6_The_role_of_the_undesirables.pptVIP

The undesirable: the people who are not welcomed or wanted because they may affect a situation or person in a bad way; tramp: someone who has no job or home and moves from place to place, often asking food or money; Pioneer: someone who is important in the early development of something and whose work or ideas are later developed by other people; Warm-up question: Have you ever seen tramps? Where are they usually found? Try to describe them. Why do you suppose that tramps choose such a way of life? Describe the image of a pioneer. Are there any similarities between tramps and pioneers? Is it possible for a tramp to become a pioneer? Westward movement The frontier did much to shape American life. Conditions along the entire Atlantic seaboard stimulated migration to the newer regions. From New England and the backcountry settlements of the Carolinas and Virginia, people moved westward. By 1800 the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys were becoming a great frontier region. The westward flow of population in the early 19th century led to the division of old territories and the drawing of new boundaries. Frontier settlers were a varied group. One English traveler described them as “a daring, hardy race of men, who live in miserable cabins… they are unpolished but hospitable, kind to strangers, honest and trustworthy. They raise a little Indian corn, pumpkins and sometimes have a cow or two… but the rifle is their principal means of support.” Farms were easy to acquire. Tools for working the land were easily available. Young men could “go west and grow with the country.” Gold rush In the early 1840s, California was a distant outpost that only a handful of Americans had seen. On January 24th, 1848, a worker building a sawmill by the river found the gold. Stories about the greatest find in the history of the west soon spread into the surrounding countryside. Farmers left their fields, merchants closed their shops; soldiers left their posts----and made plans for California