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Homestead Act 1862
That same year Congress passed the Homestead Act which allowed citizens to lay claim to 160 acres of
land
If the homesteader resided on the land for 5 years and made improvements they could file for a deed to
the title
The Octopus
The first description of the railroad as an octopus likely appeared in an August 19, 1882 political
cartoons
The idea of an alien like creature with tentacles in every facet of day to day life conveyed the spectacular
and unnatural power of the railroads
In 1901 naturalistic writer Frank Norris published the octopus, which offered a fictionalized account of
the southern pacific railroads role in the Mussel Slough Tragedy
Dumb Growth
Valuable for their hides and accessible because of railroads "dumb growth" doomed american bison
Overexpansion
The Gold Standard
The gold standard is a monetary policy that requires all currency to be backed by gold held by the us
government
During the civil war, the united states abandoned the gold standard and allowed greenbacks to be used
as fiat currency
Bankers and creditors fought against deflationary soft money policies
Both republicans and democrats supported the gold standard
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
In california the workingmen's party advocated for a chinese exclusion act to protect wages
10 year ban on chinese laborers immigrating to the United States
What is Railroaded About?