Go West Young Man!

"GoWest, young man," served as the mantra for the nineteenth century American migration. The gold rush of 1849 was the impetus for much of the migration of Americans and immigrants to California and theWest Coast. Indiana newspaper writer John Soule's 1851 advice would be popularized by Horace Greeley, and the trend of westward expansion accelerated from the Appalachian Mountains in the eighteenth century across the country to California. United States citizens as well as immigrants would migrate all the way to the Pacific Ocean by the mid-nineteenth century seeking a better life. From why people decided to move to how they would transform the places that they settled, western movement was a landmark phenomenon in American history.