Using information from the readings and from the video link below, explain the relationship between immigration and the Homestead Act. Type two paragraphs & bring to class. https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse?cuecard=1410 Using information from the Immigrant Struggles reading and the video below, explain in detail the complex role of the potato as a Push Factor for Irish immigration to America. Type two paragraphs & bring to class. https://archivesbb.nbclearn.com/portal/site/BbHigherEd/browse?cuecard=1780 (I don’t want it to be perfect I need it to be done ASAP or before 10pm tonight)

The Homestead Act and Hard Times for Farmers NARRATOR: In the decades after the Civil War, thousands of farmers moved west into the Great Plains, taking advantage of the cheap land provided by the Homestead Act. The act was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to encourage western migration. Under the act, settlers could receive title to 160 acres of western land if they were at least twenty-one years old, if they built a house at least twelve by fourteen feet in size, and if they worked their land for five years. Professor MARIA MONTOYA (New York University): The way the Homestead Act worked, you would go out to the land office in whatever region that you were planning to settle in, and you would pick your plot of land. And you would build your house and you would begin to do the things that you needed to do to meet the criteria set up by the federal government. NARRATOR: By 1900, claims for over eighty million acres had been filed, creating more than 372,000 farms. MONTOYA: There are many people who've benefited incredibly, who would never have had the access to land if it hadn't been for the Homestead Act. NARRATOR: But besides simply owning land, western farmers had to survive the harsh conditions on the Great Plains in order to succeed. Many soon saw their dreams dashed. Decades of drought ravaged small farms. Prices for crops fell as mechanized corporate farms arose. Railroads imposed steep rates to transport their goods, or refused to serve rural areas altogether. When small farmers complained, railroad baron William Vanderbilt uttered his famous line, “The public be damned.” Many farmers took on backbreaking debt in order to keep their farms. Eventually they banded together, forming co-operatives that gave them the economic and political strength to survive. Anniversary of the Irish Potato Famine RICHARD ROTH reporting: Potatoes from Brian Dolan's farm will be just a side dish at dinnertime in the coming year. But 150 years ago, potatoes were the staple of Ireland's diet, a crop that fed a whole nation and then failed. Unidentified Man: That's what happened during the famine period. You know, it went like that. ROTH: The history's written in the ridges where potatoes once grew and in villages the Irish abandoned. The crop was destroyed by a fungus carried on a mist from the sea. A third of the nation fled or starved to death. A government record-keeper of the time wrote, "No one counted the numbers who perished by the wayside or in ditches. Whole families," he said, "lay down and died." The great hunger killed a million people or more and forced another million to leave. Professor DAVID FITZPATRICK (Trinity College, Dublin): It starts off as a flight from famine. It becomes a movement to a better life, which Irish people felt they could achieve because of the famine experience. ROTH: Their legacy is in the 40 million Americans of Irish descent, like schoolteacher Peggy Dolan in Wheeling, West Virginia. Ms. PEGGY DOLAN: We have the Irish people in every part of the world because they went to wherever they saw the opportunities and made a life for themselves. ROTH: As the famine's anniversary approached, she decided to teach herself a lesson in Irish history. She traced her roots back 150 years and to the doorstep of Brian Dolan. Ms. DOLAN: I looked at him, and I saw my father. Mr. BRIAN DOLAN: She called and knocked at the door and she says, “Are you Brian Dolan?” I says, ”Yeah.” “Well, I'm your cousin.” ROTH: For families like the Dolan’s, the famine really can't be forgotten. It's a link between generations and countries and traditions. Mr. DOLAN: I love to be Irish, and I love, I'm very proud of being Irish and I'm, everything that is Irish, I'm very, very proud of it. ROTH: While his farm has grown bigger, Brian Dolan's always kept a small potato patch. Mr. DOLAN: The smell of fresh soil, it's really beautiful. ROTH: It is an act of remembrance, he says, something he couldn't imagine giving up. Richard Roth, NBC News, County Roscommon, Ireland.