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Homestead Act
Allowed a settler to acquire as much as 160 acres of land by living on it for 5 years, improving it, and paying a nominal fee of about $30. This allowed settlers to become self-sufficient and gain some source of income. -
Pacific Railway Act
Congress promoted the construction of the pacific railway through giving land grants in the west. Increased immigration to the United States and allowed for the growth commercial centers in the west. -
First Transcontinental Railroad
Built by the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad, the building of the railroad that allowed greater migration to the West and economic expansion through trade. -
The Battle of Little Big Horn
The US government retaliated with federal troops when the Native Americans missed a federal deadline to move to reservations, tensions were increased after gold was found on Native American land. With the Indian Removal act Native Americans were allowed the land west of the Mississippi. -
Pap SIngleton and the Exodusters
Pap Singleton brought thousands of African Americans west into Kansas from the post-reconstruction south to escape from sharecropping poverty and limited opportunities for social mobility. -
"New Immigration"
Immigrants came over from Southern and Eastern Europe, which increased jobs in the west building railroads and urban neighborhoods known as tenements or slums. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
Supposed to prohibit Chinese Immigration into America, which would allow for more internal immigration of poor people and farmers out west for jobs and the hope of wealth -
Hatch of 1877
Extended the Morrill Act and provided federal funds for the establishment of agriculturally focused schools with land-grant acts -
Dawes Act
The Federal Government attempted to "Americanize" Native Americans by giving each tribe 160 acres of land, each "head of house: recieved a portion, after 25 years this property would become theirs and they would become an American Citizen. Focused on breaking apart the tribe and trying to force Native Americans into developing an "American" identity. -
Hull House
Establishment of the Hull House by Jane Addams helped immigrants deal with American big-city life by providing services like libraries, classes, and an employment bureau. -
Ghost Dance Movement
An attempt to preserve Native American culture and tribal identities as a reaction to government policies promoting assimilation. Tried to rid themselves of “the ways of the white man”. -
Federick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis
Turner used a census report to explain that settlement of the frontier had created the American character and spurred American development; frontier promoted democracy even if it was at the cost of breaking treaties with Native Americans or Oppressing African Americans.
