Which of the following statements describes settlement and development of the American West?

Students will examine a variety of documents that reference reasons why Americans living in the East migrated west of the Mississippi immediately before, during, and right after the Civil War. Documents cover the mining industry, new inventions used on the Plains, the growth of the railroad, the Homestead Act, and the Cattle Kingdom.

Suggested Teaching Instructions

Objectives

Students will analyze primary sources to uncover reasons for expansion, and learn how motivations changed over time. For grades 7-12. Approximate time needed is 45 minutes.

Instructions

This activity can be used to introduce a unit on westward expansion. Alternatively, this activity can be completed gradually by a full class over the course of a unit, or used as a review at the end of a unit.

Begin by asking the class to hypothesize why Americans may have wanted to move west in the middle of the 19th century. Discuss general reasons that humans leave one place to move to another, as well as the particular cultural and political climate of the United States during this era. Ideas may be recorded for later reference.

Open the sequencing activity as a class. Look at a couple of the documents more closely. Ask students if anyone can identify and explain any of the documents they see without further examination. Ask for suggestions as to which documents are “earlier” and which are “later.” Students should be able to explain their presumptions. (To bolster students’ confidence and willingness to make informed guesses, remind them that at this point it is entirely appropriate to make a guess with scant evidence because they have not yet done any careful examination.)

Choose one of the documents used in this activity to model document analysis. Ask students to synthesize the information they have gathered and answer: “What can this document tell us about that time in history?” Remind students to replicate this close analysis of each document they open before they begin to move any of the documents. Ask them to work as a full class, in small groups, or individually for more advanced students, to put the documents in the correct chronological sequence according to their creation dates.

When students have placed all documents in the correct sequence, they should compile a list of possible reasons that Americans moved westward at this time:

• Gold rush and mining opportunities (silver in Nevada)
• The opportunity to work in the cattle industry; to be a “cowboy”
• Faster travel to the West by railroad; availability of supplies due to the railroad
• The opportunity to own land cheaply under the Homestead Act
• The discovery of wheat strains adapted to grow in the climate of the Plains.
• New inventions allowing them to adapt to life on the Plains, such as the windmill and barbed wire (students may need to speculate as to why homesteaders needed these)
• Adventure and the lure of the “Wild West”

Now ask students to determine which reasons pulled migrants to the West earlier and which influenced travelers later.

Students can continue their study of westward expansion by completing a companion activity contrasting the experience of Western settlers with the experience of Native Americans in the West.

For more information about the featured documents, follow the links below.

How did the contentious presidential election of 1876 lead to the official end of Reconstruction?

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How did white southerners seek to reverse African-American political and social gains during and after the era of Reconstruction?

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The __________ Supreme Court decision ruled that legal segregation on the basis of race did not run contrary to the 14th Amendment and affirmed southern laws segregating public facilities and schools.

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What was the primary significance of Congress' efforts to impeach President Andrew Johnson in 1868?

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What was the primary significance of the 14th Amendment, which the Radical Republicans in Congress passed in 1866?

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Why did white southerners pass "black codes" following the Civil War?

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What was the primary difference between Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction?

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Corporate officials used which of the following practices to increase worker efficiency during the late-19th and early-20th centuries?

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Which of the following factors account for the expansion of the labor movement in the United States during the second half of the 19th century?

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Which of the following factors led to a significant migration of African-Americans to northern cities in the first two decades of the 20th century?

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Which of the following problems did poor urban residents encounter in American cities during the 19th and early-20th centuries?

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Which of the following statements BEST characterizes that federal government's relationship with American corporations during the late-19th century?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the U.S. government's response to European and Asian immigration in the late-19th and early-20th centuries?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the transformation of American cities over the course of the 19th century?

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Which of the following was a MAJOR difference between the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor?

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The growth of industry in the United States following the Civil War was BEST characterized by which of the following processes?

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Fill in the blanks. American treatment of Filipino rebels during the three-year war for control of the Philippine Islands may BEST be described as _______________ and _________________.

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How did President William Howard Taft’s diplomatic policies differ from President Theodore Roosevelt's policies?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the American public's reaction to the outcome of the Spanish-American War?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes Theodore Roosevelt's policies regarding America's diplomatic relationships with countries in Central and South America?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the key differences between the economic and social development of the East and the economic and social development of the American West in the 19th century?

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Which of the following statements BEST explains why American political leaders intervened militarily in Cuba in 1898?

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Which of these statements BEST describes the impact of transcontinental railroad lines on western development in the 19th century?

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Which statement BEST describes how federal policy towards Native Americans in the West changed during the course of the late 19th century after the Civil War?

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Which of these statements BEST describes the role that the federal government played in encouraging westward migration during and after the Civil War?

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What aspects of President Theodore Roosevelt’s public life does this cartoon reference?

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What was the primary objective of Progressive reformers engaged in the City Beautiful movement?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the national impact of the Populist movement?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the beliefs of Progressive reformers in the United States at the turn of the 20th century?

