On the other hand, most businessmen found new opportunities in the South and tried to benefit from the political and economic vacuum. This orientation however, created new tensions between the Northerners and the Southerners, the latter feeling an increased aversion especially towards the economic initiatives of the former. Even so, the Northern part of the country was considered to be more prosperous and to represent the future of a modern nation.
The West was the least explored part of the country up to the Civil War. The expansion towards west provided businessmen and farmers alike with an immense availability of land, as that territory had been very little explored, a possibility which catered for the needs of the American nation to populate remote areas in the West. This was encouraged by legislative acts such as the Homestead Act which encouraged people to move west. Meanwhile, the Gold Rush had drawn the attention on the potential of the area therefore following the end of the conflict a series of infrastructure projects were designed. These were meant to connect the West with the rest of the state and thus enable the expansion and migration of the population towards the western regions. The transcontinental railroad,...
New
connections between the parts of the country were formed and the exploitation of its industrial, human, and natural potential reached new heights. In this context the United States, despite its political and racial tensions, would soon emerge as the new
power of the
20th century.
Bibliography
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