Ch. 13 Section 2, The Growth of the Cattle Industry

Ch. 13 Section 2, The Growth of the Cattle Industry

Objectives
1. To trace the development of the cattle industry.
2. To describe the myth and the reality of the American cowboy.
3. To explain the end of cattle ranchign on the open plains.

Focus & Motivate
What are your images of cowboys?
How have movies and novels influenced those images?
How true do you think those images are to the reality of life on the open plain.

Objective 1: Instruct
The Cattle Industry Becomes Big Business

Discussing Key Ideas
Spanish explorers introduce horses and cattle into the Southwest.
Many aspects of cowboy culture--food, clothing, vocabulary--are borrowed from Spanish ranchers in Mexico.
The growth of the railroads provides a market for the booming cattle industry.

Objective 2: Instruct
The Truth About Cowboys

Create a chart listing myths and truths about cowboys. Your chart may include:
Myth Truth
Good guys wore white hats. Cowboys wore hats of different colors

Discussing Key Ideas
The ordinary cowboy's life differed greatly from the popular conception of it.
Cattle herds were rounded up in the spring and were driven many miles to railroad shipping centers.

Objective 3: Instruct
The End of the Cattle Frontier

Starting With the Student
Which events might cause major physical changes on the earth or social changes in people's ways of life?
Perhaps to be mentioned are: severe weather, diseases, migrations, immigration, depletion of natural resources, and technological inventions.

Discussing Key Ideas
Overgrazing combined with a series of natural disasters brings an end to the cattle frontier.
The invention of barbed wire transforms the open plains into fenced-in ranches and farms.