HIST206 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Cowboy Boot, 100Th Meridian West, Homestead Acts
22 Feb 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
West of the Imagination
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
3:22 PM
Defining the Trans-Mississippi West
3 Stages of Development in the West
Historiography of the West
The West
• Manifest Destiny
• The Gold Rush
• Pioneers, Native Americans, --> living in the West
The Trans-Mississippi West
• The area that is west of the 100th meridian
• Mining, Cattle, Farming
o (1) Mining, 1849
• Gold discovered in California in 1848 --> many people moved to California to make a
fortune through mining of gold; the 49ers (nickname for gold miners --> where the
football team got their name)
• Travel over land - horses and covered wagons, and on foot ( through trails -->
treacherous?) Dangers and rates of death extremely high due to starvation, disease,
as well as climate issues
• Set up Mining Camps
• Not many opportunities for women --> it was a gender segregated job
▪ Not a lot of family life, women have minimal place in mining society
• Ethnic Tensions
▪ Immigrants from Asia --> coming to California to profit off of the Gold Rush
▪ Chiese did’t speak Eglish, very differet cultural coditios - what they eat/
how they dressed --> caused conflicts with white miners
• Hydraulic Mining Cannons, basically giant hoses, manned by tons of men --> used
water power to dig further under surface to search for gold and other metal deposits
▪ Expensive
▪ Corporate mines used this tactic --> larger and more $
• Dynamite also being used --> not really understood though; could cause death or
physical injuries to miners during this time
• Trans-Continental Railroad, 1869
• Provided opportunities to move people and goods more quickly
• Connected resources in West to markets in the East
o (2) Growth of Open Range Cattle Industry
• Raising cattle in places like Texas - but no way to extend markets
• North had demand for food;
• Cowboys came from various ethnic and racial backgrounds as well
▪ African Americans (large number were cowboys), Whites, Mexican- Americans
• Cultural interactions created cultural syncretism- the process by which 2
cultures come together by combining parts of each culture to make
something entirely new; occurred amongst cowboys to get things they
needed (such as protective footwear)
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