HIS 106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Homestead Acts
Document Summary
Turner thesis: what makes american unique is that there is always an idea of a frontier. Requires a very adventurous person and manly man to settle and ight of natives, harsh conditions etc. 3 main occupations in the west: ranching (large scale/big business) Paid very little by the big business (/month: farmers. Gives free land to those who would settle in the frontier to farm. Precarious way to make a living: farming is at the whim of mother nature, rain too much, lose crops, don"t make money, etc. By the 1900"s most of these homesteads fail due to these shit happens moments: mining. Long hours: people were not free ranged, hard working, and anveturous. Just like new england, working for big businesses and low wages. High ecological costs: the prairie that once existed destroyed so that we can have the farms that we have today, bufalo were killed almost to extinction, strip mining.
