The Last Frontier of the United States

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The Last Frontier of the United States The last frontier of the United States was a great time period where Americans and immigrants from around the world came and settled for new land. It was a time where the federal government encouraged western settlement and economic exploitation. The United States of America came of age after the civil war. In a period of less than fifty years, it was transformed from a rural republic to an urban state. The frontier had vanished. Great factories and steel mills, transcontinental railroad lines, flourishing cities, vast agricultural holdings marked the land. And in them came accompanying evils: monopolies tended to develop, factory working conditions were poor, cities developed so quickly that they could not properly house or govern their teeming populations, factory production sometimes outran practical consumption. The American frontier was an escape and a place of hope for those willing and able to take their futures into their own hands. In the United States the frontier moved in stages, beginning with the Eastern settlements, the original 13 colonies. After the American Revolution, the pioneers gradually crossed the Appalachians and went into the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys, then, in the mid-19th century, across the Mississippi. Settlement did not proceed directly across the continent, however. Most of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain regions were temporarily bypassed in the rush to get to California. The rush was for gold, and the Mexican War had given California, along with the whole Southwest, to the United States. Settlement was spurred by the Homestead Act of 1862 which granted free farms of 160 acres to citizens who would occupy and improve the land. By 1880, nea... ... middle of paper ... ...ured to support the long drive and it was beginning to be criss-crossed by railroads. Not far behind the rancher creaked the prairie schooner of the farmers bringing their womenfolk and children, their draft horses, cows, and pigs. Under the Homestead Act they staked off their claims and fenced them in with barbed wire, ousting the ranch men from lands they had possessed without legal title. During the two terrible winters of 1886 and 1887, herds were annihilated in the open ranges by the freezing weather. The movement further more advanced America making it bigger and better. Thanks to the hard work of the many settlers from the U.S. to the immigrants that came here for a dream and the many that dead for their land. Also the many technologies such as the train that brought the country together. Bibliography: history for life,Robert a wallace

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