Topic 10 - Industrial and Economic Growth (1865-1914)

Lesson 2 - Western Agriculture

While Reconstruction shaped the South following the Civil War, other events were occurring throughout the American West. The vast landscape of the Great Plains offered both promise and problems.

GET READY TO READ

Start up

Look at the image of the longhorn cattle. Write a paragraph to describe why it might be difficult to move this herd from trail to market.

Guiding Questions

How did the Cattle Kingdom form?
What alliances did farmers make to try to improve their condition?
What were some effects of the Homestead Act?

Vocabulary

cattle drive
vaquero
cow town
Morrill Acts
sodbuster
cooperative
wholesale
inflation

Academic Vocabulary

mechanization

pledge

How Did a Cattle Kingdom Start on the Plains?

In the 1860s, cattle ranching grew rapidly on the Great Plains. Before this time, the Spanish, and then the Mexicans, had set up cattle ranches in the Southwest. Over the years, strays from these ranches, along with American breeds, grew into large herds of wild cattle. These wild cattle were known as longhorns. They roamed freely across the grassy plains of Texas.

After the Civil War, the demand for beef increased. People in the growing cities in the East were eating more meat. Miners, railroad crews, farmers, and growing communities in the West added to the demand. The Texas longhorns were perfect for the commercial market. They could travel far on little water, and they required no winter feeding.

In response, Texas ranchers began rounding up herds of longhorns. They drove the animals hundreds of miles north to railroad lines in Kansas and Missouri on trips called cattle drives.

Jesse Chisholm blazed one of the most famous cattle trails. Chisholm was half Scottish and half Cherokee. In the late 1860s, he began hauling goods by wagon between Texas and the Kansas Pacific Railroad. His route crossed rivers at the best places and passed by water holes. Ranchers began using the Chisholm Trail in 1867. Within five years, more than one million cattle had walked the road.

Tending Cattle in the West

Ranchers employed cowhands to tend their cattle and drive herds to market. These hard workers rode alongside the huge herds in good and bad weather. They kept the cattle moving and rounded up strays. After the Civil War, veterans of the Confederate Army made up the majority of the cowhands who worked in Texas. However, it is estimated that nearly one in three cowhands was either Mexican American or African American. Some cowhands dreamed of setting aside enough money to start a herd of their own. Most, in the end, just worked to earn wages.

Spanish Influences

American cowhands learned much about riding, roping, and branding from Spanish and Mexican vaqueros (vah KEHR ohs). Vaqueros were skilled riders who herded cattle on ranches in Mexico, California, and the Southwest.

The gear used by American cowhands was modeled on the tools of the vaquero. Cowhands used the leather lariat to catch cattle and horses. Lariat comes from the Spanish word for rope.

Their leather leggings, called chaps, were modeled on Spanish chaparreras (chah pah REH rahs). Chaps protected a rider’s legs from the thorny plants that grow in the Southwest.

GEOGRAPHY SKILLS

After the end of the Civil War, cattle ranching boomed in the West.

Region What resource was relatively scarce in this region?
Analyze Cause and Effect How did the scarcity of that resource influence the types of cattle raised and the way they were raised?

The Life of a Cowhand

A cattle drive was hot, dirty, tiring, and often boring. A cowboy’s day could last for nearly 18 hours.

The work was so strenuous that cowhands usually brought a number of horses so that each day a fresh one would be available. Cowhands worked in all kinds of weather and faced many dangers, including prairie dog holes, rattlesnakes, and fierce thunderstorms. They had to prevent nervous cattle from drowning while crossing fast-flowing rivers. They had to fight raging grass fires. They also faced attacks from cattle thieves who roamed the countryside.

One of the cowhand’s worst fears on a cattle drive was a stampede. A clap of thunder or a gunshot could set thousands of longhorns off at a run. Cowhands had to avoid the crush of hoofs and horns while attempting to turn the stampeding herd in a wide circle.

Most cowhands did not work for themselves. Instead, they were hired hands for the owners of large ranches. For all their hard work, cowhands were fed, housed, and lucky to earn $1 per day. Even in the 1870s, this was low pay.

