HIST 1312 1st Edition Lecture 2 Outline of Last Lecture I Associations to the Civil War a Medicine b Spies c Soldier Life d New Technology e Death and Devastation II Reconstruction Outline of Current Lecture I West Affect on America II Why the West was Attractive a Land III Images from the West a Fictional characters b Rise of big business c Cowboys IV The Native Population V Closing of the Frontier Current Lecture I West Affect on America The American West played an increasingly significant role in United States history between 1865 and 1890 o Keep in mind this is a time period of only 25 years These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute o Anglo Americans settled 430 million acres of land and overwhelmed Native Americans in Indian Wars o Ten new states entered the Union bringing the total number of states to forty eight by 1912 o Three commercial empires rose and fell mining especially gold and silver farming cattle Frederick Jackson Turner is considered the fore father of American Exceptionalism o American Exceptionalism the belief that America is great and unique and better than all the other countries of the world o Major points conceived by Turner 1 The West was not a geographic place but a frontier process A receding frontier line the point where savagery meets civilization The line moved westward in time very theoretical 2 American history was largely a tale of people leaving settled areas for the frontier and their struggle to survive in new lands According to Turner this epic struggle explained American development to understand Americans you have to understand the frontier 3 The frontier reproduced American democracy and individualism Required Americans to develop new institutions and free land makes free men Land was easy to get because it was extremely cheap at the time and there was a lot of it 4 Claimed that in 1890 the frontier had closed ending the first stage of American development Turner believed that the closing of the frontier created uncertainty and he questioned how Americans could maintain their democratic traditions and institutions without access to free land Owning land at that time was a part of the American dream so the lack of land forced the idea to change Land gave individuals mobility Free land was the American Dream Society o In the west Democracy would prevail prior to the settling of the west the closest Democratic states were Kentucky and Tennessee They were egalitarian states everybody is equal Thus in the west we would have egalitarian communities o Turner argued that civilization is a process in which society becomes ever more complex As complexity increases opportunities become more limited and civilization inevitably subordinates individuals to society II Why the west was so attractive Land o There are three distinct environmental regions o 1 Trans Mississippi West Middle West to 98 parallel 2 Far West Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains to Pacific Ocean 3 Great Basin Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains A myth is created in the West of a Garden of Eden Wilber described the trans Mississippi West as a lush paradise Based this claim on scientific evidence that purportedly proved that rain follows the plow Myth of the Garden undermined the idea that the West was the Great American Desert and convinced many American farmers that they could prosper on the Plains 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 But by the mid 1880s the Plains entered a period of low rainfall and massive outmigration Families began to leave with signs on their wagons In God we trusted in Kansas we busted III Images From the West Fictional characters o Americans continuing to associate with the Old West made a breeding ground for a number of fictional characters Seemed to embody rugged individualism and self reliance the yeoman farmer the wealthy cattle baron the lawless gunslinger the hardy cowboy o Wild Buffalo Bill Cody Wild Bill Hickok Wyatt Earp Billy the Kid Rise of Businesses o The emergence of the Trans Continental railroad represented the progress of the rise of big business in the West o Federal governments deal with the Indians so in essence the government the railroads and big corporations settle the west o Some settlers do fight Indians but soon after Little Big Horn the government gets on it and eradicates them Stagecoach scene is a myth o At the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 many folks were shocked to know Indians still existed in the West Cowboys o The Civil War introduced more people to beef so after the war there was a great demand for beef in the East Coast o Historians say approximately 35 000 men worked as cowboys between 1864 and 1884 This is out of 40 million people less than 1 but cowboys have a major impact movies also reinforce the idea o Of those 35 000 men approximately 25 were black 12 Mexican and 63 White o Cowboys work on cattle drives for only a 20 year period in this time they bring more than 5 000 000 head of cattle from breeding grounds in Texas to railheads in Kansas The railroads then allowed western ranchers to ship cattle to markets in the East and to Europe o The cowboy was the everyday labor on the drives The cowboy worked in close cooperation with others during the drive and under the supervision of the trail boss o Many cowboys died young on the job even though they are portrayed as tough Snake bites disease gunshot wounds falling off their horse most common death o Hired by the owner and was under contract for the drive north o Trail drives Goodnight Loving began near Weatherford Western Trail Chisholm Trail Sedalia Baxter Trail o The West was not independence and self reliance but rather cooperation and interdependence IV The Native Population The end of the Civil War and the settling of the West ushered in a massive reduction in the indigenous population of North America o Defining factor in American Indian history Historians estimate that the Indian population stood at 10 million during the 1600s and prior to that about 100 million o By 1865 however just 300 000 remained o Disease small pox and near constant warfare among Indian tribes native peoples and the United States decimated indigenous tribes during this period Many Indians die of disease without ever seeing a Euro American After