Posted by 3AustinE on September 27, 2009 at 10:00am
Today in class we had a little bit of work time. I started reading about my section for the project and it is about moving west and settling the Great Plains. It goes through how the railroads were built, very briefly, so that people could move goods west. Then it talks about the Homestead Act and how this was a government Act to give 160 acres free to the head of the family how wished to go west to farm.Next it talks about how they decided to protect the land we now know as Yellowstone National Park but many families could still buy up government owned land. At the same time they forced many railroad companies to give up their claim on many of these lands. This was because of the land being recieved from the Homestead Act only 10% of the people who owned this land were the people that it was intended for.There were many hazards and challenges on the Plains that they normally wouldn't be much of a problem. Some of these included fires, blizzards, raids from Native Americans, droughts, and locus plages. They also had to develope a new style of home as there were not enough trees to build a wooden house like they had before. They had to be almost entirely self sufficient and because of this the women often could be found working alongside the men so that they could get more accomplished.Once they had established a homestead they had to farm it. This was helped with the inventions of the plow, the reaper, the harrow, and barbed wire. All of these tools combined helped to make the work of the farmer a little easier. However this brought up the issue of money. The expensive machines left farmers in debt and they couldn't always pay off their loans. Companies tryed large expanses of one crop but they quickly failed.The main ones that I thought were Government Support for Settlements, The Closing of the Frontier, Dugouts and Soddys, and Technical Support for Farmers.
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