Analyze Images A cowhand’s life could be dangerous, as shown in this painting.

Infer What role did the environment of the West play in the life of a cowhand?

READING CHECK

Identify Supporting Details What influences did the vaqueros have on cowhand culture in the United States?

Ranching Affects Settlement Patterns

Before long, cattle drives began to influence the settlement of western towns. As more cattle were driven through these areas, businesses offering services to the cowhands began to form in towns. As a result, cattle drives ended in cow towns that had sprung up along the railroad lines. The Chisholm Trail, for example, ended in Abilene, Kansas. Other cow towns in Kansas were Wichita, Caldwell, and Dodge City. In cow towns, cattle were held in large pens until they could be loaded into railroad cars and shipped to markets in the East.

In Abilene and other busy cow towns, dance halls, saloons, hotels, and restaurants catered to the cowhands. Sheriffs often had a hard time keeping the peace. Some cowhands spent wild nights drinking, dancing, and gambling.

The main street of a town was where people conducted business. Almost every town had a general store that sold groceries, tools, clothing, and all sorts of other goods. The general store also served as a social center where people could talk and exchange the latest news. As a town grew, drugstores, hardware stores, and even ice cream parlors lined its main street.

Religion also played an important role for the townspeople. Throughout the West, places of worship grew in number and membership. They served as spiritual and social centers and as symbols of progress and stability. “A church does as much to build up a town as a school, a railroad, or a fair,” noted one New Mexico newspaper.

READING CHECK

Describe How would you describe the settlement pattern of cow towns in the West?

Farming Spreads Across the Plains

In the 1870s, ranching spread north from Texas and across the grassy Plains. Soon, cattle grazed from Kansas to present-day Montana. Ranchers had built a Cattle Kingdom in the West. They came to expect high profits. Millions of dollars poured into the West from people in the East and in foreign countries who wanted to earn money from the cattle boom. However, the boom did not last.

Conflicts Over Land

Ranchers let their cattle run wild on the open range. To identify cattle, each ranch had its own brand that was burned into a cow’s hide.

Sometimes, there were conflicts on the range. When sheepherders moved onto the Plains, ranchers tried to drive them out. The ranchers complained the sheep nibbled the grass so low that the cattle could not eat it. To protect the range, which they saw as their own, ranchers sometimes attacked sheepherders and their flocks.

Analyze Images People who settled on the Great Plains had to be self-sufficient.

Cite Evidence What do you think was the most precious item these settlers owned? Why?

New Settlements Encroach on Cattle Land

In the 1870s, farmers began moving onto the range. They fenced their fields with barbed wire, which kept cattle and sheep from pushing over fences and trampling plowed fields.

As more farmers bought land, the open range began to disappear. Large grants of land to the railroads also limited it. As a result, a more organized system began to develop in which ranchers bought and maintained private property. This protection of property rights further boosted settlement in the West.

Nature, however, imposed limits on the cattle boom. After a time, there was not enough grass to feed all the cattle that lived on the Plains. The need to buy feed and land pushed up the costs. Diseases such as “Texas fever” sometimes destroyed entire herds. The bitterly cold winters of 1886 and 1887 killed entire herds of cattle. In the summer, severe heat and drought dried up water holes and scorched the grasslands.

Cattle owners began to buy land and fence it in. Soon, farmers and ranchers divided the open range into a patchwork of large fenced plots. The days of the Cattle Kingdom were over.

READING CHECK

Understand Effects What effect did the arrival of growing numbers of farmers have on the open range system?

How Did the Homestead Act Affect the West?

Congress passed the Homestead Act in 1862. It was the centerpiece of the government’s land policy. The law promised 160 acres of free land to anyone who was head of a household, who had not fought for the Confederacy, and who paid a small filing fee and improved the land over five years.

Free Land and Hidden Costs

A stream of immigrants and easterners took up the offer of free land. Many planted their 160 acres with wheat and corn. By 1900, half a million Americans had set up farms under the Homestead Act.

Under the Homestead Act the land was free, but setting up a farm required money and hard work. Many people did not have the money to move west and start a farm.

