WESTWARD EXPANSION INDUSTRIALIZATION URBANIZATION 1870 1900
WESTWARD EXPANSION
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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It was too dry to easily grow crops.
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There were too many trees to cut down.
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The area was already overcrowded.
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The land was too expensive.
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Detailed explanation-1: -At first settlers skipped over the Great Plains and settled on the West Coast. Why were the Great Plains not considered a good place to settle? It was too dry to easily grow crops.
Detailed explanation-2: -The frontier settlers faced extreme hardships-droughts, floods, fires, blizzards, locust plagues, and occasional raids by outlaws and Native Americans.
Detailed explanation-3: -European immigrants flooded onto the Great Plains, seeking political or religious freedom, or simply to escape poverty in their own country. Younger sons from the eastern seaboard-where the population was growing and land was becoming more expensive-went because it was a chance to own their own land.
Detailed explanation-4: -Gold rush and mining opportunities (silver in Nevada) The opportunity to work in the cattle industry; to be a “cowboy” Faster travel to the West by railroad; availability of supplies due to the railroad. The opportunity to own land cheaply under the Homestead Act.
Detailed explanation-5: -The Plains were hard to live on. Many of the newcomers were used to living in villages and then walking or riding out to their fields to farm. But the Homestead Act required those claiming the land to live on it, and the act forced settlers to farm the land in 160-acre plots.