History

In 1876 America celebrate its hundredth birthday by having a Centennial Exposition.  The exposition was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and took place from May to November The visitors saw hundreds of new or improved machines inventions with some of the most popular ones being the Corliss Steam Engine and the telephone.  All these machines needed electricity to work. Would you have went to the Centennial Exposition?  Why or why not?  If you went to the Centennial Exposition which invention would you be most excited to see?  Why?                

Electricity made it possible for Thomas Edison to invent many new inventions.  Some of his new inventions were the copy machine, phonograph, light bulb, and moving picture machine.  Which of Edison’s inventions had the biggest impact?  Explain.                                                                                                                

John D. Rockefeller became a leader in the oil industry.  He made secret deals with the railroad companies to pay half to get his oil shipped when other companies would pay full price. Rockefeller would be getting rich while they would be losing money.  After a while other oil companies would go out of business and Rockefeller would have a monopoly in the oil industry.  What do you think about Rockefeller’s secret deals with the railroads?  Explain.

The first Centennial Exposition, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was to celebrate the nation's 100th birthday.  At the celebration there were thousands of new or improved inventions on display.  The two most important inventions were the Corliss steam engine made by George Corliss and the telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell. If you were an inventor during this time what would you invent? How?  Why?  

The Machine Age got this nickname because there were lots and lots of improved or new machines invented during this time. Electricity was the very important because it led to more jobs and was needed for machines to run and function properly. Thomas Alva Edison invented many new things like the copy machine, the light bulb, the moving picture machine, and the phonograph.  Of all of Edison's inventions, which do you think is the most important?  Why?

Railroads had many problems but luckily they figured out solutions. The first problem dealt with time zones.  For instance, if you were in Chicago, illinois and it was 12:30 and you were heading on the train to Denver, Colorado you would have no clue what time you were going to arrive. To solve this problem standard time zones were created.  There are 24 time zones worldwide with 4 in the United States.  The second problem was that the tracks were different distances apart so people and goods had to switch trains a lot.  Train companies got together and had a meeting about what to do. Their solution was make standard gauges so you didn't have to switch trains a lot. The final problem was safety.  Air brakes and steel rails were made to improve on safety problems.  The railroads had a big impact on other industries like the oil and steel industries.  John D. Rockefeller was the leader of the oil industry and Andrew Carnegie was the leader in the steel industry .

Not all the people were happy about the new machines being built.  For example,  farmers who planted and harvested crops by hand no longer had to do that once machines were invented. The other people who were impacted negatively were shoe makers and blacksmiths. They were really good at their jobs but they couldn't sell their products because factories were making things better and faster.  A shoemaker could make 2 a day where a factory could make 200 a day.   How would you feel if you were a shoemaker when factories began making shoes?  Why?

John D Rockefeller ran an oil refinery and bought out smaller oil companies like Hanks Oil.  Rockefeller made a secret agreement with the railroads to ship is oil and controlled oil prices for everyone.  Everybody had to pay him whatever he wanted making Rockefeller rich.  If you were a citizen during this time how would you feel about Rockefeller charging you high oil prices?  Explain.

Machine Age

The Centennial was held to celebrate America’s 100th birthday.  The celebration was referred to as an Exposition, and it was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the exposition 100s of new machines, inventions, and gadgets were on display. How would you feel if you walked into the Centennial Exposition and saw all those machines?  Why?

                        

Electricity played a big role during the Machine Age and was in hot demand. Thomas Edison invented many new machines that needed electricity.  He invented the copy machine, phonograph, moving picture machine, and the incandescent light bulb.  Now that we have electricity, especially the light bulb, places can stay open at night.  If you were a worker during this time how would you feel about staying open and working through the night and why?     

