The Gilded Age

1
The Gilded Age

• The Trans-Mississippi West

2
The Closing of the Frontier

• Up to and including 1890 the country had a
  frontier of settlement, but at present the
  unsettled area has been so broken into by
  isolated bodies of settlement that there can
  hardly be said to be frontier line. In the
  discussion of its extent, its westward movement
  etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a
  place in the census reports. U.S. Census
  Bureau report (1890)

3
Manifest Destiny

• Other people must give way to our manifest
  destiny to overspread and possess the whole of
  the continent which providence has given us for
  the development the great experiment in liberty.
• John L. OSullivan (1845)

4
The Trans-Mississippi
5
Buried Treasures

• 1849 gold - Ca
• 1859 - gold - Pikes Peak
• 1859 - silver - Nevada (Comstock Lode)
• 1862 - gold, silver, copper - Prescott, AZ
• 1870 - gold - Caribou Mtn, ID Lordsburg, AZ
• 1872 - gold, copper, lead - Eureka, NV
• 1873 - gold, silver - Silverton Leadville, CO
  Globe, AZ
• 1874 - gold - Black Hills, SD
• 1875 - silver copper - Butte, MT
• 1875 - gold silver Ouray, CO Bonanza, ID
• 1878 - gold silver - Cripple Creak, CO
• 1879 - gold, silver, - Tombstone, AZ
• 1882 - gold - Couer dAlene, ID
• 1896 gold Yukon Territory, Alaska

6
Hard-Rock Miners
7
Cattle Driving
8
Homestead Act of 1862

• Could settle 160 acres
• Pay small fee
• Granted full title after 5 years continuous
  farming
• Could also buy land outright for reasonable price
  (1.25/acre)

9
Plowing the Prairie
Caterpillar - 1904
John Deere Plow 1890 Tractor pulling plow -
1910
10
Growth in Agriculture

• Wheat production
• 1867 211,000,000 bushels
• 1900 599,000,000 bushels
• Productivity improvements
• 1840 35 hrs labor to produce 15 bushels wheat
• 1900 15 hrs to produce the same amount
• Wheat exports
• 1867 6,000,000 bushels
• 1900 102,000,000 bushels

11
Life on the Prairie
12
It was hell on women and horses.
13
Railroads Agents of Expansion

• In the East, railroads had followed existing
  patterns of population
• In the West, railroads preceded settlement
• Needed to bring in settlers (customers)
• Conducted massive advertising campaigns aimed at
  easterners Europeans
• gt2,000,000 Europeans settled in Great Plains
  (1870-1900)
• Most of native-born settlers came from states
  bordering Mississippi River
• Gave railroads great economic and political power

14
Attracting Population

• The poor should come to Colorado, because here
  they can by industry and frugality better their
  condition. The rich should come here because they
  can more advantageously invest their means than
  in any other region. The young should come here
  to get an early start on the road to wealth.
• - Colorado immigration ad

15
Attracting Population
16
Exodusters heading West