Also, only about 20 percent of the homestead land went directly to small farmers. Land-owning companies took large areas of land illegally and resold it to farmers at a high price. As a result, many settlers struggled to make ends meet.

Analyze Images On the first day of the Oklahoma land rush, nearly 100,000 people set out to stake new claims, only to find other settlers already there.

Use Visual Information Based on this image, how would you describe the first day of the land rush?

African Americans Move West

At the end of Reconstruction, many formerly enslaved African Americans left the South. They sought more freedom and greater economic opportunity. Many of them joined the rush for land in the West. Some were able to take advantage of the Homestead Act. By 1881, between 40,000 and 70,000 African Americans had moved to Kansas, including a group called the Exodusters. They took their name from a book of the Bible that tells the story of the Jews escaping slavery in Egypt. Unlike many homesteaders, the Exodusters paid for their land when they moved to Kansas in 1879.

Among the African Americans who moved West were the men of the 9th and 10th Cavalry. The men in these military units were all African Americans, although their officers were white. Given the nickname “Buffalo Soldiers” by the American Indians, they were known for their discipline and courage. Between 1870 and 1890, 14 Buffalo Soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor, the U.S. armed force’s highest decoration for bravery. Like African Americans everywhere at that time, however, those in the West continued to experience racism and discrimination.

Analyze Images African Americans, including this family, were among the Americans who moved west.

Infer What do you think this couple hoped to provide for their children by moving west?

Anglos and Mexicanos in the Southwest

Easterners who moved to the Southwest found a large established Spanish-speaking population there. As you recall, the United States had gained much of the Southwest through the Mexican War. Many of its inhabitants were people of Spanish or Mexican origin who had lived in the region before it became part of the United States.

Spanish-speaking southwesterners called themselves Mexicanos. White Americans who lived in the region were known as Anglos. Most Mexicanos lived in small villages, where they farmed and raised sheep. A few wealthy Mexicanos were large landowners and merchants.

As more Anglos settled in the Southwest, they acquired the best jobs and land. Often, Mexicanos found themselves working as low-paid laborers on Anglo farms. In New Mexico, in the 1880s, angry farmers known as Las Gorras Blancas, or “White Caps,” demanded fair treatment. Other Mexicanos in Arizona founded the Hispanic-American Alliance in 1894 to protect and fight for their rights.

Settlements on Oklahoma Farmland

As settlers spread across the West, free land began to disappear. The last major land rush took place in Oklahoma. Several American Indian nations lived there, but the government forced them to sell their land. The government then announced that farmers could claim free homesteads in Oklahoma. They could not stake their claims, however, until noon on April 22, 1889.

On that, as many as 100,000 land seekers lined up at the Oklahoma border. At noon, the “boomers” charged into Oklahoma, but they found that others were already there. “Sooners” sneaked into Oklahoma before the official opening and staked out much of the best land.

The physical characteristics of the Oklahoma environment meant that farmers needed good land in order to succeed. Those who settled on fertile farmland had better chances than those who ended up with less fertile land.

Farming in California

Only 10 percent of California’s public land went to homesteaders. Farming in California was largely industrial agriculture rather than small family farms. Agriculture became the main driver of the early California economy.

From the 1850s on, after the Gold Rush, many former miners became migrant farm workers, helping plant and harvest wheat, corn, and barley. Mechanization came later, in the form of steam tractors and harvesters. This machinery helped the agricultural industry become more efficient and productive.

Immigrants from China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and India also worked the fields. Before coming to the United States, many of them had labored on plantations in Hawaii. In California, they helped build irrigation systems, and some established large farms of their own.

As knowledge of soil and climate improved, many farmers began growing vegetables and planting fruit and nut orchards. Canneries and packing plants shipped California produce by rail across the country and by ship around the world.

Analyze Images Among the new Westerners were these California businessmen in 1890.

Use Visual Information Describe the tools these men used to run their business.

READING CHECK

Identify Supporting Details Who worked to get around the rules of the Homestead Act in order to profit from the land, and how did they profit?

What Did the Morrill Acts Do?