Choose one answer.

	a. Progressives believed that local, state, and national governments should play no role in regulating business activities, addressing social problems, or advancing American democracy.
	b. Progressives believed that local, state, and national governments should address social problems but should not regulate business activities in any manner.
	c. Progressives believed that local and state governments should regulate businesses and correct social problems but that the national government should not deal with these subjects.
	d. Progressives believed that local, state, and national governments should regulate businesses, correct social problems, and advance American democracy.
	e. Progressives believed that the national government should regulate businesses and address social problems but that local and state governments should not engage in reforms.

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the roles played by women and African Americans in Progressive-Era reform campaigns?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the major difference between the Populist and the Progressive reform movements in the United States?

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Which of the following was NOT a way that Progressive reformers sought to correct problems in America's cities?

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Why did the Populist Party support coining silver and thereby increasing the supply of money in circulation throughout the United States?

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Which of the following factors contributed to the emergence of the Populist political movement in the Midwest and South during the 1890s?

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How did the Republican presidential administrations of the 1920s differ from the Progressive presidential administrations of the first two decades of the 20th century?

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The ___________ were laws in 1917 and 1918 that criminalized antiwar protest activities and the federal government also used the laws against radical political organizations in the United States.

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What motivated President Woodrow Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on Germany and its allies in the spring of 1917?

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Which of the following factors contributed to the "Red Scare" of 1920?

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Which of the following statements BEST characterizes President Woodrow Wilson's actions during the Versailles Treaty negotiations?

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Which of the following statements BEST characterizes the position of women in American society during the 1920s?

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Which of the following was a direct consequence of African American migration from the rural South to the urban North during the 1910s and 1920s?

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Which of the following was NOT a consequence of the growing popularity of automobiles in the United States during the 1920s?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes America's involvement in World War I prior to 1917?

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How did the United States government's treatment of Japanese-American citizens differ from its treatment of citizens of German and Italian ancestry during World War II?

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How did the United States' economic and political status in the international community change as a result of World War II?

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How did World War II affect African Americans in the United States?

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The ____________ was a law enacted in 1935 which among its provisions provided assistance to dependent children who did not have a wage-earning parent.

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Which of the following statements BEST characterize President Herbert Hoover's response to the Great Depression in the United States?

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Which of the following statements BEST characterizes the differences between the First and Second New Deals?

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Which of the following statements BEST characterizes the legacy of the New Deal?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reform proposals during his 1932 presidential campaign?

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All of the following factors directly contributed to the Great Depression in the United States EXCEPT:

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How did President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Congress respond to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik in October of 1957?

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What was the United States' policy on the use of nuclear weapons during the early years of the Cold War?

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Which of the following statements BEST characterizes American society during the 1950s?

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Which of the following statements BEST explains George Kennan's post-World War II policy of Containment?

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Which of the following statements BEST explains the origins of the Red Scare in the 1950s?

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How did the United States' post-World War II policies compare to the postwar policies of the Soviet Union?

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A series of “sit-ins” as civil rights protests in 1960 resulted in the formation of the _____.

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How did Malcolm X's message of Black Nationalism differ from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s nonviolent, integrationist approach to civil rights?

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What was the significance of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott?

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What was the significance of the 1965 Voting Rights Act?

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Which of the following factors contributed to the rebirth of the Feminist movement in the 1960s?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the gay and lesbian liberation movement in the 1960s and early 1970s?

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Why did Martin Luther King, Jr. select Birmingham, Alabama, as the site for major civil rights protests in the spring of 1963?

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What was the significance of the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954?

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How did President John F. Kennedy respond to the growing Communist guerilla war in South Vietnam?

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Which of the following challenges did U.S. military forces face in South Vietnam?

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Which of the following domestic concerns did President Gerald Ford attempt to tackle during his one term as president?

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Which of the following is NOT characteristic of the Counterculture?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes President Lyndon B. Johnson's response to the deteriorating political and military situation in South Vietnam in 1964?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the political and military situation that President Lyndon B. Johnson faced in South Vietnam at the beginning of his presidency?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the origins of the Anti-War Movement during the Vietnam Era?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes the impact of the Watergate Scandal on Richard M. Nixon's presidency?

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Which of the following was a consequence of the Vietnam War for the United States?

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How did President John F. Kennedy and his administration respond to the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Communist Cuba in the fall of 1962?

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How did Mikhail Gorbachev's political policies in the Soviet Union lessen tensions between Russia and the United States?

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How did President Ronald Reagan's policies towards the Soviet Union differ from President Jimmy Carter's policies?

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Which of the following factors led to a resurgence of political conservatism in the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s?

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Which of the following statements BEST describes President Ronald Reagan's economic policies during his first term in office?

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How did President Bill Clinton's political values differ from previous 20th-century Democratic presidents?

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Which of the following describes settlement and development of the American West most accurately?

Which of the following statements accurately describes foreign immigration in the West in the last quarter of the 19th century quizlet?

How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period?

How was the settlement of Oklahoma Territory different from that of other western territories?