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.