![]() ![]() This chapter examines the forces that drove Americans westward the kinds of lives they established in the Far West and the rise of the "West of the imagination," the popular myths that continue to exert a powerful hold on mass culture. The expansion of railroads and the invention of barbed wire and improvements in windmills and pumps attracted ranchers and farmers to the Great Plains in the 1860s and 1870s. The discovery of gold, silver, and other precious minerals in California in 1849, in Nevada and Colorado in the 1850s, in Idaho and Montana in 1860s, and South Dakota in the 1870s sparked an influx of prospectors and miners. By 1893, the Census Bureau was able to claim that the entire western frontier was now occupied. Between 1865 and the 1890s, however, Americans settled 430 million acres in the Far West-more land than during the preceding 250 years of American history. The only parts of the Far West that were highly settled were California and Texas. In 1860, most Americans considered the Great Plains the “Great American Desert.” Settlement west of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana averaged just 1 person per square mile. ![]() Burdened by heavy debts and falling farm prices, many farmers joined the Populist Party, which called for an increase in the amount of money in circulation, government assistance to help farmers repay loans, tariff reductions, and a graduated income tax. These were turbulent years that saw labor violence, rising racial tension, militancy among farmers, and discontent among the unemployed. The Interstate Commerce Act sought to end discrimination by railroads against small shippers and the Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed business monopolies. The Civil Service Act sought to curb government corruption by requiring applicants for certain governmental jobs to take a competitive examination. A national transportation and communication network was created, the corporation became the dominant form of business organization, and a managerial revolution transformed business operations.Īn era of intense partisanship, the Gilded Age was also an era of reform. The late 19th century saw the creation of a modern industrial economy. But it is more useful to think of this as modern America's formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers were transformed into an urban society dominated by industrial corporations. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. In the popular view, the late 19th century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display. Mark Twain called the late 19th century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath.
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