1. Presidents chart # 17 Andrew Johnson # 18 Ulysses Grant
(No Election)
Takes over for Lincoln, Reconstruction, impeached
# 18 Ulysses Grant
1868, 1872 serves
Reconstruction, Transcontinental Railroad
# 19 Rutherford Hayes
1876 serves
Election significance: Compromise of 1876
Reconstruction ends, labor strikes

2. The Great Plains

3. Why come to the west? Cheap land Plenty of land Railroads
Huge land grants given by federal government
170 million acres
Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads
Minority labor

4. Government support Homestead Act 1862 Oklahoma 1889
160 acres of free land to any head of household in the West
600,000 families move
Exodusters- African Americans moving from post-Reconstruction South to Kansas
Railroad and businesses buy up land as well
Oklahoma 1889
Opened up this territory to settlers
Some got there earlier than allowed date
Sooners

5. Protection
Henry Washburn and Nathaniel Langford ask for some land to be protected from settlement
Yellowstone National Park created in 1872
By 1890 the frontier was declared to be nonexistent anymore

6. Frontier
“American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character.”

8. Challenges Housing Self Sufficiency Farming Education Debt
Built homes from the land
Self Sufficiency
Families had to do everything for themselves (especially women)
Farming
New techniques come about to assist farmers
Steel plow, reaping machine, grain drill, mechanical reaper
Education
Morrill Act financed agricultural colleges
Learned new farming techniques
Debt
Crop prices fluctuated
High railroad fees

9. News Report
Your next assignment is to create a news broadcast that you will perform in front of the class on Monday
You will have today, after lecture tomorrow, and all period Friday to work on this
Your news report needs to be creative
DO NOT JUST GO STAND UP AND TALK
Every group member needs to have a speaking role
Idea: Two anchors who pan to different “reporters”
BE CREATIVE
You must cover all of the information assigned to your group
You will write a script that will be turned in after you perform
You will be graded on the presentation, your creativity, and your information

10. Material Group 1 Opening up the West (railroads, Homestead Act etc.)
Why did the frontier close?
Life in the West
Group 2
Farmer debt
Farmers rise up
Economy, railroads
How did they organize? (Farmers Alliances)

11. Material Group 3 Populism (platform, members, activity)
Silver or gold (Panic of 1893)
Group 4
William Jennings Bryan
Cross of Gold Speech
End of Populism