SS8 Settlement of the West: Middle School Home

• Library of Congress
  Great resources for primary sources: documents, maps, recording, prints & photographs, newspapers, etc.
   
• PBS The West
  Companion website to a Western Expansion documentary video
   
• Westward Expansion Facts
  Transcontinental Railroad
  Homestead Act
  The Sand Creek Massacre
   

Settlers & Populism

• History: The Oklahoma land Rush, 125 Years Ago
  The Greatest Horse Race in American History
   
• Prairie Settlement
  Contains primary resources from families that settles the prairie in Nebraska; pictures and letters included
   
• Education for Settlers / Homesteaders
  Good description of what a one room school was like on the Great Plains; also the Children's Blizzard of 1888
   
• Settlers / Homesteaders
  Good information from the National Park Service

• Populism in the Late 19th Century
   
• The Growth of Populism 
   
• Populist Party Platform
  What the Populist Party believes and stands for
   
• The Wizard of Oz as a Populist Story?
  See how the book/movie "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" can help explain what the Populists were all about.
   
• Bryan Becomes Populist Candidate
   
• Populist Party Platform

• Farmers & the Populist Movement

• Populism: An Overview

• Populist Party

• PDF's on Populism

Exodusters

• Exodusters - Gale Encyclopedia
   
• Exodusters - Cobblestone publication
   
• PBS Perspectives of the West: Exodusters
   
• African Americans on the Frontier
   
• Kansas Historical Society 
   
• Khan Academy's Homestead Act & the Exodusters

Miners

• Chinese Americans
   
• Miners in the West from 1850-1890
   
• Miner's packet (Google Doc Mrs. Morton can share)

Railroads

• Transcontinental Railroad
  Short summary with detailed article "How Railroads took the 'Wild' out of the West" beneath
   
• Transcontinental Railroad from "Research in Context" Encyclopedia
   
• Transcontinental Railroad Construction
   
• Transcontinental Railroad (History.com)
   
• Chinese American Contribution to Transcontinental Railroad
   
• The Builders of the Transcontinental Railroad
   
• Race in Transcontinental Railroad
   
• Go West: U.S. Westward Expansion - Transcontinental Railroad

• The Transcontinental Railroad

• The Railroad Industry

• Railroads in the West from 1850-1890
   
• Miners and Railroads in the West  A good resource for getting started with key names & terms
   
• PDF packets

Cowboys & Ranchers

• History Cowboys
   
• Ranchers, Cowboys, and Cattle
  Discusses the range wars and the Homestead Act of 1862
   
• Range Wars
   
• Ranchers and Farmers Collide in Nebraska, 1884

• Old West Cowboys

• The Real Wild West: General Custer

• Cattle Kingdom in the West from 1850-1890
   
• Farming on the Great Plains from 1850-1890
   
• PDF packet

Native Americans

• Native Americans in the West from 1850 - 1890
   
• Westward Expansion: Impact on American Indians
  Overview of life of the impact the westward expansion had on Native Americans
   
• American Indians and Western Expansion, 1850-81
   
• How Westward Expansion Affected the Native Americans
  
• Native Americans in the West A good resource for getting started with key names

Westward Expansion: The Settlers

Westward Expansion: Crash Course