HIST 106 2nd Edition Lecture 3 Outline of Last Lecture I Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War of 1877 II The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee III Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 IV Homestead Act V National Declaration of 1902 Outline of Current Lecture I Cowboys II End of Range III Farming IV Challenges in the West V End of the West Current Lecture Cowboys o Open range This was good because there was a lot of area to graze the cattle but not so good because there was no way to transport them to bigger cities to get slaughtered and sell Many of the cattle companies began using the chiasm trail to take their cattle through the Chiasm trail Chiasm trail trail that started in Texas went through Oklahoma and ended in Kansas Would sell their cattle in Kansas and from Kansas the product would get sold to a bigger city like Chicago o Ethnicity The normal perspective of a cowboy is a white male while in reality only about 50 of cowboys were white Most of them were Hispanic and cowboys were a way to have minorities have a job o Joseph McCoy Developed the idea of shipping cattle by rail but it is not until 1857 that this idea gets put into action This also lead to the idea of having refrigerated train cars to help keep the beef fresh Cattle raising was a very profitable industry because cattle was sold to the cattle rancher for 4 per head and the beef sold for much more when it was in Kansas and even more than that when it was sold to a bigger city End of the Range o Joseph Glidden Was the guy who invented barbwire Prior to this point the only options for fencing were wooden fences and stone walls Out on the open plain there are not many trees so there is really no way to make a wooden fence when there is no wood o Barbwire 1873 Barbwire really took off because it kept your cattle in and did not hurt them Many people started to fence in their properties and this was a big problem because it was not so easy to herd cattle in a maze like fashion This led to railroads being formed in the south and the cattle was immediately put onto railroad cars and sent to Kansas without having cowboys herding them o Winters of 1886 and 1887 These winters were really harsh and many of the cattle died in these winters from starvation and many of the cattle would get stuck in a place they could not get out of and freeze to death By 1900 the amount of sheep outnumbered cattle The fall of the cattle industry lead to conflicts between individuals and states over grazing land Farming the other big industry beside cattle herding o Very important in this period of time Founding fathers wanted to see a country where people own their own land and the whole country was based on farming The federal government will see to this in the Homestead act and will come out with the Merrill act Merrill act make land grant universities and the three things that these universities had to do were teach agriculture mechanics and military science A lot of farmers will start to move west and many immigrants will be channeled out west Between 1870 and 1890 the population of the US will triple because there is a lot more harvest and food is cheaper People will not die of malnutrition will have more immunity to disease and the stature of the people will increase Challenges in the west o Water There are a lot of people who settle in western Nebraska because the land is really nice there but they fail because they do not have water There was not the technology to make canals and aquifers so they have to rely on the natural water o Trees There were no trees to make wood to build houses so many people had to live in dug out homes Dug out homes are homes that are built in holes in a hill or straight in the ground o Labor Farming was not easy because you had to get up early and sleep late and had to find labor that was cheap ex Kids People had large families so they could put their families to work and cultivate enough crop o Harsh winters and harsh summers Gets below 20 in the winter and above 105 in the summer not ideal conditions for farming A new variety of European wheat was invented and could be grown and harvested in areas that normal wheat could not be harvested winter wheat Could now split their land into wheat they could harvest in the summer and wheat they could harvest in the winter so income was year round o Technology Iron plow very useful because it plowed the land better than the normal plow and was much faster Bale press helps you make bales of hay and even if it snows your livestock can still have food meaning that your livestock will live through the winter Harvester helps the farmer harvest stuff does the harvesting for you so you do not have to harvest the crop by hand Bonanza farms large tracks of land owned by a company or corporation that can be over 50 000 acres The beginning of corporate farming Allows harvesting to be much faster because there were many people who were hired to harvest They grew one cash crop and would flood the market the only problem was if there was a bad season it would be the end of the bonanza farm o Farmer depression The grange helps farmers socialize and not be depressed when they are alone in the west They would also hold lectures for farmers that would help them grow crop better and update them on new farming technologies The collapse of the individual farmer will occur in the 1880s due to droughts that will drive many farmers out of business There will also be a decline in prices for agricultural products due to increase in supply During this time there was a beginning to a world wide agricultural market so agricultural goods could be shipped in By the 1890s the US was exporting agricultural goods due to the rise of the corporate farms End of the West o Turner s thesis 1893 Said that the west had been settled because there was a huge drop off of people that had been going west and that was not the case anymore not as many people moving west as they had been The west exemplified the values of the US as the west was strong independent and democratic This thesis lead to the idea of American exceptionalism the idea that the US is different and special o The 1890 census declared that the frontier had ended and that the west was settled over 30 of the US population lived in the West of Mississippi
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