USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Windmill This provided water for people and animals due to little rainfall. The windmill would use the wind to pump water from the ground. Plains settlers needed houses to live in and there were very few trees with which to build them.

Detailed explanation-2: -Answer and Explanation: During the 19th century, the technologies that most influenced westward expansion were the telegraph and railroad.

Detailed explanation-3: -Barbed wire was affordable and easy to put up. Railroads were an important technological advance that made it possible to settle the West. They could bring in supplies at an affordable price. They also made it possible for farmers to ship out their crops and ranchers to ship out their cattle.

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 completion of the railroads to the West following the Civil War opened up vast areas of the region to settlement and economic development. White settlers from the East poured across the Mississippi to mine, farm, and ranch.