Western Movement and Railroads. This essay is about western settlement and how the railroads turned out to be better agents of migration than many government homesteading organizations.

The free-homestead policy of 1862 seemed to work very well. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, more Americans moved to the West than ever before. Removal of Indian claims to the land seemed to leave nothing in the way of the westward movement. Despite ambitious land policies by the General Land Office, Homesteaders were faced with many obstacles, including fraud, speculation, and land monopoly (Draffan). The majority of Western settlement can be credited to the …

…glance, the correlation between Western land purchases and the Homestead Act seems clear. Upon closer examination however, railroads were to blame for the rapid development of purchased land in the late nineteenth century, and not the Homestead Acts. Western land policy was fashioned with optimism and enthusiasm, but in the end, failed to meet the basic "needs of the people" (Blum, 453) destined to settle there. The railroads were undoubtedly the driving force behind Western movement.