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The Settlement of the West

Additional Resources

Check out these additional resources to further explore the historical topic and teaching strategy for this session.

Content Resources

A Biography of America
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog14/index.html
On this site, you can view the Biography of America video (or read the transcript) for Program 14: Industrial Supremacy and Program 16: The West. You can also access maps, listings of key events, and Web links on this topic. Program 16 also includes a map activity that allows you to examine potential connections between the building of the transcontinental railroad and the "conquest of the West."

Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/upbhtml/overhome.html
This site includes diary entries of pioneers trekking westward, along with maps, photographs, and other illustrations of the journey.

Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/riseind/ railroad/ rail.html
This site features an overview of railroad construction in the late 19th century, and includes a series of primary source documents about the railroads.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/module8/
In the Westward Expansion module, you can access a brief overview of the time period, primary source documents, learning tools, visual aids, and additional resources.

New Perspectives on The West
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/
On this companion site to The West, a film by Ken Burns and Stephen Ives, you can view clips from the documentary, primary sources, lessons plans, and interactive materials including a biographical dictionary, maps, and a timeline.

American Experience: Transcontinental Railroad
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/index.html
On this companion site to American Experience: Transcontinental Railroad, you can explore primary sources, interactive activities, a gallery of images, biographical essays, and a teacher's guide.

The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/index.html
On this companion site to the film Andrew Carnegie, you can access the program transcript, a list of related books, descriptions of the railroad industry, a teacher's guide to viewing the film, and more.

Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
http://cprr.org/Museum/index.html
This site contains an extensive collection of historical essays, images, timelines, and links to additional resources.

ECB Surf Report: Westward Expansion
http://explore.ecb.org/education/surf_report?subject=73
This site provides an extensive list of links to Web sites related to Westward expansion.

Brown, John K. The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831-1915. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Dykstra, Robert. The Cattle Towns. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.

Goodwyn, Lawrence. Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America. New York: University Press, 1976.

Israel, Fred. 1897 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue. New York: Chelsea House, 1993.

Limerick, Patty. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 1987.

Majewski, John. A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia before the Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Stover, John. American Railroads. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Taylor, George and Neu, Irene D. The American Railway Network, 1861-1890. Illinois: University of Illinois, 2003.

Woodward, C. Vann, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

White, Richard. It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Williams, John Hoyt. A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.

Strategy Resources

Multiple Intelligences and the World Wide Web: A New Approach to Teaching About the War
http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/1898/walker.html
This article provides a lesson plan for the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War that incorporates each type of intelligence.

Singer, Allan J. and the Hofstra New Teachers Network. Social Studies for Secondary Schools: Teaching To Learn, Learning To Teach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.