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A travelling shoe-maker or tinker might pass through who would provide or mend household items, but usually families just had to make do. The women collected 'buffalo chips' for fuel, stoked the stove, and made their own candles and soap. 'I have often wondered how my mother stood it', wrote an early settler. Drought - There was only 38 cm of rainfall in a year, and the hot summers evaporated dampness from the land. In the 1860s there were terrible droughts, followed by fires. Unit 2: Schools History Project Depth Study Option2A: The transformation of British Society c1815-1851 (5HB02/2A)
Isolation No doctors or midwives. No social life 'because of the distances between farmhouses'. In the winter families were shut in 'and longed for spring'. Unit 3: Modern World Source Enquiry: Option 3B War and transformation of British Society c1931-1951 (5HA03/3B)Option 12: Warfare and the British society c1250 – present and London and the second World War, 1939 -1945. Unit 1: Schools History Project Development Study Option1A: Medicine and public health in Britain, C50AD to the present day (5HB01/1A)
People had to make the most of any trip to their nearest town, where the women talked of the harvest and the men smoked corncob pipes and talked politics. This Act allowed farmers to buy 640 acres of land at a cheap price in areas where there was little rainfall and irrigation schemes were needed to farm the land The government realised that 160 acres was not enough to sustain people. The Timber Culture Act of 1873 gave farmers another 160 free acres if they grew some trees. The well driller and windpump allowed deep wells to be dug, which gave water. New methods of dry farming were invented (the 'Turkey Red' variety of wheat was imported from Russia, and farmers put a layer of dust on the soil after rain, which stopped evaporation).The transcontinental railway was completed. A ceremony, known as the ‘golden spike ceremony’ because a golden spike was used to join the East and West railways, was held at Promontory Point in Utah.
Unit 3: Schools History Project Source Enquiry Option 3A: The transformation of Surgery c1845-c1918 (5HB03/3A) F Glidden invented barbed wire. This invention meant that large areas of land could be fenced relatively cheaply.
Additional Resources About American West and Native Americans
Following the death of the Mormon leader, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young decided to take the Mormons away from the persecution they faced in the East and to build a new life for them at the Great Salt Lake. This Act split up most of the remaining Indian land into 160 acre plots. Some of the plots were given to Indians but much of the land was allocated to white settlers. Farming - A hard crust on the soil made it hard to start farming. Farmers could not afford a plough or machines. There were not enough workers.
About a thousand people made the journey West to Oregon. This was the highest number of migrants to make the journey west in one year so far and became known as the Great Migration. Settlers built 'sod houses', while they lived out of doors - people did their cooking on an open fire. Option 11: Medicine in Britain c1250 – present and the British sector of the Western front, 1914 -1918: Injuries, treatment and the trenches.This Act was an extension to the Homestead Act offering 160 acres of land for free provided that at least 40 acres was planted with trees.
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