The
Homestead Act opened up land in the West to new settlement. Many German and Eastern European
immigrants came to the Great Plains and saw land that looked a lot like home. They planted wheat
and made the United States the breadbasket of the world.
The United States
also underwent a railroad boom after the Civil War. The Transcontinental Railroad, finished in
1869, united California with the rest of the United States. The federal government also gave
land grants to railroads, thus giving them incentive to build more branch lines. Thanks to the
railroad, cattle from Texas could be driven to rail heads in Kansas and then shipped East where
the demand for them was quite high. Railroads also controlled shipping prices and often gouged
farmers. This led to the Grange...
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