Essays on Westward

It is one of the ironies of history that the “old west” was actually the last area of the north American continent to be settled. By 1860, for example, San Francisco, California was a booming city of 56,802 persons making it the 15th largest city in the nation (San Francisco Population). Kansas City, meanwhile, had a population of 4,418 (U.S. Census Bureau). Denver, Colorado was already the “Queen City of the Plains” with a population of 4,749 (Population of Denver, CO). These three communities are important since Denver and Kansas City represent the western and eastern ...

St Louis and New Orleans were the furthest points in the West in 1860. San Francisco was not in existence, and the whole of the population was composed of native tribes that were cut out from active participation in the national economy. There was no transport system, and the farthest point of the railroad was in St Louis while the area between Chicago and San Francisco was largely untapped for economic activities like mining and agricultural production. There were more than forty native tribes, but their population did not cross the 100,000 mark. The population grew very fast ...

Wheat, genetically a hybrid of various grasses, was one was one of the original grains . In fact, wheat is so important that it warrants its own web page - “Wheat: A Plant That Changed the World.” Although wheat has less direct food value in terms of calories produced per acre (Ma. n.d.) it has advantages over corn (maize) and rice, the grains that outproduce it in this key metric. Corn is more generally used as animal feed, although it can be easy converted to a very high value low bulk commodity, alcohol (Steinson, 1994). Rice has a longer growing ...

. The early history of the United States from the founding of the Republic after the Constitutional Convention to the Civil War was greatly influenced by the changing face of the so-called party system. The main points which all of the parties in the different eras of Early American history before the Civil War concentrated primarily on what the role and size of the federal government should be and how it should work to deal with the major issues of the day. One of the most significant issues surrounding the early federal government related to its place and stance as ...

The concept of “whiteness” is, of course, silly on its face. “Pinkness,” or perhaps, “very light tanness” would be more accurate. Nevertheless, the term is deeply embedded into cultural discourse. “White privilege” is the phrase of the day. “White Man’s Burden” was the public face of the reasoning for British imperialism. White men (no women need apply in those bygone days) not only “could” govern their poor, benighted “colored” brethren better than they could govern themselves, it was an affirmative duty to bring superior culture and civilization to the savages. In the history of the United States the ...

During the mid-nineteenth century, freedom in the North and West led to significant American social, economic and political advancement. Owing to the aspect of freedom in the civilized world, various Americans invested in trade opportunities. Territorial expansion was caused by a considerable increase in the American population. Political ideologies led to the establishment of factions that would differ along the lines of administrative roles. Furthermore, free labor and slavery paved the way for the creation of lobby groups that would advocate for the protection of human rights in America.

Economic advancement

Giant economic leaps were made in America during in the ...

The concept of Manifest Destiny is a belief dated back in the 19th century. It was a belief that the United States mission was to expand its western side across the North American continent. The expansion spreads its form of freedom, culture and democracy (Jones & Rakestraw, 2007). Manifest destiny came as a result in 1828 when Andrew Jackson was elected the president. He promised to expand the territories of the United States westward sides. This idea of manifest destiny holds that America had the right and duty to develop its civilization that fueled its boundaries move into Mexico and ...

Three Challenges in America, 1820-1840 This report considers three main challenges facing the nation and its citizens during the 1820 to 1840 time period and offers reasons why these challenges were significant. Foner (356) indicates Andrew Jackson’s presidency highlighted several major developments, including: the expansion of democracy and nationalism, the westward expansion movement and the slavery issue. During these two decades, American democracy and nationalism became more defined. The property requirement to vote eventually disappeared. “Democratic political institutions” became the hallmark of America’s identity that emphasized equality ...

Hello Dave,

You know, a couple days ago I watch a TV show where the theme of intolerance was slightly noticed. The thing is in this ‘slightly’ – it seems like nowadays only a few people can clearly formulate its origins and reasons it still exists. With it, I also remembered the movie Crash, which also discussed some racial tensions (Crash). It was as if the TV show and movie were pulling me in the same direction. Maybe it is a coincidence, but on our last lecture we had some topics connected with this problem. Thus, in this letter I will try ...

Introduction

An invention takes place due to the need of some technological growth in a society and its development is based upon factors like inventions, property right, demand of the technology and encouragement. The introduction of steam engine and locomotive had deep positive and negative effects on European communities; it brought positive and negative impacts creating huge turn points in history.

Steam Engine Locomotive

The Steam engine locomotives used to run on the basis of steam engine. The steam trains were powered by those steam engines which consisted of system of cylinders compressing the superheated steam in order to pressurize it. After the ...

The American Westward Expansion was one of the key events of the nineteenth century. To a great extent, it established the relationship between the White people and Native Americans and influenced their lifestyle. It was the time of mounting tensions between the two nations. The aim of this paper is to study how the life of the Plains Indians, especially the Lakota Sioux, changed under the influence of the Westward Expansion at the end of the nineteenth century. Generally, the Plain Indians had always been hunters and needed big land territories to sustain their hunting societies. The American Westward ...

(Teacher)

In the years 1807 -1912 people settled in the western areas of the United States, and all points in between the east coast and the Pacific Ocean. This period is known as the Westward Expansion. The expansion began on the east coast and continued to the Pacific Ocean, where the pioneers settled and began to colonize the areas in between. It seemed that the land was available to be claimed and thousands of natives were pushed off their ancestral lands to make way for the white settlers. Although white civilization had been established in the Eastern United States ...