Contrasting the Myth and Reality of the Old West

1. Lesson 19.3: Lifein theWest Today we will compare and contrast the reality of the Old West to the myth of the Old West.

2. Vocabulary • myth – widely-held belief in something that is not true • territory – what a state usually is before it is officially admitted to the Union • transcontinental – across an entire continent

3. Check for Understanding • What are we going to do today? • What was Wyoming before it was a state? • What is a transcontinental railroad?

4. What We Already Know Tens of thousands of people poured into California, Colorado, and other western territories where gold or silver had been discovered.

5. What We Already Know When the war with Mexico ended, 80 thousand citizens of Mexico suddenly found themselves living as a minority in a nation with a strange culture, language, and legal system.

6. What We Already Know Women like Susan B. Anthony andElizabeth Cady Stanton had worked unsuccessfully for years to win voting rights for women.

7. Women in the West In their letters and diaries, many women recorded the harshness of pioneer life. Others talked about the loneliness.

8. Women in the West While men went to town for supplies or did farm chores with other men, women rarely saw their neighbors.

9. Women in the West Living miles from others, women were their family’s doctors—setting broken bonesanddelivering babies—as well as cooks.

10. Women in theWest • Western lawmakers recognized the contributions women made by giving them more legal rights than women had in the East. • In most territories, women could own property and control their own money.

11. Women in the West • In 1869, Wyoming was the first territory in the nation to give women the vote. • When Wyoming sought statehood in 1890, Congress demanded that the state repeal its woman suffrage law.

12. Women in the West • But Wyoming law-makers stood firm and Congress backed down. • By 1900, women had also won the right to vote in Colorado, Utah, and Idaho.

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14. How were women’s contributions to the West recognized by Western lawmakers? • They were given the right to vote before Eastern states did. • They were appointed to serve in several territorial governments. • Statues of prominent pioneer women were erected. • They were honored with state holidays in several states.

15. The Rise of Western Cities • Cities seemed to grow overnight in the West. Gold and silver strikes made instant cities of places like Denver and San Francisco. • These cities prospered, while much of the area around them remained barely settled.

16. The Rise of Western Cities • Miners who flocked to the “Pikes Peak” gold rush of 1859 stopped first in Denver to buy supplies. • By 1867, Denver was the capital of Colorado Territory and the state capital when Colorado was admitted into the Union.

17. The Rise of Western Cities • The key to Denver’s growth the construction of a railroad link to the transcontinental railroad. • Between 1870 and 1890, its population grew from about 4,800 residents to nearly 107,000.

18. The Rise of Western Cities • The railroads also brought rapid growth to other towns in the West. • Omaha, Nebraska, flourished as a meat processing center for cattle ranches in the area. • Portland, Oregon, became a regional market for fish, grain, and lumber.

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20. What factors led to the growth of cities in the West? • Gold and silver strikes • Tourism • Expansion of railroad lines • Introduction of the meat-packing and food processing industries • Publication of Western 'dime novels' Choose all that are true!

21. MexicanosandBuffalo Soldiers The Southwest included what are now New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and California and had been home to Mexicanos, people of Spanish descent whose ancestors had come from Mexico.

22. MexicanosandBuffaloSoldiers • After the Mexican War brought much of the Southwest under U.S. control, English-speaking white settlers began arriving. • These Anglo pioneers were attracted to the Southwest by opportunities in ranching, farming, and mining. • Their numbers grew in the 1880s and 1890s, as railroads connected the region with the rest of the country.

23. MexicanosandBuffaloSoldiers • As American settlers crowded into the South-west, the Mexicanos lost economic and political power. • Many also lost land they claimed through grants from Spain and Mexico, because U.S. courts did not usually recognize these grants.

24. MexicanosandBuffaloSoldiers • In 1866 the U.S. Army created African-American regiments to serve mainly in the West and Southwest. • Nicknamed “buffalo soldiers” by the Indians, African-American troops helped keep the peace on the frontier and fought in campaigns against the Indians.

25. MexicanosandBuffaloSoldiers Although there were still racial conflicts within the military and among civilians, Army life provided opportunity and a basic education for many African Americans.

26. TheMythof the Old West • America’s love affair with the West began just as the cowboy way of life was vanishing in the late 1800s. • To most Americans, the West had become a larger-than life place where brave men and women tested themselves against hazards of all kinds and won.

