1. The myth was that farmers were independent people living on family farms. What was the reality regarding farming in the late 19th century. How and why did farming become a business in the late nineteenth century?

2. What factors explain the rise of cattle frontier? How and why did cattle ranchers have to adjust by the late nineteenth century? What relationship was there between the rise and fall of open-range cattle kingdoms and expansion of the railroad and populating of the great plains by farmers?

3. What factors encouraged farmers to settle the plains in the late 19th century? Which immigrant groups were most likely to settle on the plains? What was life like on the plains?

What was the role of women?

4. How was the Homestead Act to work? Did the Homestead Act benefit the poor? Why not?

5. How was California farming different from that gong on in most of the rest of the country?

6 . What territories and states came about because of mining booms? What was the impact of "big business" on the mining frontier?

7. How does Yosemite National Park come about?