Drew Guggeis
After the civil war, much of the south laid in ruins and the north drained of prosperity and opportunity. During the war, many were influenced by the homestead act to head westward to settle and make a life.
After the civil war concluded, many people continued to turn to the west in the hopes for a better life. while they were newly introduced before the war, by the 1860s there were more than 31,000 miles of railroad tracks stretching throughout America. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad was completed by having the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads link in Utah.
America physically expanded as well during the time after the civil war. Before and during the war, America consisted of 31 states, but by 1896 they came to 45. Then by 1912, the continental US was complete with 48 contiguous states.
Settlers often found themselves entranced by the opportunities in real metal value in the West. Many headed west in search for gold among other resources and this caused many to end up forming camps. These camps usually graduated to town which snowballed enough to qualify for statehood with the US. Unfortunately, many of those who ended up in the midwest initially traveled out to California in the height of the gold rush. However, it was likely many of the high hopes the expansionists had were put down by the lack of gold to find. This caused an influx of people to settle in-between California and the east.
Sources:
https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hist002-6.4-Westward-Expansion-after-the-Civil-War.pdf
Drew, cool article! I thought it was interesting that you connected Westward Expansion by giving an example of both a governmental policy and new technology. Although many from the United States moved west- so did many Chinese. I found out that many immigrated from China to get better jobs in the US. Chinatown in San Francisco today can be seen as a reminder of this immigration. "These counties [China] suffered from extreme poverty and civil unrest, and the area was close to Hong Kong as a point of departure. Desperate for work, workers from this part of Guangdong boarded ships for California and other parts to support their families." I read some more about the Union Pacific Railroad, and read that around 10,000-15,000 Chinese were doing the backbreaking labor of building the railroad.
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Drew, I really liked how you related expansion westward to the Homestead Act and transcontinental railroad. Building onto Anya's and your point, many other groups also migrated to the west. In addition to the Chinese, the Irish were also searching for job opportunities. They also helped out in the process of building the first transcontinental railroad. Additionally, after the railroad was finished, "the marketing campaign of railroads led to the influx of European, Russian, Mexican, and African immigrants only a decade after murderous conflicts in 'bloody Kansas' had presaged the American Civil War. Railroads, then, were the means by which the population of western states increased dramatically due to the creation of new immigrant settlements and the westward migration of native-born Americans." As a result of this expansion, it led to great diversity in the west.
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