Full Answer
How did westward expansion affect the United States?
The westward expansion of the United States is one of the defining themes of 19th-century American history, but it is not just the story of Jefferson’s expanding “empire of liberty.” On the contrary, as one historian writes, in the six decades after the Louisiana Purchase, westward expansion “very nearly destroy [ed] the republic.”.
How did railroads impact the development of the west?
The railroads opened up the West not only to settlement but to the world market, making it possible to ship meat and crops to distant cities and even across oceans.
How did the government help the settlers migrate west?
These government projects ultimately helped new settlers migrate west and later helped move their western farm produce to market in the eastern states. Many Americans, both rich and poor, idealized Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1829, because he had started life in a log cabin in American frontier territory.
What was the impact of the westward migration of pioneers?
Like Thomas Jefferson, many of these pioneers associated westward migration, land ownership and farming with freedom. In Europe, large numbers of factory workers formed a dependent and seemingly permanent working class; by contrast, in the United States, the western frontier offered the possibility of independence and upward mobility for all.
How did the westward expansion affect the economy?
Because slavery was the backbone of America it helped the expansion a lot. Moving westward helped expand the amount of agriculture that was being produced there for it was helping boost the economy because they were able to make more money because they had more land.
What had the greatest economic impact on westward expansion?
The California Gold Rush was a major factor in expansion west of the Mississippi. That westward expansion was greatly aided by the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, and passage of the Homestead Act in 1862.
What was the economy of the West in the 1800s?
From 1800 to 1860 men and women moved into western cities to find new opportunities and new profits. Exchanging raw materials such as crops, minerals, and animal skins for manufactured goods, or providing services to outlying communities, became the primary economic roles of these urban areas.
How did the government impact the settlement of the West?
Signed into law by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, the Homestead Act encouraged westward migration and settlement by providing 160-acre tracts of land west of the Mississippi at little cost, in return for a promise to improve the land.
What were the benefits of Westward Expansion?
Gold rush and mining opportunities (silver in Nevada) The opportunity to work in the cattle industry; to be a “cowboy” Faster travel to the West by railroad; availability of supplies due to the railroad. The opportunity to own land cheaply under the Homestead Act.
How did Westward Expansion benefit farmers?
Overview. Land, mining, and improved transportation by rail brought settlers to the American West during the Gilded Age. New agricultural machinery allowed farmers to increase crop yields with less labor, but falling prices and rising expenses left them in debt.
How did the American economy change during the 1800s?
In the mid-1800s the industrial revolution shifted jobs from the farm to the factory. During the industrial revolution, entrepreneurs invented machines to make production faster and cheaper. Factories opened along rivers and in cities. Many people moved from farms to cities to get jobs.
What was the economy of the West in the 1850s?
The abundant natural resources of the West attracted Americans during the nineteenth century. Mining, farming, and cattle ranching became major industries, and the growth of the railroads facilitated trade with the East.
How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period?
How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period? Farming and improved farming, More Land, Small farmers oriented to national and international markets, and giant agricultural enterprises. Cowboys a symbol of free life. Technology encouraged by eastern and European companies.
What was the settlement of the West?
The Western Settlement (Old Norse: Vestribygð [ˈwestreˌbyɣð]) was a group of farms and communities established by Norsemen from Iceland around 985 in medieval Greenland.
What problems did settlers face when they moved out west?
Once they embarked, settlers faced numerous challenges: oxen dying of thirst, overloaded wagons, and dysentery, among others. Trails were poorly marked and hard to follow, and travelers often lost their way. Guidebooks attempted to advise travelers, but they were often unreliable.
What problems did the movement westward bring?
The movement westward brought many problems including the great suffering as the Natives lost their land. The Natives were forced out of their home to Oklahoma. The movement also leads to an end to slavery. African Americans were free and became citizens.
What was the economy of the West in the 1850s?
The abundant natural resources of the West attracted Americans during the nineteenth century. Mining, farming, and cattle ranching became major industries, and the growth of the railroads facilitated trade with the East.
How did the market economy and westward expansion intensify the institution of slavery?
How did the market economy and westward expansion intensify the institution of slavery? There was a demand for more free labor in order to employ, move, and prepare production. REVIEW QUESTION 4.
How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period?
How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period? Farming and improved farming, More Land, Small farmers oriented to national and international markets, and giant agricultural enterprises. Cowboys a symbol of free life. Technology encouraged by eastern and European companies.
Which of the following was a major economic shift in the North in the early 19th century?
Which of the following was a major economic shift in the north in the early 19th century? Better transportation, along with the rise of capitalism, altered traditional modes of production.
What factors enticed American settlers and immigrants to head west in the late nineteenth century?
Developing the West. A variety of factors enticed American settlers and immigrants to head west in the late nineteenth century. Chief among these was the availability of cheap land for farming, logging, and ranching.
How did the US government help the Westward Expansion?
The US government also helped westward expansion by granting land to railroad companies and extending telegraph wires across the country. After the Civil War, the dream of independent farms remained, but the reality was more complex.
Who owns the West?
When Thomas Jefferson imagined the ideal environment for the republic to thrive, he pictured a country made up of small farms. Independent farmers would make an honest living tilling the soil, and in doing so, they would become virtuous citizens.
Why did railroad monopolies charge so high shipping rates?
Railroad monopolies charged shipping rates so high that in some cases it was cheaper for farmers to burn their crops for fuel than to ship them to market. Farm machinery and fertilizer were also subject to steep markups. All of these factors combined to drive farmers into debt and bankruptcy.
How did the railroads change time?