Railroads also played a massive role, but there were some problems with them as well.   Clock times were a pain because people never really knew what the exact time was. When time zones were created they helped keep people on schedule so they wouldn’t be late for things, which was a huge benefit  to the railroads. Width differences between tracks also caused a problem.  When railroads consolidated it helped with this problem because railroad owners made all the tracks the same size by using the sames gauges to measure the tracks.  Safety was the biggest problem of all.   Air brakes were invented and steel rails were installed making railroads safer. How hard do you think your job would have been if you worked for the railroad during this time and why?  Railroads also Impacted other industries. Steel mills increased in demand to build trains and lay tracks with Andrew Carnegie as the owner.  The oil industry grew because it was shipped from place to place, John D. Rockefeller was the main owner.  Would you rather be Andrew Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller?  Explain.   

 

Not all people prospered during the Machine Age. Farmers struggled because agricultural machines replaced hand labor. Skilled workers lost their jobs because factory machines made goods quicker and they could make a lot more. Who do you think had a tougher time during the Machine Age, the farmer or skilled worker?  Explain.                        

           


          John D. Rockefeller ran an oil refinery, which became very powerful.  Rockefeller bought out smaller companies and he even had a secret deal with railroads to ship his oil to other places for half price. He eventually controlled the entire oil industry and created a monopoly.  What would it be like to be a customer of Rockefeller and why? 

THE WEST

The west, I wouldn’t live there, but during this time a lot of people did.  In the west there were three different frontiers, which are farming, ranching, and mining. Two of the frontiers, ranching and farming, needed the railroads to be opened.  Railroads allowed for cattle and crops to be shipped from the west to the east.  Goods such as furniture, stoves, and better tools came to the west from the east.  If you lived during this time would you rather stay and live in the east or move to the west?  Explain.  

In the farming frontier people could get 160 free acres under the Homestead Act of 1862.  To get this land they had to stay on the land and farm it for five years.  If they didn’t do this they would lose the land.   In the ranching frontier, cowboys no longer had to go on long cattle drives because of the railroads.  They could graze the cattle in the west and ship them east.  The final frontier was mining.  The majority of  miners went to California but some went to Colorado too.  It started when James Marshall found gold in Sutter’s Mill.  If you lived during this time would you rather be a miner, farmer, or rancher?  Explain.  

There were two kinds of houses that settlers living in the Great Plains could build, a dugout and a soddie. A soddie is a house made of a layer of grass covered dirt called sod.  Settlers could find sod almost anywhere.  A dugout is a hole dug into the side of a hillside. When you want to build a dugout you have to find a place that has lots of hills. Unfortunately, there are not many hills in the Great Plains. What would you rather live in a dugout or a soddie? Why?

In the late 1860s the United States government forced many Native Americans to live on a reservations.  Reservations are piece of land that Native Americans were forced to live on.   Native Americans didn’t like reservations because they were on dry, barren land and they had to leave their sacred burial grounds.  However, the majority of Native Americans will end up on reservations.

If you lived in 1840’s what would you have done? You may have gone looking for gold, building railroads, or even farming on 160 acres of free land. Though there was also some downsides like pushing Native Americans of their land and forcing them onto dry useless land in reservations.

In the year of 1848 gold was found at Sutter’s Mill by James Marshall and news of this spread like wildfire, which lead to the gold rush. The miners became known as 49er’s for the year they came.  Each miner hoped to find gold and “strike it rich.”  Whenever gold was found a boom town popped up very quickly full of people who wanted to take the gold. After gold was found somewhere else people would get up and move leaving a ghost town in their wake. If you were a miner during this time would you move in an out of a town quite often as gold was discovered in other places? Why or why not? Very few miners found gold, but ended up happy in the west. Would you be willing to go west to find gold even if the chance of it was small? Explain.

