In what way did the mining, ranching, and farming frontiers respond to the industrial revolution in the same way as entrepreneurs and laborers?
What is the "safety-valve" theory? Is it plausible to you? Why or why not?
The Homestead Act was less successful than hoped. Why? Consider the provisions of the law and its loopholes, and environmental conditions on the Great Plains.
Explain the ultimate defeat of the Plains Indians by whites. Select and discuss at least three major reasons for the decline of the Plains culture; then tell which you think was the most important and why.
If you had lived at the time, what would you have proposed as a solution to the "Indian problem"? What would have been your view on "concentration," the Dawes Severalty Act, and the savagery of Indian warfare?
If you were a farmer in Kansas in 1887, what would be three or four of your major problems? How would you be trying to solve them? Would you be likely to seek help? Where? Why?
What do you think was the major technological innovation that influenced life on the Great Plains frontier? Why?
If you had lived at the time, which would you have most preferred to participate in: the mining frontier, the ranching frontier, or the farming frontier? Why?
Comment on the text’s authors’ observation that "where fighting is protracted and uncivilized, the ethics of combat are ordinarily pulled down to a primitive level." Do you agree? How do the late-nineteenth-century Indian wars illustrate this generalization?
The authors contend that "American history cannot be properly understood unless it is viewed in light of [the] westward-moving experience." Do you agree? Why or why not? What unique contributions did the frontier experience make to American life?