Questions and thoughts for those posting on 09/30

1. Westerners are a strange breed. I say that as a person born and raised in the Great American Southwest. We are libertarian. We have a disdain for federal government intervention, a love of states' rights, and a unique way of viewing property and gun rights. Westerners tend to place individual liberties over the value of group responsibilities. Is there a connection between the history of the American West and this unique culture? Were the people who went West simply the type to hold these values or were these values shaped by the Western landscape?

2. Some of the greatest obstacles to Westward migration and settlement were geographic in nature. Western settlers had to overcome the utter lack of water, dust storms, unforgiving mountainous terrain, frigid winters, and sweltering summers. How did Western settlers deal with these challenges? Are the settlers' responses to these challenges sustainable in the long run or is the West headed for ecological disaster?

3. Native Americans attempted to resist American expansion into the West and failed, relegated to reservation lands the United States government deemed less desirable for Merican settlement. The Cherokee, who had been removed from Georgia and Tennessee and relocated to Oklahoma by the Jackson administration, were further constrained to make room for Homesteaders. Plains natives like the Sioux saw their entire way of life destroyed as the buffalo slipped toward extinction, overhunted by profit-seeking skinners and the US army's attempts to force the Sioux to negotiate. They were forced to give up their migratory lifestyle and confined to reservations. The government attempted, through reservation schools, to "civilize" the tribes. Were these things necessary for the expansion and development of the American nation? Was conflict inevitable or was there a better way to deal with the tribes effectively?

4. The modernization of farming, conversion of plains and desert land to farmland, and federal government assistance in irrigation led to huge increases in farm production in the late 19th century. Railroads, barbed wire fences, and the conversions of the plains led to sweeping changes in the cattle industry around the same time. Rather than graze cattle over wide areas and drive them on foot to packing plants in Chicago, ranchers raised cattle on small plots of land, feeding them grain, and shipping them by rail to the packers. These cattle, sold by the pound, were quickly fattened and the changes in ranching greatly increased the supply of beef in the United States in the late 19th century. What effects did these changes have on the availability and cost of food in the United States? What were the economic effects on ranchers and farmers? Why did ranchers and farmers attempt to collaborate with each other to improve their situations?

5. What were the economic effects of the US government's switch to the gold standard in the latter half of the 19th century? Who was positively affected? Who was negatively affected? What were some of the competing plans for changing the money supply? Which do you think was the most promising and why?

Have fun :)