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8
U n i t
History and society
The American Frontier
and the Civil War
George
Caleb Bingham,
Fur Merchants
Descending the
Missouri River
(1849).
The growth of the USA and the Gold Rush.
Both the population
and the economy of the United States grew enormously in the 19th
century. This was because the
millions of immigrants
coming
from Europe were often farmers, skilled craftsmen and specialized
workers. Most of the immigrants went to the new territories,
generally known as ‘
the Frontier
’. The Frontier was both a
physical and a symbolic entity: as such it kept moving westward
with the acquisition and colonization of new territory. The myth
of the Frontier was well summed up in the famous saying: “Go
west, young man!”, an invitation to the new Americans to go
and get their own land. People from all over the continent and
also from Europe rushed to California after gold was discovered
there in 1848: it was the so-called
Gold Rush
. The new economy
was powerful and varied: the South was mainly agricultural and grew
cotton
,
rice
,
sugar
and
tobacco
; the North had
textile
industries and
manufacturing industries
as well as a flourishing shipping trade.
The Civil War (1861-65).
The second half of the century saw the
northern and southern states of the Union make war on each other.
The conflict arose over the question of slavery, legally practised in the
South and opposed in the North as contrary to the principles on which
the United States had been founded. The conflict was in fact also one
of different economies: the industrial North and the agricultural South.
The situation precipitated in 1860 after the election of
AbrahamLincoln
as President (1860-65), a declared enemy of slavery. In April 1861 the
Civil War
began. It lasted four years (1861-65) and it ended with the
defeat of the South.
Slavery was officially abolished
in 1865 by the
13th amendment to the Constitution. The United States recovered well
from the Civil War and was now almost on a par with Britain as regards
industrial and agricultural production. The
expansion of the railway
system
to Canada and the West, rich in grain, meant lower grain prices
and much higher production, which Britain could not compete with.
The Frontier
02
Listen to the description of the picture above, then answer the questions.
1
What can you see in the foreground?
2
What is depicted in the background?
3
Which adjectives best describe the general atmosphere? Tick them:
solitary crowded silent dreamy misty gay hazy unreal unspoiled realistic
listening
S
tudy questions
1
How is ‘the Frontier’ linked to
American history?
2
How did American economy
grow in the 19th century?
3
What led to the American Civil
War?
4
When was slavery abolished?
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