The Development of Great Plains

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  • How and why did Republicans create an integrated economy during and after the civil war? 
  • In what ways did farming mining and ranching shape 

Incorporating the West 

  • Land Acts: Homestead Act (1862)
    • Land to those willing to move west and improve the property 
  • Morrill Act (1862)
    • Allowed states to sell land and use $ for colleges and universities 
  • Mining Empires 
    • Comstock Lode -- Nevada 
    • Timber industries grew in the NW -- altered the environment 
  • Cattlemen on the Plains 
    • Cattle Ranches 
      • Long Drive -- herding cattle hundreds of miles north to RRs to sell 
      • Barbed wire allowed farmers to abandon the Long Drive 
      • Blizzard of 1886 - 1887 left many cowboys broke 

The Republican Vision 

  • During Civil War: rigorous of federal power 
    • Hindered by 1873 depression, just like Reconstruction 
  • The New Union and the World 
    • Looks towards Asia, Latin America (1894)

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