27. TheMythof the Old West • “Dime novels” told tales of daring adventure. • Even when the hero was a real person like Wyatt Earp, Kit Carson, or “Calamity Jane,” the plots were fiction or exaggerated accounts of real-life incidents.

28. TheMythof the Old West • Even serious works of fiction still showed little of the drabness of daily life in the West. • White settlers played heroic roles in novels, plays and, later, in movies. • Indiansgenerally appeared as villains, and African Americans were not even mentioned.

29. TheMythof the Old West • “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a buffalo hunter turned showman, brought the West to the rest of the world through his Wild West show. • His show, with its reenactments of frontier life, played before enthusiastic audiences across the country and in Europe.

30. The myth of the Old West overlooked the contributions of Mexicanos and African Americans to cattle ranching. • The railroads would not have been built without Chinese immigrant labor.

31. The RealWest • Western legends often highlighted the attacks by Native Americans on soldiers or settlers without considering the broken treaties that led to the conflicts. • Even the self-reliant Westerner who tamed the Wild West needed the help of the governmentto fight Indians, to help build the railroads, and to give the free land that drew homesteaders to the West.

32. Lesson 19.4a: The Farming Frontier Today we will describe farming life on the Great Plains.

33. Vocabulary sod – the thick top layer of soil Exoduster – African Americans who left the South and settled on the Kansas prairie homestead – the land your family owns and lives on

34. Check for Understanding What are we going to do today? Where did Exodusters live before relocating to the Great Plains? Can an apartment be your homestead? …Splain’ it Rucy…

35. What We Already Know After the Civil War, angry Southerners still abused African Americans and tried to keep them down.

36. What We Already Know By 1890, all the Native American tribes had been defeated and exiled to remote reservations, leaving nearly all Western lands open to white settlement.

37. What We Already Know The Great Plains weretreeless, dry, andso different from any other lands they’d ever seen, settlers initially called it the Great American Desert.

38. TheU.S.Government EncouragesSettlement For years, people had been calling on the federal government to sell Western land at low prices. Before the Civil War, Southern states fought such a policy.

39. TheU.S. Government Encourages Settlement They feared that a big westward migration would result in more non-slave states.

40. The Homestead Act Passes During the Civil War, with no Southern Congress-men to oppose it, the government passed the Homestead Act. This 1862 lawoffered160 acres of free land to anyone who would live on the land and work it for five years.

41. New Settlers Move West to Seek a New Life Thousands of African Americans left the South to escape continuing discrimination. A large group that migrated to Kansas compared themselves to the Biblical Hebrews leaving slavery in Egypt, and called themselves Exodusters.

42. The Railroads EncourageSettlement Hundreds of thousands of European immigrants – Swedes, Germans, Norwegians, Ukrainians, and Russians – also settled in the West. The immigrants often first learned about the West from agents for American railroad companies, who traveled throughout Europe with pamphlets proclaiming “Land for the Landless! Homes for the Homeless!”

43. The Railroads EncourageSettlement From 1850 to 1870, the government gave millions of acres of public land to the railroads to promote railroad expansion. The railroad companies resold much of the land to settlers, not only making themselves rich, but it also creating new customers for their services.

44. Adivina esto, Batman?

45. How did railroads cause more Europeans to come to America? The railroads advertised in Europe that land in America was cheap, or even free. They came to help build the railroads. They used the railroads to sneak into the country illegally. Railroad car manufacturers recruited factory workers in European cities.

46. How did the federal government encourage and support settlement of the Plains? It sold land at low prices to railroad companies so they could re-sell it to settlers. It guaranteed loans for settlers to buy privately-owned land. It offered free land to settlers who agreed to live on it and improve it. It purchased railroad tickets to help settlers’ families relocate to the West.

47. What TWO groups settled in the West in large numbers? Civil War veterans African American ‘Exodusters’ Chinese railroad workers Northern ‘Copperheads’ Southern ‘scalawags’ European immigrants

48. Who were the Exodusters? Former slaves European immigrants Settled on the Kansas Plains Civil War veterans Helped build the transcontinental railroad Victims of the Homestead Act Choose all that are true!

49. What was true about the Homestead Act? It was passed by Congress during the Civil War. It was supported strongly by Southerners. It made free land available to settlers. It required settlers to live and work on it for five years. African Americans were excluded from the offer. Choose all that are true!

50. Life on the frontier was a challenge. The Plains were nearly treeless, so farmers had to build their first homes with blocks of sod, which is why they were called sodbusters.