                                 

    Later people looked around the Great Plains and saw a land of opportunity. They began to farm under the Homestead Act of 1862. The act said that if you farmed on 160 acres of land for 5 years you could have all the land for free. That means if you moved off the land after 4 years you would lose all of it. Would you have taken 160 acres of free land and farmed it for 5 years or keep looking for gold? Explain.  As people kept taking land in the Great Plains, Native American were forced off their land. I bet you can tell what happens next. The Natives got angry and fought back. Then treaties were made that said people would stop moving onto Indian land and and the Indians wouldn’t fight back. It took a long time for news to get around in during this time, so settlers kept moving in.  The settlers either didn’t know about the treaty or just didn’t care. The Natives anger turned into hatred as they were pushed farther and farther of the land they had for generations. They lashed out at the settlers and fought many battles such as the Battle of Little Bighorn. General George Custer and all his men were killed by the natives being lead by Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. However, this was the last big victory for the Indians before they were forced onto reservations by greedy white men.  In the end the army came and slaughtered Tenton men, women, and children. After that most Native Americans, in shock, went to reservations.If you were a Native American at this time would you have fought to keep the land you and your people had live on for centuries or give in to reservations? Please explain.

                                        

          When white people took the land in the west, Native American land, they decided to build a transcontinental railroad. That means settlers could link goods from the east to the west. This created a lot of jobs for many people to make railroads. Thousands of people had to work day and night to finish the job. Finally, the two railroads, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, were complete. They connected at Promontory Point, UT where the governor of CA was to drive a golden spike into the ground to symbolize the linked railroads. The first swing he missed completely but the second hit perfectly. Everybody in the USA cheered.  Would you have cheered for the linked railroads? Why or why not? From then on the East and West  were able to send goods back and forth.

          If you decided to move west during this time what role would you have played?  Would you be a miner, rancher, or farmer?  Would you be an American soldier trying to help move the Native Americans to reservations?  Please explain.  

  

The West

The three frontiers in the west were mining, farming, and ranching. The mining frontier was when people started moving west for gold. These people were called forty-niners.  The farming frontier came after there was no gold left and people needed to farm. The ranching frontier was made to herd cattle in open fields and was at the same time as farming. The farming and ranching frontiers were only possible because of the railroads.  Railroads allowed for the transfer of goods.  Which of these three frontiers was the most important in the west?  Why?

The settlers kept moving on the Indian’s land and the government tried to make treaties with them. However, the treaties didn’t work because people didn’t know about them or didn’t care.  Since we took the Native American land they were put on reservations, which were on dry desert land. So they had battles with settlers. The last great victory for the Indians was the Battle of Little Bighorn where General George Custer lost all of his men and was killed by chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. After that the Americans won and forced Indians onto reservations. The Massacre of the Wounded Knee stopped the war because lots of Indian women, men, and children were killed.  If you were working in the government how could you try to help the Indians?  Explain.

Farmers in the west had to deal with cattle destroying their crops.  Then Joseph Glidden invented the barbed wire to stop that. Barbed wire is wire that has sharp points every few inches and after cattle are scratched a couple of times they will eventually stop.  Water was also scarce in the Great Plains so farmers used dry farming.  Dry farming is when farmers dig small ditches to collect rain and after it rained farmers would flip the soil to get the water closer to the roots.  Which of the inventions listed above is the most important?  Why?

The people in the west were hard working and do it yourself people that did everything by hand and with family and sometimes friends. For fuel because the didn’t have a lot of wood for fuel so they used cow chips as fuel and cow chips are dried cow poop. There wasn’t a lot of rain either so the farmers took up dry farming which was making a one foot hole in the ground and they planted crops and when they did they had to turn the soil so the water could get to the crops and they would have food. Would you move back to the cities where others were or would you stay in the plains? Why?

When the First Transcontinental Railroad was finished people that lived in the great plains could have lumber to make houses instead of living in a soddie or a dugout. Nine new states joined the Union. There were new jobs opening and they were train conductors, miners, industrial workers that helped make steel plated plows introduced by John Deere and tools and making barbed wire introduced by Joseph Glidden and steel drivers for train tracks. If you could have any one of those four jobs which one would you have and why?

The west opened up when people wanted to get away from it all and they got 160 acres of land in the Homestead Act, they had to live there for five years or they had to pay for it hundreds of dollars because it was $12.25 an acre. Before they had trains the ranchers would have to go on cattle drives that took almost a year to get to the place they were selling the cattle at and when the railroads came cattle drives were barely done anymore because now the ranchers could get their cattle to the market in two or three days. If you could get 100 acres of land but you had to live there for five years would you? Why?