History of the United States II / Unit 2 USH2 0158 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Who Went West
The idea
The West of popular memory is White and male. The sources say otherwise. The anchor counts more than twenty-five thousand Exodusters in Kansas in two years and more than five hundred thousand Black westerners by eighteen ninety. The Yawp estimates that twelve thousand to forty thousand men worked as cowboys, perhaps a fourth of them African American and more likely Mexican or Mexican American. By eighteen eighty, both sources agree, more than two hundred thousand Chinese lived in the country.
In practice
A single cattle drive with Black, Mexican and White riders, and a railroad crew of Chinese workers.
Where people slip
The two sources differ on the cowboys. The anchor says close to one-third of forty thousand were Hispanic or African American; the Yawp gives a wider range and a smaller Black share. Both break the familiar picture. The West was one of the country's most diverse regions, and the course teaches the figures rather than the myth.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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