The document discusses the impact of railroads on the development of the American West in the late 19th century, including the cattle industry, transcontinental railroads, immigration, and elimination of buffalo herds. It also summarizes key aspects of Western expansion like the decline of the cowboy way of life, legendary figures like Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane, the mining industry, conflicts over land use, and the myths and realities of pioneer life on the plains.

1. By E. Bosland, Kinnelon
High School

3. Railroad Construction

4. Promontory Point, UT
(May 10, 1869)

5. Railroads Impact
• Cattle industry
– Cowboys, diet, refrigerated cars
– Cowtowns (Dodge, Tombstone, Sedalia, Denver, Kansas City)
• Transcontinental- One of the Greatest achievements in US history
– Central Pacific- Union Pacific
– Gold Spike
– Unified East and West
– Encouraged and exploited immigration (irish, Chi)
– Time Zones- Prof. Charles Dowd- backed by RR
– Elimination of Buffalo Herds-

7. T he F all of the C owboy
Frederick Remington

8. T he B ronc B uster
Frederick Remington

9. William “Buffalo Bill”
Cody’s Wild West Show

10. Legendary Female Western
Characters
Calamity Jane Annie Oakley

11. “Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull

12. hollywood

16. The Traditional View of the West

18. Colt .45 Revolver
God didn’t make men equal.
Colonel Colt did!

19. Legendary Gunslingers & Train
Robbers
Jesse James
Billy the Kid

20. Dodge City Peace Commission,
1890

22. Prospecting

23. M in in g
C e nte rs :
19 0 0

24. Anaconda Copper Mining Co. (MT)

25. Mining (“Boom”) Towns--
Now Ghost Towns
Calico, CA

27. Long Horns
• Long legs
• Disease resistant
• rugged

28. The Range Wars
Sheep Cattle
Herders Ranchers

29. The
Cattle
Trails

30. Land Use: 1880s

32. Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900

33. Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900

34. Black
“Exoduster”
Homesteader
s

35. Black Cowboys

36. The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great
Plains

37. A Romantic View

38. The Buffalo Soldiers & the Indian Wars

39. The “Chinese Question”
 Exclusion Act (1882)
- Oriental Exclusion Act
- Chinese Exclusion Act

41. Homestead Act
• 1862
• 160 acres for 5 years of improvement
• 500,000 families took advantage
• Best land taken by speculators and RR
• Sooners- Land Race

42. • Oklahoma, once
Indian terr. Is opened Oklahoma land race
for settlement- 4 land
races determine
ownership
• Sooners. - People that
snuck across line b/f
line start of race
• Last real breakdown
of frontier.

43. • Western boosters popularized the myth of the
Garden to encourage settlement during the
second half of the nineteenth century.
Garden myth
• Charles Dana Wilber was one of the leading
advocates of this myth He based this claim on
"scientific" evidence that purportedly proved
that "rain follows the plow.”
• The credibility of the Garden myth was
strengthened by the unusually high levels of
rainfall recorded throughout the 1870s and
early 1880s, which further encouraged
settlement.
• Families began to leave with signs on their
wagons, "In God we trusted, in Kansas we
busted."

45. God speed the plow.... By this wonderful provision,
which is only man's mastery over nature, the clouds
are dispensing copious rains ... [the plow] is the
instrument which separates civilization from
savagery; and converts a desert into a farm or
garden.... To be more concise, Rain follows the plow.
Charles Dana Wilber
Rain Follows the Plow!

47. Ah, Nebraska Land, Sweet
Nebraska Land!
Upon thy burning soil I
stand.
And I look away, across
the plains,
And I wonder why it never
rains.

48. Plains Problems
• Lack of precipitation
• Very Windy- tornados
• Lack of building materials – wood
• Very cold- short growing season
• Dense Sod

49. What is the Message of this Picture?

50. The Realty--A Pioneer’s Sod House,
SD

51. Tornado Alley

52. New Agricultural Technology
(solutions)
Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]
“Prairie Fan”
Water Pump

53. Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden

54. More New Tech.
Russian Wheat McCormick Reaper
•Disease Resistant
•Tolerates cold weather
•Can handle drought

55. Frederick Jackson Turner
The Significance of the Frontier
in American Society (1893)

56. Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890

58. Movement west
• Solutions to Indian Problem- Assimilation,
Relocation, extermination.- TJ
• Black Hawk war- 1832-
– Western Illinois, Iowa
– Black Hawk- chief of Sawk tribe
– Four month war
– Ends with massacre of 200
– Froced onto rez.
• Cherokee- Trail of Tears- AJ- 1835

59. Movement west
• Trail of tears- 1835-AJ
• Fort Laramie treaty-1851
– Native control of central plains
– Natives promise to not attack passing settlers
– Annual payments to natives
– Ignored by US and Settlers
– Natives forced onto rez.

60. Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1851)
Utes
-Worthless land,
-Out of way of RR
-Destroyed by violent
prospectors
-Horace Greeley
-Horse
Colorado culture.
Gold Rush (1859)

61. Colonel John Chivington
Kill and scalp all, big and
little!
Sandy Creek, CO Massacre
November 29, 1864
300 plus Cheyenne and
Arapahoe. slaughtered in
their sleep.
Survivors paid off to keep
silent

62. 2nd Treaty of
Ft. Laramie (1868)
Treaty of Medicine
Lodge Creek (1867)
Reservation
Policy

63. Gold Found in
the Black Hills
of the Dakota
Territory!
1874

64. • West Point- low in class Custer!!
• Fought at 1st bull run- 1861
• Brig. Gen. in 1863
• Present at Gettysburg
• Chased Lee w/ Grant in 1865
• Fought w/ Mexicans in their
Revolution
• Punished for infidelities w/
superiors wife.
• Forced to serve in West and
protect railways.
• Poor relations with Indians.

65. The Battle of Little Big Horn
1876
Gen. George
Armstrong
Custer
Chief Sitting Bull

67. Hollywood

68. Battle Result
• Custer- 7th Cav. Destroyed
• 260 dead soldiers
• Solidifies US popular opinion against natives
• Victory?
• Sitting bull, Crazy horse, Custer b/c legends.

69. Chief Joseph I will fight
no more forever!
Nez Percé tribal
retreat (1877)

70. • Oliver Howard-US cav Gen.
• Nez Pierce
– 800, mostly elderly, children and women
– Traveled 1700 miles
– Pursued by 2000 soldiers
– Joseph surrenders within 35 miles of Canadian
border.

71. Geronimo, Apache Chief: Hopeless
Cause

72. Helen Hunt Jackson
A Century of Dishonor (1881)

73. Dawes Severalty Act (1887):
Assimilation Policy
Carlisle Indian School, PA

75. Dawes Severalty Act
• 1887
• Abandon the practice of dealing with natives
as separate nations
• Designed to break up tribes-which many felt
stood in the way of assimilation
• 160 acre plots for per family
• Citizenship tro those that stayed on it 25 years
• 47 million acres given to indians, 90 million
left over

76. Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”, 1890

77. Ghost dance
• Resurrection
• Fervor
• Crazy horse/Sitting bull
• Outlawed by whites

78. Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body
Wounded Knee, SD, 1890

79. Wounded knee Dec. 29, 1891
• Last major indian event, considered the end of
hostile actions
• Began with Col. Forsyth attempting to disarm
the Sioux.
• Gun discharges, US Cav opens fire at close
range with cannon and gatling guns.
• 88 man, 44 women, and 18 children killed

82. Battlefield orphan

83. Indian Reservations Today

84. Crazy Horse Monument:
Black Hills, SD
Lakota Chief

85. Korczak Ziolkowski, Sculptor
Crazy Horse Monument
His vision of the finished
memorial.

86. Mt. Rushmore: Black Hills, SD

87. Native Stereotypes
• Espera Oscar DeCorti

88. Commercial agriculture
• Mass production of factories being applied to
farms.
• Commercial farmers specialized in cash crops,
not self sufficiency
– Makes them dependent on others.
• Railroads
• Banks, interest rates
– Unlike industrialists, they could not control
production rates and price

89. Farm Overproduction
• Massive growth of farming in many nations
led to a increase in “supply”
• Prices plummet
• Farmers all over the world can ship their
product more easily because of
communication and transportation
achievements.
• 1880’s many farms mortgaged and in debt to
bank.

90. Farmers Grievances
• Railroads- RR charges variable rates on goods,
– farmers paid more.
– Certain regions paid more
– Also controlled storage areas at terminals and
charged high rates
• Banks
– High interest, not enough money to pay off debt-
foarmers supported more money- inflation
– Prices- Too little for their crop, too much for
things they bought.

91. The Agrarian Malaise
• Cultural solitude/isolation on plains
• Poor public services education
• Urbanization-(hayseeds)
• A new sense of sectionalism

93. Destruction of the Buffalo Herds
The near extinction of the buffalo.

94. National Parks

95. Ye llo w s t o n e N a t io n a l
P a rk
First national park
established in 1872.

96. Conservation Movement
John Muir
With President
Theodore Roosevelt

97. Sierra Club
Founded in 1892