The experiences a state undergoes frequently shape its national individuality and define who they are as a state. Throughout the class of its history. America has developed a national individuality which is the American Dream. The American Dream is defined as the qualities that make up America and most of its people they include ; chance. success. finding. and inventiveness. Many events in American’s history highlight the thought of the American dream between the period of its creative activity and the 1900’s. but few have succeeded to exhibit all the qualities that make up this thought. One specific event in America’s history has succeeded in showing the four qualities included in the American dream ; this event is America’s period of Westward Expansion. The events that occurred during America’s Westward Expansion. although little. played a big function in working and foregrounding the qualities that make up the American Dream.
The American Dream encompasses the qualities that make up America and most of its people. They include chance. finding. success. and American inventiveness. Opportunity best describes America and its individuality instead than the individuality of its people. America is frequently described as the land of chance and many people use this to populate the American Dream. During the Period of Westward Expansion people from all over the United States came to settle in its new un-trodden lands to seek for wealths. and to take advantage of the chance it offered. Opportunity in the Western districts was known and present even before the creative activity of the state. The West gave people the opportunity to mine for gold or to get down afresh in its turning metropoliss.
The ultimate end for people emigrating to the West was to be successful and obtaining a better life. Many of the people achieved success by raising households. making profitable farms. or going rich. Success is another big portion of the American Dream and was merely achieved through the finding of the expansionists. Determination is a characteristic that defines the work moral principle of the American people and depict how they carry out the American Dream. American inventiveness is besides a portion of the American Dream and contributes to the individuality of the Americans. The creativeness and the inventiveness of the American people help specify them as free minds and pioneers of the modern universe. These qualities of the American Dream can be clearly shown through America’s period of westbound enlargement.
The journey West to America’s freshly gained district of Oregon is an of import event during Westward Expansion that highlights the American Dream. The enlargement into the Oregon district during the period highlights the features of the American Dream ; chance. success. and finding. The people who traveled the Oregon Trail had to confront many dangers and obstructions to get at the chance that laid in the West. Those dangers included ferocious animate beings. hostile Indians. storms. rivers. diseases. and robbers. Pioneers besides lost many farm animal to prairie wolfs and other marauders and because of this. they had to remain up all dark to guard them. In add-on. about all rivers were considered immense obstructions to the innovators sing the trouble of acquiring full waggons and oxen across safely. Water was besides really scarce on the trail and the innovators were invariably in danger of running out between irrigating holes. Possibly the worst danger that could happen would be interrupting a waggon wheel or an axle. Despite the dangers on the trail. the expansionists went frontward to procure a better life for themselves and their households.
The fact that these people were willing to endure these dangers highlights the power of American finding. a factor which is so prevailing in the American Dream. As a consequence. many of the people who traveled and completed the trail were successful in accomplishing their end of incurring a better life by settling down. raising a household. and puting up farms. During America’s westbound enlargement more than 80. 000 people ventured to California in hunt of gold. This event shortly came to be known as the California Gold Rush. The 49ers of the California Gold Rush can be known as major gymnastic apparatuss of the American Dream by foregrounding success and finding. The event itself best displays the quality of chance. Many of the people were taking an tremendous hazard by selling their farms and houses and go forthing in hunt of something that they could ne’er obtain. These people all had the common end of prehending the chance to go rich and lead a better life. Harmonizing to Ronald James author for the Nevada Encyclopedia. “For most. the thought of striking it rich by detecting a valuable claim yielded to the aspiration of gaining a good pay and. if the chance presented itself. of raising a household in a wholesome community. Many still dreamt of sudden wealth. and chancing with stocks became the most common mercantile establishment for this hope. ”
James demonstrates how the 49ers seized the chance to strike it rich in hopes of taking a healthy and deluxe life. The 49ers mused on the little opportunity they had to strike it rich that served as a major constituent that piloted their finding. This highlights the American Dream because the 49ers of the California gold haste used finding to obtain the chance they had sought out for. Those who came to the new land were willing to populate off of about nil on a twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours footing. Much of these people were willing to make back interrupting work in order to get gold and as a consequence. a strong work ethic developed.
The result of the finding and wholesome attempt put out by the gold mineworkers was both positive and negative by which some succeeded. while others did non. Businesss that came in hunt of gold highlight the American Dream because they used the west’s potency to go successful in excavation and in the American market. Those who engaged in hydraulic excavation were the first to do a profitable concern out of it. These people created America’s first original industry that gained precedency over all others. These concerns developed a construct that paved the manner for the creative activity of America’s first signifiers of industry. This best high spots the American Dream by explicitly demoing the use of chance to accomplish a successful and moneymaking concern which in consequence. benefited the national economic system.
