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Study Guide – “The West, the Gilded Age, and the Rise of Populism”
Settling the Great Plains
- What is Manifest Destiny?
- Homestead Act (1862) - Describe it
- What percentage of land in the United States was given away through the Homestead Act?
- What percentage of Great Plains settlers were women and former slaves?
- Buffalo on the Plains … at one time, how many buffalo roamed the Great Plains?
- How many buffalo were killed each day (1860’s & 1870’s); how many in a decade?
- Within the historical period of 1860 to 1900, the United States accomplished the closing of the frontier and the settling of the West largely through the Federal Government policy of …
- Dry farming techniques: John Deere’s steel plow, seed drills, threshing machines, and mechanical binders (reaper)
- The mechanization of agriculture in the U.S. led directly to …
- Within the historical period from 1860 to 1900, the United States accomplished the closing of the frontier and the settling of the West largely through the Federal Government policy of …
- Morrill Land Grant College Act (1862)
- How did Richard Sears change the way many Americans purchased goods?
Conquest of the West
- Discovery of Gold in the Black Hills: Warren Report, 1857; Custer Expedition of 1874 (summarize & why not a typical military expedition)
- President Grant’s change in policy in 1875 regarding the Black Hills
- Black Hills Gold Rush, 1874-77 And- Illegal settlements in 1876 …
- What happened during the events of … - Dakota Sioux Uprising (1862) And - Sand Creek Massacre (1864)?
- Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 (major agreements)And- Great Sioux Reservation
- Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876)
- What was the Seventh Cavalry’s objective or mission?
- What happened during the battle?- Mistakes Seventh Cavalry made …
- What were the effects of this battle upon the Lakota people and the history of South Dakota?
- American Indian Boarding School Movement
- What was the philosophy / theme behind the American Indian Boarding School system?
- What was the “outing” program described during class; how did this supplement the Boarding Schools?
- 1883 Court of Indian Offenses
- Black Hills Cession (1877)
- Dawes Act (1887) And - Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) And - Sioux Act of 1889
- U.S. Government vs. Sioux Nation (1980) (specific reasons the cession was declared illegal by Supreme Court)
Railroads, Mining, and Cattle Drives across the American West
- Pacific Railway Act (1862)
- Transcontinental Railroad (1869)- How long in 1869 did it take to cross the continent?
- American Railway Association (1883) & the formation of time zones
- Types of mining: placer, sluice, open-pit, hydraulic, and quartz
- Why were cattle taken across the “open range” northward across Texas?
- What ended the days of the “open range?”
Lakota Cultural Ideas and the Native American Experience
- What do OcetiSakowin, Tiospaye, MitakuyeOyasin, and Oyate mean?
- Significance of Wind Cave with regards to the Lakota creation story …
- “Lakota Way” handout: Story of No Moccasins, how did Crazy Horse demonstrate humility, and why did the Lakota culture, a culture that values humility, allow young men to brag about exploits in battle?
- Due to events during the years of 1860 to 1890, which experiences were shared by most Native Americans living in western states …
African Americans during the Gilded Age
- African American were disenfranchised in the South by the 1890’s because …
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Jim Crow Laws
Politics in the Gilded Age
- Characteristics of politics during the Gilded Age: The “bloody shirt” and the G.A.R.? And- Why high voter turn-out?
- Political urban machine & “party bosses,” - “Black Friday” scandal – September 24, 1869,
- (1872) Credit Mobilier fraud, - (1873) “Lord Gordon-Gordon Incident,”
- The spoils system
- Major legislation during the Gilded Age: the Pendleton Act of (1883), Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) andthe Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
- Major facts / ideas associated with Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison
Agrarian Revolt
- Deflation and the money supply, and why did deflation especially hurt farmers?
- What was the gold standard?
- What were issues that the Farmers Alliance and the Populist Party supported?
- How was the Presidential Election of 1896 a major turning point in American politics?
- What was the central issue of William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech?