Week of September 19th - September 23rd - Blogs

Monday-

Semester Test Blog (10 points)

Decades Project

Each group assigned one decade to research - 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, and 1910s.
Items to research
- music
- movies
- sports
- fashion
- fads
- inventions
- World Fairs
- famous people - singers, athletes, movie starts, inventors, etc.
- presidential elections - scandals/assassinations
- minorities push for equality - civil rights for African-Americans equal rights push for women, handicapped, homosexuals
- include a slide with basic facts about the decade - average income, minimum wage, price of home, etc.
- anything else you find fun or interesting
Have Thursday, Friday, and Monday to work

Chapters 5-6

Moving West
- Key Questions
  - Why did settlers/people move to the Great Plans/West?
    - Range from Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains
    - Post Civil War to early 1900s
    - Manifest Destiny
      - Belief in US that there is a God given right to expand from Atlantic Ocean to Pacific Ocean
    - Cattle Ranching
      - HUGE for not that long
      - Long drives
      - Drove a lot of people west
      - Ex-slaves
    - Sheepherding
    - Farming
      - put up fences
        cut off open ranges
    - Homestead Act
      - 160 acres establish home
    - Mining
      - Strike in Blackhills, Alaska, Utah, etc.
    - Working on Railroad
      - Immigrants - China
      - Through the Rocky Mountains
      - Also brought people west (like on the train riding)
    - Hunting/Trapping/Adventure
      - Wanted hides
      - Hunted Bison sometimes for play and left lying
      - White men went west for sport
      - Buffalo
        1800 - 15 million
        1870 - 1,000
        2000 - 260,000
    - Mountain Men
  - Describe a cowboy's life.
    - Peaked between 1867 - 1880
    - Open range - area of land where cattle roam free
    - Railhead towns - towns at the end of the railroads
    - Ranchers - people who owned ranches + cattle
    - Texas longhorns - cross breed of cattle
    - Long drive - herding + moving cattle
    - Cattle Barons - Bigger Ranchers (pushed our smaller ranchers)
    - 25% of cowboys were ex-slaves
    - Life of a cowboy - lonely + dangerous
    - Cattle industry fell when the price of beef fell
    - What happened in Dodge City stayed in Dodge City!
      - Lots of money to be spent
        Drinking
        Gambling
        Fights
        Prostitution
        Gunfights/Duels
        Took the law into their own hands
      - Wyatt Earp came out on top of gun fight at OK Corral
        Famous Sheriff during Old Western Times
    - Omaha Stockyards
      - Biggest one out of country besides Chicago
      - Omaha was a cow town
    - Kansas City Stockyards
    - Chicago Stockyards
      - Biggest in country
    - Why were long drives necessary?
      - No railroads
    - Why did they come to an end after only 15-20 years?
      - Farmers put up fences
      - Problems between cowboys and farmers

How did the US gov't deal with Native Americans in the mid to late 1800s? What were their policies?
- Reservation System
  - 1907 - Indian and Oklahoma Territory Merge to form State of Oklahoma
- Dawes Act - 1887
  - Gave land to Native American families to farm
    - Similar to Homestead act
  - Farm had to be like white people farms
  - Ended tribal ownership of land
  - Goal was to "Americanize" Native-Americans
  - Those that do this will be granted US citizenship
  - Not required but the other option was not good
  - Ended in the 1930s under President Roosevelt's Indian Reorganization Act
- Famous Indian War Battles
  - Battle of Wounded Knee - Our group
    - Who fought?
    - When?
    - Where?
    - Who won? How/Why?
    - Leaders from each side
    - Deaths/Casualties
    - Supporting details to round out battle
    - Include pictures/maps/other visuals
    - Include sources (1 required and cite pics)

Tuesday-

Decades project

Our goup has the decade of 1890s.
We continued notes from yesterday up above.

Wednesday-

Christina came and showed us how the Native Americans used different parts of the buffalo.

Thursday-

We continued our notes above on our Chapter 5 Key Questions.

Friday-

Chapter 5-2
- Key Questions
  - How did railroads and the Homestead Act help settle the Great Plains?
    - Gave 160 acres of land to people to live on and farm
    - Attached thousands of people to the Midwest
    - Land speculators "stole" much of the land that was set aside for the Homestead Act
  - What challenges did settlers/farmers face on the Great Plains?
    - Life on the Great Plains was not easy
      - Lonely
        No neighbors
        Maybe a small village with Doctor, School, or Church nearby
        Went to city maybe once a year
        Bigger families?
      - Bad weather
        Drought/sand storms
        Blizzards
        Flooding
      - Grasshopper Plagues
        Rocky Mountain Locust
        Hit farms hard in the 1870s
        Extinct as of 1902
      - Hard work
        Sun up to sun down
        Everything done by hand
        The whole family helped out
      - Native Americans
        There were Native American attacks on settlers throughout the mid-late 1800s in many parts of America
        Attacks were common, but they were also sporadic, and usually involved a fairly low number of casualties
      - Lack of trees
        Sod Houses
        Dugouts
      - Railroad prices
      - Debt
  - How did settlers/farmers solve some of these problems? (Answered in Ch. 5.2 and 5.3)

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