At the same time industry was growing, agriculture was becoming more of a business as farmers increasingly grew food for the market. To train professionals for both agriculture and industry, publicly supported agricultural and mechanical colleges were needed. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862 gave states 30,000 acres of public land per congressional representative to set up colleges. Colleges founded on this land had to teach science, classics, agriculture, mechanics, and military tactics.

In 1890, a second Morrill Act was passed to extend land-grant funding to African American students. It required states either to admit students of all races to their land-grant colleges or to set up separate land-grant colleges for African Americans. The South chose the latter.

Many of these agricultural colleges grew into historically black colleges and universities serving African Americans in the South.

Both of the Morrill Acts had important effects on the country. Private colleges were expensive. The new public schools were more affordable. They made college more available to Americans and affirmed that the government would play a role in supporting higher education.

READING CHECK

Draw Conclusions Why were the Morrill Acts important for the average American student?

Life on the Plains

Farmers on the western plains faced many hardships. The first problem was shelter. Because wood was scarce on the Great Plains, many farmers built houses of sod—soil held together by grass roots. Rain was a serious problem for sod houses. One woman complained that her sod roof “leaked two days before a rain and for three days after.”

Analyze Images The roofs of sod houses were extremely strong because of the intertwined roots that made up the sod.

Understand Effects How would rain affect people living in sod houses?

Sodbusting

The fertile soil of the Great Plains was covered with a thick layer of sod that was tough enough to crack wood or iron plows. A new sodbusting plow made of steel reached the market by 1877. It enabled sodbusters, as Plains farmers were called, to cut through the sod to the soil below.

Technology helped farmers in other ways. On the Great Plains, water often lay hundreds of feet underground. Farmers built windmills to pump it to the surface. New reapers, threshing machines, and binders helped farmers harvest crops.

Environmental Challenges

The dry climate was a constant threat. When too little rain fell, the crops shriveled and died. Dry weather also brought the threat of fire. A grass fire traveled “as fast as a horse could run.” The summers often brought swarms of grasshoppers that ate everything in their path—crops, food, tree bark, even clothing. In winter, with few trees or hills to block the wind, icy gusts built huge snowdrifts. Deep snow buried farm animals and sometimes trapped families inside their homes.

Pioneer Women on the Plains

Pioneer life on the Great Plains was challenging, and people had to be strong and self-sufficient. Because there were few stores, women made clothing, soap, candles, and other goods by hand. They also preserved food needed for the long winter. Women served their communities in many ways. Most schoolteachers were women. When there were no doctors nearby, women treated the sick and injured.

Growing up on the Plains, Laura Ingalls Wilder experienced the hardships of pioneer life as a child. She wrote about that life in a series of books. In one of them, Little Town on the Prairie, she summarized the attitude that helped pioneer families survive:

Primary Source

“This earthly life is a battle,” said Ma. “If it isn’t one thing to contend with, it’s another. It always has been so, and it always will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better off you are, and more thankful for your pleasures.”

—Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Town on the Prairie

Analyze Images Pioneer families spent most of their time tending to their farms, but they also came together for certain tasks, such as educating children, as shown here.

Infer Do you think people looked forward to times when neighbors worked together? Why or why not?

Relying on the Physical Environment

Homesteaders depended on the environment for their livelihood. They needed the right amounts of water, sunlight, rain, and soil for their crops. This made homesteading risky. Those who owned their farms worked hard to keep the land productive. They wanted to ensure that their property would continue to supply the resources they needed to survive. Homesteaders were extremely self-sufficient. They used resources from the environment to meet their needs.

Economic Challenges

Farmers began to thrive in the West. Before long, they were selling huge amounts of wheat and corn in the nation’s growing cities and even in Europe. Then, farmers faced an unexpected problem. The more they harvested, the less they earned.

In 1881, a bushel of wheat sold for $1.19. By 1894, the price had plunged to 49 cents. Western farmers were hurt most by low grain prices. They had borrowed money during good times to buy land and machinery. When wheat prices fell, they could not repay their debts.

READING CHECK

Identify Supporting Details What effects did the isolation of western farms have on the women of the Plains?

