Essay On Westward Expansion

The Westward Expansion was the acquisition of land out west from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. During this expansion many changes occurred, some good and some bad. The changes could be grouped into three different categories, social, political, and economic. During westward expansion new changes, inventions, and ideas were quite common. One of these ideas was the telegraph wire. This wire allowed for people to communicate from far away places. During this time Manifest Destiny (The belief that America was destined to stretch from coast to coast, and nothing could stop them.) was a belief held by many people. This wire would be very important to America expanding, because without this ability to talk to people from far away people
When a miner struck rich in California the news spread quickly, and people came from everywhere hoping to strike rich. Not many people became rich, and of the ones that found gold they used it to survive. Most of the gold was found immediately by the first people there, the rest kept coming having no idea they would gain no money and be stuck. Before this though was the Louisiana purchase. This was 827,000 miles of land given to the United States by Frances leader Napoleon for only four cents an acre. Overall it was fifteen million dollars. Through this purchase the size of America was doubled, and money was saved by buying the land instead of going to war. The three groups of factors of Westward Expansion are social, political, and economical. In the political group telegraph wires were mentioned because they were very improtant to the social expansion of America. I also mentioned wars such as the revolutionary war, and mexican-american war because they were important to America gaining landing and traveling West. Last I mentioned the Louisiana purchase and the California Gold Rush, because they were critical to America moving West, expanding, and growing in