The Slow Development Of The Great Plains During Gilded Age: Representation And Its Reason Analysis

The studies on the American Western history and American movement to the West are the hotspots of American historical studies. The paper, focusing on the exploitation of the Great Plains in the later 19th century,analyses the characteristics of the exploitation of the Great Plains during the deep transition of American history and summarizes the experience and lesson of its exploitation. I hope the study could offer good reference for the development of Chinese.The paper is made up of introduction, straight matter, conclusion and reference. In introduction, it generalizes the conception of the Great Plains newly according to the conception given by the historian from the United States and China. The straight matter includes three parts:Part one includes the slow increase of population, the slowness of economic development, and the low level of city, and analyses the representation of the slow development of the Great Plains by using the history Statistical data from the American academic web and government web.Part two analyses the reasons of slow development of the Great Plains, which come from three aspects. The first aspect is the policy of federal government, including land policy, railway policy and financial policy of later 19th century. The second one is the characters of 19th century, including industrialization developed fast, competition pricked up inside and outside market, monopolization group and credit capital came into being gradually. The Great Plains which relied on agriculture was dominated and exploited by the Northeast whose industry was regnant. The third aspect is the disadvantage of Great Plains itself, such as droughty and calamitous environment, the collision of Indian and white people, and conflict between the planting and stock raising, restricting the development of the Great Plains. Part three analyses the status of the Great Plains in the United States by the forming of social culture of the Great Plains and the laggard economic status.The conclusion: The Great Plains lagged behind the Northeast for nearly one century. While the Northeast and the Midwest was actualizing the industrialization, the immigrant of the Great Plains still actualized primordial agriculture. The gap between the Great Plains and the Northeast and the Midwest of the United States made the Great Plains fell behind the East since the later 19th century.