Kelli Janssen US History 2017/2018!

Letters of Westward Expansion In the time period following the revolution and the founding of Americas new government people began to move all over the country, especially towards the western states, this time is known as the westward expansion. Some moved to the West for religious regions, such as missionaries moving around the country to spread christianity. Today we use letters as a reference to gain knowledge on the lives of the people during that time. An article, "Letter Writing in America" by the Smithsonian National Postal Museum mentions that  "   Letters connected all of these migrants with the homes they had left behind, and helped to build an interconnecting network of people across the vast new country that was developing.  " Letters included information on things such as; n ews from home, news from the frontier, and news from the city. A new type of transportation, the railroad,  helped the postal service succeed. 

Letters and journals during the 19th century give one knowledge and help them to better understand what one was experiencing during times such as the westward expansion. Based of the reading of John Addison Salvin's letters written around 1853 one might learn that St. Jo is a place to make good money "almost, as it is the starting point for emigration both for Oregon and California." John mentions that wages were fair in Portland Oregon, he made about seven dollars, therefore one might infer that seven dollars in one day was a normal daily profit. Later he explains that he claimed land in portland and makes the statement that  "Uncle Sam gives it to me for living on it four years." This explains that one can claim land just for being there first or the longest, and helps one to understand how land was handled during that time. Later he mentions that he was offered five hundred dollars for ten acres and refused it, because he believed the lands value would grow...

Dodge City Kansas  Dodge city Kansas in 1875 Dodge City Times "Dodge City Times" was a weekly newspaper.  The first issue of the paper  was published on May 20, 1876. A copy of the  Times was received  every Saturday by subscribers, until February 1881 when it was published every Thursday and then changing to Fridays beginning in May 1890. Readership extended beyond Ford County into the unsettled, frontier regions of southwest Kansas. During the years 1880-85, 720 circulated in a county of fewer than 3,500 people. The number of pages in each issue altered between about four and ten, but the  Times  expanded from four to eight columns by November 1888. Many political issues were discussed in the "Dodge City Times". In this particular paper published on March 17, 1887 things such as the "Temperance Bill" passed by the legislature are included. There is also an article in the paper titled "What voters can do", and subtitled "An Addre...