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?

                       

        People living in the west used to be really hard working. They had to take care of the animals and do a lot of chores. They also had many problems they needed to overcome.  For example they had to deal with rock hard soil.  The soil made the land harder to farm.  John Deere invented the steel bladed plow, which made farming easier.  How does farm machinery change the way farmers farm today?  Explain.  With all of these new farming products we need steel.  The Bessemer Process was used to make steel.  Are there things you use today because of steel production?  Explain.  Another problem they faced was wandering cattle going into other people’s yards and destroying their crops.  Joseph Glidden invented barb wire fence.  Barbed wire has sharp wire that will poke the cattle as they go by.  The final problem was there was not enough water and water was important because their crops need it to grow.  Farmers began to use dry farming.  In dry farmers they would dig holes about a foot deep next to each row to catch water when it rains.  Then they flip the water to get the water close to the crops roots.  

                              

        There were five transcontinental railroads completed by 1893. These railroads lured people to the West because they created new jobs, such as people worked in mills, produced steel for farm machinery, worked on tracks, and loaded railroad cars.  Railroads also allowed people in the West to get goods from the East.  There were nine new states were added to the Union by 1893 . What do you think it would have been like to ride on the transcontinental railroad?  Explain.

                            

     

    There were many events that helped to open up the west. Comstock Lode in Nevada was land that produced a lot of silver. Abilene, Kansas becomes a cattle boom town. Also Levi jeans were invented by Levi Strauss. They were rugged pants that miners really liked and they became know as blue jeans. A golden spike got hammered into the ground in Promontory Point, Utah. This marked the completion of the railroad that crosses the whole country.

The people living in the west during this time were hard working and invented many new things to make their life easier.  In the Great Plains the cattle kept getting away and it was hard to keep them together.  The cattle would destroy crops.  So farmers tried to plant bushes to keep the cattle together, but the cattle stomped them down. In 1874 Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire. If you were a farmer during this time what would be the positives to having barbed wire? What would the negatives be  Why?  Water was scarce in the Great Plains.  Water was important to farmers because they needed it for their crops to grow.  Therefore, farmers began dry farming. This is where you farm with little water.  You make a little ditch and collect water when it rains. The last problem farmers had to deal with was the rock-hard soil because a wooden plow would not work.   John Deere invented the steel- bladed plow instead. Would you use the steel-bladed plow instead of the wood plow? Explain.

  By 1893, there were five transcontinental railroads, which opened a door to a frontier.  Now there were nine new states added to the Union. Railroads also created many new jobs such as, building the railroads and mining in the west. Would you like to build railroads? Why or why not?

There were many different reasons why the west was opened.  Abilene, Kansas became the ‘‘Cattle Town’’.   More and more cattle were transferred out of Abilene to the east.  At Comstock Lode, in Nevada,  three men found blue rocks that had bits of silver in the them but they did not know it.  They sold the land to some Californians for a couple thousand dollars but they were cheated.  The land ended up being worth millions of dollars. In Promontory Point, Utah a golden spike was driven into the ground to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad which crosses of the country. What would it have been like to be the person who got to drive in the golden spike?  Explain.