What attracted the Homesteaders to the West?

?
  • Created by: Megnicpip
  • Created on: 04-03-16 17:26

Push Factors

  • Jews and other religious groups wanted to escape from persecution at home.
  • There was shortages of farmland in the heavily populated Eastern states.
  • After the American Civil War there ere few jobs for ex-soldiers.
  • There was a shortage of farmland in Norway and Sweden.
  • Unemployment and poverty affected many English, Germands, Russians, Scots and Irish.
  • Crops kept failing and people started starving.
  • Black Aericans kept getting persecuted, even though they had been set free from slavery after the Civil War.
1 of 2

Pull Factors

  • People from the Plains sent home letters to family memberssaying how great living on the Plains is.
  • Railroad companies built railroads across the Plains so settlers could get around the Plains easier.
  • In 1862, the government passed the Homestead Act. This meant that families would reciieve 160 acres of land on the Plains. The land would have been free as long as the family farmed it and lived there for five years. There was millions of acres of land available.
2 of 2

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar History resources:

See all History resources »See all The American West 1840-1895 resources »