help develop?
agriculture west, where it proved to be fertile
Due to higher wheat prices resulting from crop failures around the world, where were people pushed to?
Behind the 100th meridian (magic 20in rainfll where it was difficult to gow crops)
Who was a geologist that warned successful farming could onlybe attained by massive irrigation?
John Wesley Powell
To couteract the lack of water due to a 6 year drought in 1880s, what technique did farmers develop?
dry farming or using shallow cultivation methods to plant and farm (over time it created a pulverized surface that contributed to the dust bowl)
What saved wheat in the US and grew all over the Great Plains?
Russian species of wheat that was tough and resistant to drought
Other plants were chosen in favor of corn too
Huge fereally financed irrigation projects caused what and what resolved it?
Great American Desert
dams tamed the Missouri ad Columbia Rivers helped water the land
Where experienced a population surge as many people moved to the frontier?
Great West
What states were mitted to the Union?
CO ND SD MO WA ID WY
When was Utah allowed into the Union?
1896
By the 20th century, what remained territories?
OK
NM
AZ
What happened when OK was made available by the US gaovernment to give away former NA land?
thousands of sooners jumped the boundary line and illegally went into OK, often forcing US troops to evict them
When was OK legally opened?
April 22, 1889
When did OK becoe the Sooner State?
1907
What happened for the first time in 1890 by the US census?
They announced that a frontier was no longer discernible
The closing of the frontier inspired what?
Turner Thesis?
What is the Turer THesis?
America needed a frontier
What was the first national park and why was it opened?
Yellowstone 1872
People finally realized tht land was not infinite and they were concerned about not having a frontier
What 2 other national parks followed?
Yosemite
Sequoia
1890
What was the frontier?
state of mind and a symbol of opportunity
What is the safety valve theory?
frontier was like a safety valve for folks who, when it became too crowded in their area, could simply pack up and leave, moving west
Why did only a few city dwellers move to the west?
didnt know how to farm
west increasingly became less and less of oppurtunity for farms but was still good for hard laborers and ranchers
Who was lured into the west for free acrage?
immigrant farmers
led to city employers raisign wages to keep workers in the cities
What cities did busted farmers and fortune seekers call home?
Chicago
San Fransico
Why is the trans-Mississippi west important?
Indians made their last stand
Anglo culture collided with Hispanic culture
America faced Asia
Why were farmers increasingly producing single cash crpps?
they could concentrte on their efforts
make profit
buy manufactured goods from mail in order companies
What are some examples of mail in order companies?
Sears
Aaron Montgomery Ward 1872
What were some new farming inventions and how did they impact the farming community?
steam engine that coul pull a plow seeder harrow twine blinder combined reaper threshing sped up harvesting and lowered the number of people needed to farm
Who did farmers blame for their losses rather than their own shortcomings?
banks and railroads
What did the mechanizaiton of agriculture lead to?
enormous farms
ex: Minnesota-ND and Central Valley of CA
Who described CA as a country of plantations and estates?
Henry Geoge
What was grown in CA?
vegetables and fruits by ill paid Mexican workers who made huge profits when sold to the east
In the 1880s, when world markets rebounded, produced more crops, and forced proces down, what happened to American farmers?
ruined
What was difficult in the deflation filled time during which there was simply ot enough money to go around to everyone?
Paying back debts
What is contraction?
less money in circulation
What was the fall of farmers in the late 1800s simular to?
King Cotton during the Civil War
What events made the late 1880s and early 1890s disasterous to farmers?
droughts
grasshopper plagued
searing heat
How did the city, state, and federal government added to the failure of farmers?
ridding them off by making them pay painful taxes when they could least afford it
What items contributed to the failure of farmers?
railroads (fixing freight prices) middleman (taking huge cuts in profit) various harvester barbed fense fertilizer trusts
What percent of the US pop was farmers even though they were disorganized in 1890?
50%
Western Indians offered strong resistance to white exansion through their effective use off…
Repeating rifles and horses
Intertribal warfare among Plains Indians increased in the late 19th century…
growing competition for the rapidaly dwindling hunting grounds
The federal government’s attempt to confine Indians to certain areas through formal treaties was largely ineffective…
the nomatic Plains Indians larely rejected the idea of formal authority and defined territory
The warfare that led up to the Battle of Little Horn was set off by…
White intrusions after the discovery of gold in the sacred Black Hills
Indian reistance was finally subdued because…
the coming of the railroad led to the destruction of the buffalo and the Indians way of life
The federal government attempted to force Indiands away from their traditionl values and customs by…
Creating a network of children’s boarding schools and white field matrons
Both the mining and cattle frontiers saw…
a movement from induvidual operations to large scale corporate businesses
The problem of developing agriculture in the arid West was solved most successfully through…
the use of irrigation from dammed western rivers
THe safety valve theory of the frontier holds that…
Unemployed city dwellers could move west and thus relieve lobor conflict in the east
What were 3 factors that made the trans MIssissippi west a unique part of the America frontier experience?
Large # of Indians, Hispanics, Asian American in the region
The scale and severity of enviormental challenges in the arid climate
The large role of the fedral government in economy and social development
By the 1880s, most western farmers faced hard times ebcause…
They were forced to sell grain at low prices in a depressed world market
What was among the political goals advocated by the Populist prty?
nationalizing the rr, telegraph, and telephone
Graduated income tax
Free and unlimited coinage of silver money
The US governemnt’s response to the Pullmen strike aroused great anger from organizatied labor because…
it semed to represent government by injunction designed to destroy labor unions
William Jennings Bryan gained the democratic nomination in 1896 because he strongly advocated…
unlimitd coinage of silver in order to inflate currency
McKinley defeated Bryan primarily because he was able to win the support of…
eastern wage earners and city dwellers
What was the major northern plains indian nation that fought and eventually lost a bitter war against the US army 1876-77
Sioux
Southwestern Indian tribe led by Geronimo that carried out some of the last fighting against white conquest
Apaches
Generlly poor areas where vanquished Indiansa were eventualy confined under federal control
Reservations
Indian religious movement, originating out of the sacred Sun Dance that the federal goernment attemepted to stamp out in 1890
Ghost Dance
Federl law that atttemepted to dissolve tribal ladholding and establish Indians as individual farmers
Dawes Severalty Act
Huge silver and gold deposit that brought wealth and statehood of NV
Comstock Lode
General term for the herding of cattle from the grassy plains to the rr terminals of KS, NB, WY
Long Drive
Federl law that offered generous lad opportunities to poorer farmers but also provided the unscrupulous with opportunities for hoaxes and fraud
Homestead Act
Improved type of fencing that enabled farmers to enclose land on the treeless plains
Barbed Wire
Former Indian Territory where sooners tried to get the jump on boomers when it was opened for settlement in 1889
Oklahoma
Third political party tha emerged in the 1890s to express rural grievances and mount mahor attacts on the democarats and republicans
Populist
Popular pamphlet written by William Hope Harvey that portrayed pro silver arguments trumphing over the traditional views of bankers ad economics professors
Coin FInancial School
Bitter labor conflict in Chicago that brought federal intervention and the jailing of union leader Eugene V Debs
Pullman Strike
Spectacular convention speech by a young pro silver advocate that brought him the democratic presidentail nomination in 1896
cross of gold speech
Popular term for those who favored the status quo in metal money and opposed the pro silver Bryanies in 1896
Gold Bugs
What was the effect of THe encroachment of white settlement and the violaiton of treaties with indians?
Nearly constant warfare with plains indians from 1868 to 1890
What was the effect of Railroad building, disease, and the destruction fo the buffalo?
Decimated Indian populaitons and hastened their defeat at the hands of advancing whites
What was the effect of Reformers attempts to make NA conform to white ways?
Futher undermined NA traditional tribal culture and moral
What was the effect of the coming of big business mining and stock raising to the west?
Ended the romantic, colorful, era of the miners and the cattemen’s frontier
What was the effect of Dry farming, barbed wire, and irrigation?
Made it possible to farm the dry, treeless areas of the Great Plains and the west
What was the effect of The passing of the frontier of 1890?
Created new psychological and economic problems for a naiton accustomed to a boundlessly open west
What was the effect of the growing economc specialization of westward farmers?
Made settlers vulnerable to vast industrial and market forces beyond their control
What was the effect of the rise of the populist party in the early 1890s?
Threatened the two party domination of American politics by the Republican and Democrats
What was the effect of sthe economic depression that began in 1893?
Caused widespread protests and stike like the one agianst the Pullman Company in Chicago
What was the effect of the return of prosperity after 1897 and new gold discoveries in Alaska, South Africa and else where?
Effectively ended the free silver agitation and the domination of the money question in American politics
WHat is the Grange?
founded by Oliver Kelley
improve the lives of isolated farmers through
social, educational, and fraternal activities
Who led the Pullman Strike?
Eugene Debs
What is the Gold Standard Act?
McKinley kigned in 1900
paper money must be bcked by gold
All silver coins were to be eliminated from circulaition
