American West - HOMESTEADERS

PUSH FACTORS:

• Poverty - caused by the Economic Depression of 1837
• Regious or social persecution - i.e. the Mormons
• Eastern overpopulation - due to the increasing migration of Europeans

PULL FACTORS:

• A new start - for freed slaves & Ex-soldiers of the Civil war (1861-1865)
• Free land - Homestead Act of 1862 gave 160 acres of land if it's occupied for 5 years
• Exaggerated claims (by politicians and railway companies) about the  good life on the Plains

ENABLING FACTORS: 

• Railways - enabled a speedy and safe journey & linked producers to wider markets
• Reservations - minimised Indian attacks

PROBLEMS:

• Lack of wood for housing, fuel, fencing 
• Lack of water
• Land - too hard for light ploughs
• Crops failed
• Isolation - due to the vast spaces in between houses
• No shops to buy household items

SOLUTIONS:

• Housing - used dried earth to make sod houses
• Fuel - dried buffalo dung & cow-pats collected by women
• Fencing - barbed wire - Joseph Glidden, 1874 (important in keeping cattle off the crops)
• Wind pumps & dry-farming (retained the moisture after snow/ rain)
• 'Sodbuster' plough - John Deere
• New Crops were tried - Turkey Red Wheat from Russia
• Women formed church groups and helped each other in childbirth
• Women made soaps, candles, clothing ...etc...