The Westward Movement

1984 Words8 Pages
The American westward movement was a movement from 1783 the independence of United States to 1861 The Civil War broke out, American people colonial expansion from east to west step by step. The westward movement turned to be one of the most important historical events under the needs of science ,population ,policy ,etc. Also, as a large population migration,the westward movement had its own history background and characters different from other migration movement. First,the westward movement was not a kind of overseas colonization like Europe countries but a “domestic colonization”,a emerging country exploit frontier movement. Second,the westward movement was a spontaneous movement,the most important character was popularity. Third,across the whole westward movement we can not see any one piece of help or subsidizes ,the movement was pushed forward by the lower level workers .For all the reasons above ,the westward movement influenced the American consciousness formation to be pioneering,democratic,competitive,fair,etc. Individualism was the central part of American culture,it was retrospected to the early time of the U.S.A. But the westward movement brought the early individualism up. West life gave individualism the first meaning is “freedom”,pioneers dared to fight against anybody for their existing happy life. They allowed nobody to ruin their dream. The second meaning individualism got from west life is "self-reliance". When pioneers got out of the burden of the old society, they also lost the conveniences from the civilized world.They had to rely on themselves,stand by themselves 。In summary,during the westward movement , individualism emphasize"People spend their lives with freedom and self-help."①端木义万 Ⅰ.Positive Effects 1. The westward movement strengthened the American individualism. People in the westward movement came from different stratums,but
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