Moving Westward
Why should people move west?
A lot of pioneers that settled in Iowa came from the eastern states such as Indiana, New York, Ohio, and Illinois.
What attracted pioneer settlers to migrate?
People from history tell us a lot of things about push/pull factors. There were certain forces that pushed people to go west.
Push factors:
Some of the reasons were that if they were a convict and they wanted to escape they could just move west and get out of going to jail or whatever punishment they were going to face, another reason is some people just wanted to start a new life since they didn't get off to such a good start the first time and they wanted another try at it, and they were sometimes pushed west because they couldn't find jobs that paid enough money to support their family. With people coming over to the US from Europe it also made it more crowded and people just decided to move west.
Pull factors:
Some of the pioneers were pulled west because they wanted to make a better living. Another reason was that they had received letters form different relatives who lived in the west. Some of these letters told how great it was in the west and invited their family members to come and join them. The biggest factor that pulled pioneers west is the opportunity to buy land, pioneers could purchase land for so much cheaper than they could back east.
Types of transportation:
steamboats, steamship, train, Latrobe (boat), bus, stage, and walking
Traveling West:
Pioneers traveling west used many different kinds of transportation to get there.
One man, named William Buxton, settled in Carlisle, Iowa in 1851 and later in 1853 he traveled back to England to claim an inheritance. While he was coming back to Iowa he kept a journal telling how he traveled. He traveled by several steamboats, steamship, train, latrobe (boat), bus, stage, and walked 12 miles to Carlisle which was to be his future home and he also found everything just the way he left it nine months ago and after traveling 12,000 miles without any bad luck.
Red (Milwaukee) came first in 1860, Yellow (Chicago Northwestern) came in 1870, and Orange (Illinois Central)came in 1880.
Problems on the frontier:
The men and women who settled in the frontier faced many hardships. Women on the frontier sometimes had to work just as hard as men by doing work on the farm. Women also helped harvest the crops and would also know how to drive a team of horses which is something most women didn't even think about doing back then.
One of the main problems that they had feared was Prairie Fire.
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