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Mining Towns | Transportation Revolution | African Americans and Crop Lien
Mining TownsMining sparked the West's first economic boom. The lure of precious metals also attracted the first mass migration of Anglo-Americans to the future territories of Colorado, Nevada, and the Black Hills of southwestern Dakota. This map shows the rapid rise and fall of mining communities searching for gold and silver. Gold mining, for example, moved quickly from California in the 1850s, to Idaho and Montana in the 1860s, and to South Dakota in the 1870s.
Estimate the average duration of gold or silver booms. List the stages of a typical mining town from the first strike to ghost town. Why did most mining towns experience this boom, decline, and bust cycle? What techniques did corporations employ to extend the profitability of some regions well into the twentieth century?
For each time period on the map, pay special attention to the changing boundaries of the United States, Mexico, and the Native American nations. How did the previous occupants of the mining areas receive the Anglo-American migrants? Where did mining rushes spark conflicts between the United States and Native Americans? How were these conflicts resolved?
Describe in a few sentences the everyday life of mining boomtowns. Characterize relations between men and women, between various ethnic and racial groups, and between upper and lower classes. Contrast this society to that of northeastern cities like Boston and southeastern cities such as Charleston.
A young relative from Philadelphia writes that he or she is tired of the crowded city and wants to join you out West. From the perspective of a miner, a farmer, or a rancher, write a letter back to your relative with a fair appraisal of the opportunities, challenges, and conditions of life in your specific region. Describe your precise location, your living quarters, surrounding countryside, climate, and social conditions. What should your relative bring? Comment on his or her prospects for marriage and family life. When you are finished, explain how your advice would change if your correspondent were Mexican, Indian, Chinese, African-American, European, male or female (pick three different scenarios). Finally, does your portrait of opportunity in a mining town support or contradict the picture of the West presented by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his "Frontier Thesis"?
Transportation RevolutionThe amount of railroad trackage in the United States tripled between 1850 and 1860. The Northeast developed the most comprehensive and efficient system, with twice as much trackage per square mile as the Northwest and four times as much as the South. Over time, the main "trunk lines" (shown in black) tended to displace traffic from the Erie Canal and the Mississippi River. By lessening the dependence of the West on the Mississippi, the railroads help to weaken the link between the Northwest and the South.
Why was there a greater concentration of railroads in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South? Give three hypotheses, and look for evidence on the map and in your text to back up each one. What effects would this have on sectional division and conflict?
Which cities grew up as a result of the new rail traffic? What economic impact did railroads have on the growth of cities across the North and Midwest? Which products were behind this growth in rail traffic?
Railroads in the South were fewer in number and served mostly to bring agricultural products from the hinterlands to cities and ports. Why did the railroads fail to bring about the economic changes it brought about in the North and Midwest?
You are a businessman interested in entering the railroad industry in 1840. Write a letter to Congress or to your state legislature asking for support of your project. What area of the country do you believe will offer the highest return on profit? What arguments will you make about the economic, political and social benefits of your enterprise? What assistance will you request?
You are a nineteenth century rail traveler on a cross-country journey. Write a diary of your travels, the landscape you pass, the travel experience on the railroads, and the people you meet on your trip.
African Americans and Crop LienAfter the Civil War, more and more southern farmers became tenants and sharecroppers, both in the black belt and upcountry regions. This development emerged in large part because of a new crop-lien system that transferred land ownership from farmers to merchants. The crop-lien system also shifted southern agriculture even more toward the production of cotton and undermined opportunities for families of small farmers to preserve their economic independence. The map also shows the high prevalence of the crop lien system in cotton growing regions with large slave populations before emancipation.
What areas had the highest concentration of sharecroppers? What crop was grown in this area? Why did sharecropping arise in this area and not in other areas where other crops had been grown before the Civil War?
What did the rise of sharecropping show about the economic development of the South after the Civil war? What economic developments did sharecropping prevent, in agriculture and industry? What racial and economic problems did sharecropping reinforce?
Examine the layers of the map for 1820 and 1860. Did the crop lien system overlap significantly with the antebellum areas of forced labor and intensive agricultural production? Why or why not?
You are an editor at a newspaper that purports to represent the "New South" and tries to encourage economic development for the South. Write an article summarizing the findings of the census of 1880 on sharecropping. What is your position of sharecropping? What steps should be taken to develop those areas of the South most affected by the crop lien system?
