The following prompt, or essay question, will be asked on the Unit Test and count 40% of your exam grade. (The multiple choice and true/false count 60%) While there is no maximum length, your essay should be at least 500 words minimum. In your preparation, make notes of the key points regarding the topic from the textbook. Since the prompt has several parts you will need to connect your ideas with a thesis, topic sentences, and supporting evidence.
You may also refer to the following short video which is a great overview of the beginning of the Cattle Industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaHQ2vrt0ak&list=PLtcIXYw0LR-7Jf3O3a1A1h7so8mBOADcP (Links to an external site.)
The frontier occupies a unique place in the collective imagination of many Texans. In his landmark work, The Great Plains, Walter Prescott Webb wrote: New inventions and discoveries had to be made before the pioneer farmer could go into the Great Plains and establish himself. To the farmer, then, the Great Plains presented an obstacle which he could not, at the time he first confronted it, overcome. In time the Industrial Revolution was to develop agencies that enabled him to go forward and solve the problems of water and fence and extensive agriculture which hitherto had been insoluble. While these inventions and adaptations were being worked out, improved, and perfected, the agricultural frontier stood at ease, or more aptly, stamped about in uneasiness along the borders of the Plains country. In the interval of awaiting the Industrial Revolution there arose in the Plains country the cattle kingdom. In this essay, your task is to analyze the significance of the Texas frontier. Discuss, the expanding line of Texas settlement and resulting conflict with Native Americans. Describe the different methods and organizations that conquered and moved Native Americans to reservations in a relatively short period of time. Explain the origins of the cattle trailing industry, its expansion after the Civil War, and what it accomplished. Finally, three inventions-railroads, barbed wire, and windmills-were especially important to the settlement of West Texas. Give details regarding the contributions and role of each.