The railroads opened up the West not only to settlement but to the world market, making it possible to ship meat and crops to distant cities and even across oceans. To do so, the railroads even transformed time itself: in 1883 the railroad companies coordinated their schedules by dividing the United States into four time zones, which are still the standard today.
What brought settlers to the American West during the Gilded Age?
Land, mining, and improved transportation by rail brought settlers to the American West during the Gilded Age.
What was the Westward expansion?
Westward expansion: economic development. In the late nineteenth century, the West developed into a modern agricultural machine--at the expense of farmers.
What did the South buy from the farmers?
Planters in the South bought land from small farmers who frequently moved farther west. Soon, large southern plantations supported by labor stolen from enslaved African people made some American families very wealthy.
Why did many Americans, both rich and poor, idealize Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1829, answer?
Many Americans, both rich and poor, idealized Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1829, because he had started life in a log cabin in American frontier territory. President Jackson (1829–1837) op posed the successor to Hamilton's National Bank, who he believed favored the entrenched interests of the eastern states against the west.
What was the first crop in the South?
Cotton, at first a small-scale crop in the American South, boomed following Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the machine that separated raw cotton from the seeds and other waste. The production of the crop for use had historically relied on arduous manual separation, but this machine revolutionized the industry and in turn, the local economy that eventually came to rely on it. Planters in the South bought land from small farmers who frequently moved farther west. Soon, large southern plantations supported by labor stolen from enslaved African people made some American families very wealthy.
What did Jackson do when he was elected?
When he was elected for a second term, Jackson opposed renewing the bank's charter and Congress supported him. These actions shook confidence in the nation's financial system, and business panics occurred in both 1834 and 1837.
Did economic dislocations slow the growth of the United States?
But these periodic economic dislocations did not curtail rapid U.S. economic growth during the 19th century. New inventions and capital investment led to the creation of new industries and economic growth. As transportation improved, new markets continuously opened to take advantage.
Did the American government help the settlers move west?
It wasn't just small southern farmers who were moving west. Whole villages in the eastern colonies sometimes uprooted and established new settlements looking for new opportunity in the more fertile farmland of the Midwest. While western settlers are often depicted as fiercely independent and strongly opposed to any kind of government control or interference, these first settlers actually received quite a bit of government support, both directly and indirectly. For example, the American government began investing in infrastructure out west including government-funded national roads and waterways, such as the Cumberland Pike (1818) and the Erie Canal (1825). These government projects ultimately helped new settlers migrate west and later helped move their western farm produce to market in the eastern states.
Did railroads get grants?
Like canals and roads, railroads received large amounts of government assistance in their early building years in the form of land grants. But unlike other forms of transportation, railroads also attracted a good deal of domestic and European private investment. In these heady days, get-rich-quick schemes abounded.
What was the Westward Migration?
Westward migration was an essential part of the republican project , he argued, and it was Americans’ “ manifest destiny ” to carry the “great experiment of liberty” to the edge of the continent: to “overspread and to possess the whole of the [land] which Providence has given us,” O’Sullivan wrote.
Where did the American settlers move to?
Thousands of people crossed the Rockies to the Oregon Territory, which belonged to Great Britain, and thousands more moved into the Mexican territories of California, New Mexico and Texas. In 1837, American settlers in Texas joined with their Tejano neighbors (Texans of Spanish origin) and won independence from Mexico.
Why was the Mexican American war so unpopular?
That same month, Polk declared war against Mexico, claiming (falsely) that the Mexican army had “invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil.” The Mexican-American War proved to be relatively unpopular, in part because many Northerners objected to what they saw as a war to expand the “slaveocracy.” In 1846, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot attached a proviso to a war-appropriations bill declaring that slavery should not be permitted in any part of the Mexican territory that the U.S. might acquire. Wilmot’s measure failed to pass, but it made explicit once again the sectional conflict that haunted the process of westward expansion.
What was the Missouri compromise?
The acquisition of this land re-opened the question that the Missouri Compromise had ostensibly settled: What would be the status of slavery in new American territories? After two years of increasingly volatile debate over the issue, Kentucky Senator Henry Clay proposed another compromise. It had four parts: first, California would enter the Union as a free state; second, the status of slavery in the rest of the Mexican territory would be decided by the people who lived there; third, the slave trade (but not slavery) would be abolished in Washington, D.C.; and fourth, a new Fugitive Slave Act would enable Southerners to reclaim runaway slaves who had escaped to Northern states where slavery was not allowed.
What was the Westward Expansion and the Compromise of 1850?
Westward Expansion and the Compromise of 1850. Bleeding Kansas. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to New Orleans, and it doubled the size of the United States.
What did Jefferson believe about the Westward Expansion?
To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health: He believed that a republic depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms.
How many square miles did the Gadsden Purchase add to the United States?
Did you know? In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase added about 30,000 square miles of Mexican territory to the United States and fixed the boundaries of the “lower 48” where they are today.
Early Americans Move West
President Andrew Jackson's Economic Influence
- Many Americans, both rich and poor, idealized Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1829, because he had started life in a log cabin in American frontier territory. President Jackson (1829–1837) opposed the successor to Hamilton's National Bank, who he believed favored the entrenched interests of the eastern states against the west. When he was elected for a second t…
American 19th Century Economic Growth in The West
- But these periodic economic dislocations did not curtail rapid U.S. economic growthduring the 19th century. New inventions and capital investment led to the creation of new industries and economic growth. As transportation improved, new markets continuously opened to take advantage. The steamboat made river traffic faster and cheaper, but the devel...