What caused westward expansion in the United States?

University of Southern California ^ | February 28, 2008 | Unknown

[wardaddy]

Population Growth from Europe and Cities in the Northeast?

Second and Third Sons from both Europe and the American South’s plantocracy and yeoman class.

Railroads?

man....that was a tough one....(wiping sweat)

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The post-Civil War demographic changes are pretty startling. For example, most of the adult males in Arkansas were about wiped out. But dramatic demographic changes happened for other reasons as well.

1) Just before the turn of the century, the boll weevil wiped out the cotton crop, and forced adaptation to a different form of agriculture. Perfect timing, as well, as it would have soon been wiped out by foreign competition.

2) The Dust Bowl caused its reversal of the frontier by forcing large numbers of farmers to the coasts. This was heightened by the Great Depression.

3) The Green Revolution after WWII continued where they had left off, and stripped most of the remaining private farmers out of rural America, to move to the cities.

[Bender2]

Re: Atomic Annie’ll give you as much fire power as you need...

Yeah, "280mm" is about 11 inches... and that was once my nickname! Now it is "300 Plus mm!" after my last refit.

[redgolum]

For my family, it was the UP railroad.

Left Germany and ended up in Nebraska. Why they didn’t go somewhere warmer we will never know.

[gorush]

Any individual thirsting for more freedom would have instinctively headed west.

[decimon]

Left Germany and ended up in Nebraska. Why they didn’t go somewhere warmer we will never know.

Some Europeans paid to get here with the "streets paved with gold" sort of bs. There were probably many who went west on the same sort of false promises.