Title: Westward expansion: economic development (article) | Khan Academy
Headings: Westward expansion: economic development
Westward expansion: economic development
Overview
Who owns the West?
Developing the West
Check your understanding
Which of the following was an effect of the expansion of railroads in the West?
Choose 1 answer:
Farmers in an industrial age
The Grange and the Farmers’ Alliance
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Content: The US government also helped westward expansion by granting land to railroad companies and extending telegraph wires across the country. After the Civil War, the dream of independent farms remained, but the reality was more complex. Just as big business was coming to dominate the factories of eastern cities, so too were powerful corporate interests beginning to elbow out the independent farmers, miners, and cowboys who had built the image of the West as the land of opportunity for the rugged individual. Developing the West
A variety of factors enticed American settlers and immigrants to head west in the late nineteenth century. Chief among these was the availability of cheap land for farming, logging, and ranching. Hundreds of thousands of people obtained land through the Homestead Act: through it, the US government transferred more than 270 million acres of public lands into private hands. The discovery of precious metals and minerals also drew people to the West. Miners discovered gold, silver, and copper in several western states. The discovery of silver in the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1858 prompted the largest rush of prospectors since the California gold rush a decade earlier.