Rise Of The American West Essay

The American west was perceived as a land of opportunity and success for many people of different racial and financial backgrounds during this specific era. However, the extent of success from opportunity varied on one’s race, willingness to take chances, and federal involvement. Farmers, miners, and indigenous people predominantly appeared in the west for opportunity. Farming dominated the West beginning in the 1870s, but the decline of agriculture economically immediately followed during the mid-1880s. Commercial farming began to dominate the West by cash crops being sold to a world market and creating overproduction which caused a decline in prices. Farmer’s warehouse rates were considerably higher in the South and West than the Northeast. Farmers believed speculators, banks, and eastern manufacturers were conspiring to fix prices at the farmers' expense. Isolation from urban centers caused loneliness, lack of education, and lack of medical expertise which led to the Populism movement of the 1890s. The Populism movement wants an expansion of the currency in order to raise prices and it
The miner’s populations were mostly male, greed, outlaws attracted by minerals prospectors panned for minerals by hand. When corporations dug deeper below the surface fewer people became rich and those that remained in the West worked in the corporate mines. In 1880, the Comstock Lode in Nevada on the eastern corporations gained $306 million more than individual western miners. Corporate mine working conditions were very hot and deep, which led to many people having heat strokes. There were concerns of cave-ins and explosions. Also, ventilation was another major issue because poisonous carbon dioxide caused people to become nauseous. After 1873, silver was not coined, but in the 1870s the market value of silver fell, so silver was available for coinage again, but was prevented by the 1873