Westward Expansion Essay

632 Words3 Pages

In this unit of Westward Expansion, there were many examples of hardships and opportunities, which were all caused by something called the Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was the belief of the American citizens that God gave them the right to move West to conquer the land on it and to spread their values across the continent. There are many good things that happened from the Westward Expansion, such as being able to gain more resources and industrialize the cities. The industrial revolution was a time of new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States. Many of these things during this revolution included production methods replacing hand production, and new iron processes. Inventions by people were also very common during this time. …show more content…

In station 6, we can see that there is an article containing a list of inventions from the Industrial Revolution, in which the telegraph/Morse code was shown. In the article, it is shown that the telegraph was invented in 1837, and it allowed for people to quickly communicate with each other. Even though the Industrial revolution happened a while after the Westward Expansion, it still was an effect that occurred due to the Americans gaining more land and having expanded resources. Another opportunity presented by Westward Expansion was the Gold Rush of 1848, where thousands of people from all over rushed to what is now known as California in order to mine for gold. At station 5, there is an additional set of slides regarding the gold rush, which is my source. In the Legacy slide, it states that “By 1850, California had enough people to become the first state in the far west”. This shows that because of how much people were driven west because of gold, California was now able to become a successful state with lots of people. This is a huge example of how Westward Expansion provided a positive legacy for