America and its people had their eyes on the Texas district of all time since the thought of manifest fate and shortly adequate it became a site of American expansionism. Like the California gold haste and the Oregon district. the enlargement into the district of Texas exhibits the qualities chance and success. During the 1800’s an inflow of people journeyed to the western district of Texas in hunt of the chance it offered. Texas offered big sums of fertile land which were virtually unused by the little population of native Tejanos. The consequence of the Anglo-Texans motion into Texas was a booming Texan economic system that based itself chiefly on the cotton industry set up by the emigres. Many people who led successful farms rapidly became affluent. therefore transporting out the American dream of success.
Over clip the cotton industry in Texas grew quickly. so much that harmonizing to Karen Gerhardt Britton. Fred C. Elliott. and E. A. Mille of the Texas State Historical Association. “In 1849 a nose count of the cotton production of the province reported 58. 073 bales ( 500 lbs each ) . In 1852 Texas was in 8th topographic point among the top 10 cotton-producing provinces of the state. [ … ] In 1879 some 2. 178. 435 estates produced 805. 284 bales. The 1889 nose count reported 3. 934. 525 estates bring forthing 1. 5 million bales. The cotton harvest in 1900 was more than 3. 5 million bales from 7. 178. 915 estates. Get downing in 1872. 1000s of immigrants from the Deep South and from Europe poured into the Blackland Prairie of Central Texas and began turning cotton. ” The people of Texas lived the American Dream by turning a one time un-populated and un-profitable land into one of the largest manufacturers of cotton in all of America. The Anglo-Texans besides. like the 49ers. helped America transport out its American Dream by increasing the success of its reasonably new economic system.
Much of the success. chance. and finding during the period of Westward Expansion were merely possible through the power of American engineering. Technology during that clip high spots inventiveness. another feature of the American Dream. Technological promotions included the transcontinental railway. promotions in covered waggon travel. and promotions in mining engineering. The promotions in going to the West included the waggon train and the colossal Transcontinental Railroad. Due to the built-in dangers comprised in the journey West. people fabricated ways to do travelling by covered waggons easier and safer. The most apparent promotion in waggon travel was the waggon train. Wagon trains served both as enclosures for farm animal and protection against possible onslaughts from the contentious Native Americans. In fact in March. 1857. Alexander Fancher led a waggon trail that included 50 work forces. 40 adult females and 50 kids. On 7th September. the party was attacked by the hostile Native Americans. They survived because of the train’s ability to organize a barrier between the Native Americans and the party members.
This technological promotion proves to foreground American inventiveness because the people who created this construct identified a major issue with westbound travel and fixed it with a new advanced attack. Another promotion in westbound travel was the creative activity of the unprecedented Transcontinental Railroad. To promote motion into the West. Abraham Lincoln proposed the edifice of the Transcontinental Railroad that would simplify westward travel. This advanced construction encouraged the growing of American concern. promoted the nation’s public discourse. and advanced rational life. This promotion made it easy for people to go across the continent in a period of a couple yearss leting them to stare upon the nation’s beauty. In add-on. the railway carried more than riders and goods ; they provided a conductress for thoughts. and tracts for discourse. Despite the deficiency of precedency. the applied scientists went frontward with their program turn outing the aspiration and inventiveness of the American head. They besides show that the invention and the inventiveness of the American head is ne’er settled by things that are “average” . and as a consequence Americans strive to make the best and be the best.
During the California Gold Rush the demand for gilded continued to turn and the traditional method of “dry washing” rapidly became disused. The demand for better excavation methods became progressively more apparent as the gold haste progressed. and shortly new mining techniques were being used by the mineworkers. The discoverers of the new excavation techniques made mining easier therefore increasing the excavation industry. and bettering America’s economic system. The promotions in mining engineering included hydraulic excavation and tunnel excavation. In hydraulic excavation. jets of H2O were shot at gravel Bankss rinsing out big measures of crushed rock without manus labour. In tunnel excavation. mineworkers dug long tunnels into the sides of mountains cutting into gilded venas and so pull outing big measures of gold. These advanced methods favored mass production without big sums of labour doing some people highly comfortable. The people who invented these techniques demonstrated American inventiveness at its fullest by doing mining easier piece at the same clip. increasing production.
America has developed a national individuality that has been shown in events throughout the class of its history. The American Dream can be considered America’s individuality and can be characterized by finding. chance. success. and inventiveness. Other qualities of the American dream do be such as equality. but are crude to the 1s exhibited during Westward Expansion. These qualities fail to be current because they represent a immature America and ideals that are merely relevant to periods earlier in its history. The qualities of the American Dream shown during Westward Expansion more accurately and presently depict America and its people. Western Expansion is the best event in America’s history that exploits the use of all four of these qualities by depicting the American people and the chance existent within her lodgers.
Bibliography
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