How Did Farmers Help Each Other?

Farmers began to work together. They learned that they could improve their condition through economic cooperation and political action.

The National Grange Supports Cooperation

In 1867, farmers formed the National Grange. Grangers wanted to boost farm profits and reduce the rates that railroads charged for shipping grain.

Grangers helped farmers set up cooperatives. In a cooperative a group of farmers pooled their money to buy seeds and tools wholesale. Wholesale means buying or selling something in large quantities at lower prices. Grangers built cooperative warehouses so that farmers could store grain cheaply while waiting for better selling prices.

Leaders of the Grangerism movement urged farmers to use their vote. In 1873, western and southern Grangers pledged to vote only for candidates who supported their aims. They elected officials who understood the farmers’ problems. As a result, several states passed laws limiting what could be charged for grain shipment and storage. Nevertheless, crop prices continued to drop. Farmers sank deeper into debt.

The Farmers’ Alliance Spreads

Another group, the Farmers’ Alliance, joined the struggle in the 1870s. Like the Grange, the Alliance set up cooperatives and warehouses. The Alliance spread from Texas through the South and into the Plains states. Alliance leaders tried to join with factory workers and miners angered by poor treatment.

Analyze Graphs Granges grew quickly between 1873 and 1874. A ton of wheat includes 36.7 bushels.

Cite Evidence Based on the information in the charts, why did farmers form Granges?

READING CHECK

Identify Main Ideas What was the principle upon which the National Grange and the Farmers’ Alliance were formed?

What Was Populism?

In 1892, farmers and labor unions joined to form the People’s Party, also known as the Populists. Populists demanded that the government help to raise farm prices and to regulate railroad rates. They also called for an income tax, an eight-hour workday, and immigration limits.

The key Populist Party demand was “free silver.” Populists wanted all silver mined in the West to be coined into money. They said that farm prices dropped because there was not enough money in circulation. Free silver would increase the money supply and make it easier for farmers to repay their debts.

Eastern bankers and factory owners opposed this. They argued that increasing the money supply would cause inflation, or increased prices, and wreck the economy. They favored the gold standard, a system in which the government backs every dollar with a certain amount of gold. Since the supply of gold is limited, there would be less money in circulation. Prices would drop.

Analyze Political Cartoons William Jennings Bryan was the Democratic and Populist parties’ choice for president in 1896.

Use Visual Information What does the cartoonist think about Bryan’s turn toward Populism?

Bryan Versus McKinley

The Populists looked toward the election of 1896 with high hopes. Their program had been endorsed by one of the great orators of the age: Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

Like the Populists, Bryan believed that the nation needed to increase the supply of money. At the Democratic convention in 1896, Bryan made a powerful speech against the rich and for free silver.

At the end of his speech, referring to the rich, Bryan proclaimed, “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

Both Democrats and Populists supported Bryan for President. However, business people feared that Bryan would ruin the economy. They supported William McKinley, the Republican candidate. McKinley and the Republican Party supported the gold standard.

Bryan narrowly lost the election of 1896. He carried the South and the West, but McKinley won the heavily populated North and East.

The People’s Party broke up after 1896. One reason was that, with Bryan as a candidate, the Democrats adopted several Populist causes. Also, prosperity returned in the late 1890s. People worried less about railroad rates and the gold standard.

Analyze Images William McKinley won the 1896 Presidential election.

Compare and Contrast How are the images of McKinley and Bryan alike? Different?

READING CHECK

Identify Cause and Effect Why were eastern bankers opposed to the Populists’ “free silver” demand?

Lesson Check

How did the cattle drives lead to the rise of cow towns?
How did technology help the sodbuster?
Draw Conclusions Why were immigrants and easterners the main groups who took advantage of the Homestead Act?
Compare and Contrast Why did Congress create each of the Morrill Acts?
Summarize How did farmers cooperate economically and politically?
Explain an Argument Do you think the Homestead Act was a wise way for the government to distribute public lands? Explain.
Writing Workshop: Support Claims Write a few sentences to explain why your claim makes sense as a response to the question of how much the government should do to create a national infrastructure.

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