History of the American West - HIST 362 Resource Guide: Westward Expansion

Around 1850, the vast fertile lands of the Midwest attracted nearly a million farmers from Norway, where land was scarce and often unfit to farm. Their life as pioneers was hard, but their descendants have prospered.

A companion website to the Ken Burns and Stephen Iverson PBS 2001 documentary, here you can tour the West or explore the people, places, and events that made the West famous. It also includes an archive of western documentary materials.

The Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum exhibits stereoviews, engravings, maps, and documents illustrating the history of the first transcontinental railroad. Detailed discussion of the photographic processes used to create the images are included. There is also dicussion of the contribution of the Chinese workers who helped build the railroad.

National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum is a monument to the memory of the men and women who pioneered the discovery, development and processing of our nation's natural resources.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn took place on 25 June 1876. It resulted in the death of about 265 officers and troops of the 7th Cavalry under the command of General George Armstrong Custer...

In US history, the influx of prospectors to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, following the discovery of gold in the American River by US surveyor James Marshall in January 1848. Within two years over 100,000 people had flooded into California in the hopes of making their fortunes. San Francisco was transformed from a coastal village to the largest city in the West. The miners of 1849, known as the '49ers, forged pioneering wagon trails over the Great Plains and through the Rocky Mountain

Slaughter of 450 Cheyenne and Arapaho by the 3rd Colorado Volunteers under Col John Chivington, during an unprovoked attack on Cheyenne peace chief Black Kettle's camp at Sand Creek, Colorado, on 29 November 1864...

Bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S. Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska...

The Second Great Awakening permanently changed the face of religion in the USA; it saw a rise in the numbers of Baptists and Methodists relative to that of the Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists in the colonial period...

Forced march of Indian tribes from the eastern United States to Oklahoma...

The largest civil engineering project in western history to that date, the railroad was over 4,800 km/3,000 mi long and crossed deserts, canyons, and mountains, requiring the development of new construction techniques...

Cattle raising in the Southwest began in Texas, where after 1716 the Spanish raised cattle at their missions; by 1770 the ranches of Mission La Bahía del Espíritu Santo, near Goliad, contained as many as 40,000 head. Cattle soon made missions wealthy, and private citizens who invested in herds made profitable long drives from Texas to Louisiana and into northern Mexico.

1801–77, American religious leader, early head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, b. Whitingham, Vt....

1811–72, American newspaper editor, founder of the New York Tribune, b. Amherst, N.H.

The regular army of the United States moved westward across the continent with the expansion of the nation. American sovereignty had to be exerted over new territorial acquisitions, and settlers moving west called for protection against the Indians. The military presence in the West came largely in the form of small installations (variously called posts, forts, camps, cantonments, or barracks), which were built at strategic sites along the lines of communication or in areas of Indian disturbances.

In U.S. history, the border area of settlement of Europeans and their descendants; it was vital in the conquest of the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific...

In US history, the belief that Americans had a providential mission to extend both their territory and their democratic processes westwards across the continent...

Of people, geographical movements of individuals or groups for the purpose of permanently resettling...

Major westward migration route in the USA used by pioneer settlers in the 19th century. The Trail, which covered some 3,200 km/2,000 mi and took six or seven months to travel...