Hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s History, and further welcome to the first review video of Unit 6 of the AP U.S. History curriculum. This unit covers the time period 1865 to 1898, and we’re going to start with the economics of westward expansion during this period. So if you’re ready to get them Unit 6 brain cows milked, let’s get to it. So we’re basically aiming at one thing in this video and it is as follows: Explain the causes and effects of the settlement of the West from 1877 to 1898. In the last unit it seemed like all we talked about was the North and the South, but now let us turn our eyes westward and see what’s happening with our brethren and sisteren on the frontier. So during this period, and a little before it, a massive change was taking place in the agricultural west, namely, the mechanization of agriculture, which is to say, farming was becoming a task done more and more with machines than with the human body. Machines like the mechanical reaper and the combine harvester quickly replaced human sweat and animal muscle as the primary means of planting and harvesting crops. And this had two significant effects. First, it meant that farmers could plant and harvest a buttload more crops than they could previously. For example, the production of corn and wheat roughly doubled between 1870 and 1900. The second effect was the increasing obsolescence of small farmers. Because smaller farmers couldn’t compete in the market with these giant industrial farmers, primarily because they couldn’t afford the pretty new machines, their farms folded one after another, in many cases being bought out by the bigger farmers. Now with this surging glut of crops in the market, the law of supply and demand tells us that prices will decrease. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened. The prices per bushel of corn or wheat or whatever steeply declined, further putting pressure on small farmers who couldn’t live by selling their crops at such low prices. So all this to say, during this period farming in America underwent a drastic change to the detriment of small farmers and to the benefit of large-scale mechanized farmers. Even so, ALL farmers were feeling some economic pain during this period. Industrial trusts, on which more in another video, made sure that prices remained high on manufactured goods. And why does that matter? Because farmers spent all their time farming, and therefore relied on buying those manufactured goods like clothing and furniture in order to survive. But with the prices so high, those farmers were having trouble paying for them. And then to add to their agri-misery, farmers were having railroad problems. Pssh, relate! Farmers largely relied on railroads and trains to ship their crops to market for sale but in many cases, the railroad owners were charging unnaturally high prices for this service. So all this to say, farmers, in general, had it rough during this period. And that’s how you get an organized movement for farmer resistance to all these changes, namely, the National Grange Movement. It was organized in 1868 as a collective aimed at bringing isolated farmers together for socialization and education, but as with everything in America, the Grange got political quick, fast, and in a hurry. As a collective body, the Grange Movement pushed many midwestern states to pass laws regulating railroad rates for carrying freight and made abusive corporate practices that were hurting farmers illegal. Taken together, these laws became known as the Granger Laws. Most significant among these laws was the Commerce Act of 1886 which required railroad rates to be reasonable and just and established a federal agency to enforce said reasonableness and justice, namely, the Interstate Commerce Commission. Now, since we’re talking so much about railroads let’s take a moment and try to understand where all these railroads were coming from. As you have probably learned by now, the federal government was positively giddy about getting people to move west and settle the frontier. But moving west the old fashioned way, which is to say Oregon Trail-style, wasn’t the easiest thing to do. But with this new and expanding technology of railroads, the federal government could see that this method of transportation could facilitate a mass migration of Americans for settlement in the western lands. And so two sets of laws combined to make westward migration a reality. First were the Pacific Railroads Acts in which the federal government granted huge swaths of land to railroad companies who would then build a transcontinental railroad. And in 1869, in Promontory Summit, Utah, a golden spike was driven into the meeting of two rails that stretched from the east to the west coast. Over the next few decades four more transcontinental railroads were completed, almost all with the help of government land grants, and this created the occasion for easier migration westward. The second law that aided those migrating west was the Homestead Act of 1862 which was expanded upon with other legislation, but for our purposes, you just need to know that this law granted potential migrants 160 acres of free land out west on the condition that they would farm it and settle it. Now that may sound like a great deal, but here’s where I tell you, not so much. Partly this was because of the mechanization of agriculture I mentioned before—these small farms were eventually gobbled up by larger ones. But mainly it was because 160 acres in the midwest was not nearly enough land for a farmer to make a living. So, many of these farmers ended up going bust. Now, the last cause I need to mention with respect to westward migration has to do with the discovery and extraction of precious metals like gold and silver. Now people began moving west to seek gold as far back as 1848 when the California Gold Rush occurred, but this continued for the next four decades. In 1869, for example, gold was discovered in this fair mountain called Pike’s Peak, and that led to an influx of over 100,000 folks into the surrounding regions in the Kansas and Nebraska territories. And this occurred in several other places in the West as well. And when it did, boomtowns sprang up seemingly overnight. For example, in the Pike’s Peak region, the boomtowns of Denver City and Boulder City sprang up as a result this new wave of migrants looking to strike it rich. Interestingly, because the desire for gold is no respecter of race or ethnicity, these boomtowns ended up being extremely diverse, on par with the major urban areas in the east. Okay, that’s what you need to know about Unit 6 topic 2 of the AP U.S. History curriculum. an A in your class and a five on your exam in May. And if you were helped and you want me to keep making these videos, then go ahead and subscribe and I shall oblige. Heimler out.