Why did many Americans move to the west in 1849?

Answer 1

World War 2 started in 1938. By the 1940s many European factories had been bombed. Europe needed supplies. On December 7, 1941, the United States of America entered World War 2 with intact factories. Most of them were in the North or on the West Coast. The South had a number of cotton mills. The South also had some ship yards. Still, most factories and ship yards were on the west coast. Most factories had been running one 8 hour shift each day. Those changed to making war materiel and went over to three shifts. They ran 24 hours a day. Workers from the South came and filled the two extra shifts. (Local women also filled in.) Steel companies had run their blast furnaces 10 days 24 hours and then shut down for 4 days. They went over to a 24 hour 7 day a week operation. They would run a blast furnace until all the firebrick was burned away. They would shut down long enough to replace it and then start up again. The shipyards ran 24 7. This continued throughout the war. After the war was over, Germany, Japan and a number of other countries had to import manufactured goods because their industries had been destroyed. The importation to replace goods not made by their own factories ended in 1958.

Answer 2

It was wide open, in the 1850's there was gold found in California, earlier trappers were going west to find the fur bearing animals, then there was the homestead act that promised lands.