The Gilded Age

The Trans-Mississippi West

The Closing of the Frontier

“Up to and including 1890 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports.” – U.S. Census Bureau report (1890)

Manifest Destiny

Other people “must give way to our manifest destiny to overspread and possess the whole of the continent which providence has given us for the development the great experiment in liberty.”– John L. O’Sullivan (1845)

The Trans-Mississippi

Buried Treasures

1849 – gold - Ca 1859 - gold - Pikes Peak 1859 - silver - Nevada (Comstock Lode) 1862 - gold, silver, copper - Prescott, AZ 1870 - gold - Caribou Mtn, ID; Lordsburg, AZ 1872 - gold, copper, lead - Eureka, NV 1873 - gold, silver - Silverton & Leadville, CO; Globe, AZ 1874 - gold - Black Hills, SD 1875 - silver & copper - Butte, MT 1875 - gold & silver – Ouray, CO; Bonanza, ID 1878 - gold & silver - Cripple Creak, CO 1879 - gold, silver, - Tombstone, AZ 1882 - gold - Couer d’Alene, ID 1896 – gold – Yukon Territory, Alaska

Hard-Rock Miners

Cattle Driving

Homestead Act of 1862

Could settle 160 acres Pay small fee Granted full title after 5 years continuous farming Could also buy land outright for reasonable price

($1.25/acre)

Plowing the Prairie

Caterpillar - 1904

John Deere Plow – 1890

Tractor pulling plow - 1910

Growth in Agriculture

Wheat production 1867 = 211,000,000 bushels 1900 = 599,000,000 bushels

Productivity improvements 1840: 35 hrs labor to produce 15 bushels wheat 1900: 15 hrs to produce the same amount

Wheat exports 1867 = 6,000,000 bushels 1900 = 102,000,000 bushels

Life on the Prairie

It was hell on women and horses.

Railroads: Agents of Expansion

In the East, railroads had followed existing patterns of population

In the West, railroads preceded settlement Needed to bring in settlers (customers) Conducted massive advertising campaigns aimed at

easterners & Europeans >2,000,000 Europeans settled in Great Plains (1870-1900) Most of native-born settlers came from states bordering

Mississippi River

Gave railroads great economic and political power

Attracting Population

“The poor should come to Colorado, because here they can by industry and frugality better their condition. The rich should come here because they can more advantageously invest their means than in any other region. The young should come here to get an early start on the road to wealth.”

- Colorado immigration ad

Attracting Population

Exodusters heading West