Settling on the Great Plains

1
Settling on the Great Plains

• Objectives
• Explain the rapid settlement of the Great Plains
  due to homesteading.
• Describe how early settlers survived on the
  plains and transformed them into profitable farm
  land.

2
Settlers Move Westward to Farm

• Railroads Open the West
• From 1850 to 1871, the federal government made
  huge land grants to the railroads to lay track in
  the West
• Transcontinental Railroad
• Attracted many settlers, many of which were
  European immigrants
• Government Support for Settlement
• Homestead Act (1862) Offered 160 acres of land
  to any citizen who was a head of household
• Exodusters African Americans who moved from the
  post-Reconstruction South to Kansas
• Private speculators and the railroads sometimes
  used the land for their own gain
• Government passed increased legislation to
  encourage settlers
• The Closing of the Frontier
• By 1890, continuous settlement and westward
  expansion had brought about the end of the
  frontier

3
Settlers Meet the Challenges of the Plains

• Dangers of the Frontier
• Frontier settlers faced many hardships
• Droughts, floods, fires, blizzards, locusts,
  outlaws, Native Americans
• Dugouts and Soddies
• Since trees were scarce, most settlers built
  their homes from the land itself
• Soddies
• Womens Work
• Extreme isolation required homesteaders to be
  self-sufficient
• Women often performed the same duties as men
• Also sponsored schools and churches

4
Settlers Meet the Challenges of the Plains

• Technical Support for Farmers
• Several new technological inventions helped make
  taming the prairie easier
• Steel Plow
• John Deere
• Reaper
• Cyrus McCormick
• In 1830, producing a bushel of grain took about
  183 minutes
• By 1900, with the use of these machines, it took
  only 10 minutes
• Allowed for grain to be more widely available

5
Settlers Meet the Challenges of the Plains

• Agricultural Education
• The federal government supported farmers by
  financing agricultural education
• Morrill Act (1862 and 1890) Gave federal land
  to the states to help finance agricultural
  colleges
• Helped to develop techniques for farming the dry
  soil of the prairie
• Farmers in Debt
• Because machinery was expensive, farmers often
  had to borrow money to buy it
• Bonanza Farms Enormous single-crop farms
• Were unable to deal with drought due to the lack
  of crop diversification
• Bankruptcy
• Farmers also had to deal with the rising cost of
  shipping grain
• Railroads exploited Western farmers