The passage of the Homestead Act (1862) created conditions under which Americans could move westward and become landowners. In the period immediately before and after the Civil War, thousands of Americans crossed into western lands to make new lives for themselves on lands of their own. Thousands more new immigrants to the United States joined in the great migration. They were encouraged by the new transcontinental railroads, which were starved for paying passengers and for produce from the new farms those passengers would establish— which the railroads could carry to eastern markets.