Railroads and Conflict in the West

The South in the late nineteenth century featured some of the same elements as the West. After the Civil War, both regions became the objects of economic expansion. Railroads, mines, factories, and...

Railroads helped connect the West to the East. It made travel to the West easier for emigrants whose only options before were wagon trails. Railroads often owned the right-of-way along the tracks,...

The two main causes of railroad growth in the United States during this time were the Civil War and advances in technology. The Civil War helped bring about growth in American railroads largely...

Americans had considered land an infinite resource. Once all of our land was developed, we realized there was none left and no other sources. It's kind of like we realized we were no longer a...

One factor was the encouragement of the federal government. The federal government provided land grants along the right-of-way of major railroads. The railroads could then sell this land and make...

By the early 1900s, railroads had been fundamental to the American economy (I'm assuming the question is about the United States, but the railroads were important in pretty much every...

The Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act helped lead to the defeat of many Native American tribes in the West. When white Americans began to expand westward between 1820-1850, they encountered...

The Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1869, had dramatic economic, cultural, and political significance to the development of the United States. The advantages for business are almost...

The economy of the United States was directly affected by the growth of railroads in a number of ways. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, new markets and resources were...

In Frederick Jackson Turner's famous 1893 paper, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," he argued that the closing of the American frontier in 1890 was a watershed moment in US...

The Dawes Severalty Act was a law passed in 1887. Its purpose was to try to assimilate Native Americans and to encourage them to live more like white people. It can also be argued that a purpose...

Frederick Jackson Turner was a historian who introduced the highly influential "Frontier Thesis" in an 1893 paper he gave to the American Historical Association. In it, he argued that the American...

Before the Transcontinental Railroad was built, transportation was slow, arduous, and dangerous. Relying mostly on horses and other draft animals, carts or buggies, and your own two feet,...

"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" was the title of a speech delivered by Frederick Jackson Turner (1861–1932) in 1893 at the American Historical Association. Turner's thesis...

The rise of railroads in the decades following the Civil War (around 1865-1900) helped spur the growth of the industrial economy in America and also led to new settlement and commercial patterns as...

Federal Indian policy really began to take shape around the time of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a very forward thinking president, and realized that unless American Indians could be convinced...

The railroad system in the U.S. was the ideal instrument for the terrain: a large geographic country with its population concentrated on its ocean coasts, and with three vertical mountain ranges...

The basic difference is that Turner belongs to an older historical tradition that sees westward expansion as something of a story of progress. It sees white civilization meeting Indian savagery...

The Pullman strike was a major industrial conflict that took broke out right across the United States in 1894. The strike began when workers at the Pullman Company—which manufactured railroad...

After Spanish explorers settled in California in the sixteenth century, the area’s growth was primarily affected by its maritime connections: the settlements that became significant urban centers...

The Transcontinental Railroad, finished in 1869, was only part of a massive increase in railroad growth in postwar America. First, the railroads themselves created a need for new materials, such...

Wounded Knee, in South Dakota, was the scene of a massacre of around 300 Lakota Sioux men, women and children by troopers from the U.S. Army Seventh Cavalry. The soldiers were attempting to disarm...

American policy towards the Native Americans has varied throughout different periods of American History. Between 1830-1860, the government followed a policy of removing the Native Americans to...

Both Blackfoot and Lakota are Native American tribes who lived in the American West. Blackfoot tribes lived and traveled in the north of Montana and North Dakota, stretching into Canada; the Lakota...

Wounded Knee refers to a location in the state of South Dakota as well as a massacre which occurred there in the year of 1890. There is a body of water called Wounded Knee Creek in what is now...

The completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 had profound effects on the United States. The railroad shortened travel time between the East and West coasts from six months to one...

Tariffs, or taxes on imported goods, have been used by the government since the 1700’s to help American businesses. A tariff would make foreign made goods more expensive so people would buy...

Although the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 was not literally the last battle between the Native Americans and the United States government, it is seen as the symbolic end of the Indian Wars....

The Native Americans were treated badly. They were massacred and tricked. Their land was taken from them, and with it their very way of life. They could not practice their religion, because it...

The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 attempted to cut Native Americans' communal ties to their tribal lands in the West and to turn these lands over to individuals who would farm them. The goal was to...

The Dawes Severalty Act was intended to force Native peoples to assimilate to white society by making them into settled farmers. It was mainly intended to affect Plains Indians, whose reservation...

The transcontinental railroad impacted the United States in many ways. The building of the transcontinental railroad allowed people to travel quicker and more easily to the western regions of our...

In fact, the greatest impact of post war railroad construction was the development of the West as well as the creation of a truly national economy. Congress took the initiative while southern...

European immigrants in the late nineteenth century brought energy, vigor, and labor power into the still young country. Because they were willing to work hard for very low wages, they were...

The building of the railroad system played a significant role in changing the United States. The railroad system was very dense, providing transportation in the eastern part of the U.S. When the...

The United States emerged as an industrial leader following the Civil War. Technology saw improvements in the production of existing products such as cotton and steel, as well as the introduction...

The railroad companies had a huge impact on the development of the West. As people moved to the West, they needed a way to transport products from the West to the East. They also needed products...

The Native Americans fought European settlers for hundreds of years, but most of those battles have been largely forgotten. The Battle of the Little Big Horn (June 25, 1876) is remembered because...

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Frederick Jackson Turner (1861– 1932) is best known for his "Frontier Thesis" and the arguments it made concerning how the West was the most distinctly American...

Frederick Jackson Turner, an American historian, produced the so-called "Turner Thesis" in 1893. Census records had shown that as of 1890, the frontier had officially closed, and, to Turner's mind,...

The son of a planter and surveyor, Thomas Jefferson knew something about the land, and he realized that America’s was vast. When he was elected as the third U.S. president in 1800, he expressed...

The famous Native American leader Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota, also known as Teton Sioux or Teton Dakota, who led rebellions against white settlers on the North American Great Plains in the...