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Difficulty: HardWestward Expansion: Economic and Social Development

"To a great extent, the system under which the public lands have been acquired... has been devised for a humid region... In the arid region, agriculture is not possible without irrigation... The farming lands must be very large, or they must be small and irrigated. In either case, the 160-acre tract of land is not a suitable unit... To construct the necessary canals for irrigation, there must be a cooperative organization of the settlers, or the capital must be aggregated by corporate enterprise."
— John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, 1878

Which of the following historical assumptions or policies from the late nineteenth century is most directly challenged by the arguments in the excerpt?

  1. A
    The assertion that the federal government maintained a strict policy of laissez-faire non-intervention in the economic development of the West.
  2. B
    The idea that policies like the Dawes Act were designed to protect communal Native American land rights and traditional lifestyles.
  3. The belief that individual pioneers could easily achieve economic self-sufficiency on small-scale family farms under the Homestead Act.Answer
  4. D
    The view that urban, middle-class reformers during the Progressive Era were the sole advocates for federal conservation and irrigation projects.

Answer

The belief that individual pioneers could easily achieve economic self-sufficiency on small-scale family farms under the Homestead Act.
The correct answer is correct because the Homestead Act of 1862 was built on the assumption that a standard 160-acre allotment was sufficient for an individual family to establish a self-sustaining farm. Powell's report directly refutes this by showing that the arid climate of the West made agriculture impossible without large-scale irrigation, which was beyond the financial and physical capability of individual homesteaders.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the context and arguments in the primary source document.
The excerpt by John Wesley Powell (1878) highlights that traditional land distribution models (specifically the 160-acre tract) are unsuitable for the arid Western climate, which requires irrigation and consolidated capital/cooperation.
Understanding the core argument of the source is necessary to identify which late nineteenth-century historical context it challenges.
2
Connect the specific details in the text (like the '160-acre tract') to contemporary federal policies.
The Homestead Act of 1862 offered 160 acres of public land to individual settlers, assuming they could cultivate it independently.
Linking the document's specific criticisms to historical policies identifies the target of Powell's critique.
3
Evaluate the options to find the belief or policy challenged by the source.
The belief that self-reliant farmers could succeed on standard 160-acre homesteads is directly challenged by Powell's argument that such tracts are unviable in the arid West.
This confirms that the critique of the 160-acre unit directly targets the assumptions underlying the Homestead Act.

Key Concept

The Homestead Act and the environmental constraints of Western settlement.
Estimated Time:2m 0s
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Topics

Westward Expansion: Economic and Social Development

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