American west reflects the cultural diversity of the trans-Appalachian region. Long before the white man set foot on American soil, the American Indians, or rather the Native Americans had been living on this land. Values and way of life, west of the mountains were as wide-ranging as the area's peoples, traditions, cultural notions, religious practices, and levels of education.
The major expeditions in search of riches, and fertile land as well as other bounties of nature, like the hunting of beaver for their fur, and the every day experiences of the Western divisions of the trading companies, helped them to explore the northernmost regions of the Rocky Mountains for its natural resources.

Some westerners saw the region as a land of boundless personal opportunity, while others were slaves bound for life with no hope of freedom. Some westerners scraped out a primitive existence in the rough countryside; while others enjoyed the benefits of larger houses, better furnishings, and higher quality trade goods. Some worked as day laborers or craftsmen, moving slowly into the lower reaches of the middle class, while others became thriving community leaders in agriculture, law, medicine, banking, or manufacturing. Women played major roles in the development of the trans-Appalachian West. Women shared the dangers of migration and the hard labor of clearing fields and raising crops. Wives and daughters bore responsibility for managing households and caring for children and the elderly. But women had far less options than men, and law, custom, and social traditions harshly controlled their lives.

Travelers found the log cabins to be the most distinctive settler’s abode of the trans-Appalachian West. Cabins were always rough buildings, sixteen to twenty feet in length and not more than twelve or sixteen feet wide. The interior usually had a single room centering on a fireplace along one wall with an incomplete loft above. Furniture was simple, a table, a few stools or chairs, and mattresses stuffed with corn shucks. There were hardly any windows and often without glass, covered by wooden shutters and animal skins during the winter months. The history of American West cannot be completed without mentioning cowboys of the nineteenth century West, with their special clothing, various ranch occupations, and daring lifestyles. The life of a cowboy was anything but glamorous, it entailed hard work and long, lonesome hours.

Climate, soil, technology, and the market for fertile land shaped outline of Western agriculture. Kentucky's climate, while temperate, was not warm enough on an annual basis to support large plantings of crops such as cotton or rice. The soil of the Bluegrass was rich, as were areas north of the Ohio River, but many areas of Kentucky were hilly, rocky, and difficult to till. Where the soil had supported the growth of lush native grasses and cane, wooden plows of the period proved insufficient to cut through the dense network of roots embedded below the surface. Clearing thick forests thus became the favored method for creating agricultural land.

Large trees were often killed by a process known as girdling, in which a band of bark was stripped from the trunk a few feet above the ground and the tree was left to die. Small trees and bushes were chopped down and burned. The uneven ground with stumps still in place was broken with a light plow or hoe, and the first seeds were planted. Farms varied greatly in size and organization. The wealthiest farmers could own as much as 1,200 acres or more, part of which was used for planted fields and part left free as rangeland for livestock. Less wealthy farmers with smaller parcels of land under thirty acres worked hard to raise enough crops to feed their families and hoped for a small surplus of produce to sell or barter. Education was an early interest for western settlers, but the rigors of frontier life and shortage of trained teachers made schooling a rare and irregular experience for most children.

In 1780, Transylvania Seminary was founded by a group of Presbyterians in Danville, Kentucky. It moved to Lexington in 1787, the seminary was eventually renamed Transylvania University. Under the leadership of the first chairman of its trustees, anti-slavery campaigner Rev. David Rice, Transylvania made its reputation as the first institution of higher learning to be established west of the Appalachians. The Roman Catholic Church was also active in western missions from the 1780s onward. In 1808, a new diocese was created for Bardstown, Kentucky, that extended over nearly the entire trans-Appalachian West from Detroit to New Orleans. American evangelical Protestantism impacted the West as ministers and missionaries crossed the mountains and descended the Ohio in search of souls.

In an age when poultries, herbal remedies, and bleeding were conventional medical treatments, illness in the West often carried the danger of death. Whooping cough, scarlet fever, and measles killed or disabled many. The "ague," a malarial fever with chills, was associated with swamps and standing water. "Milk sick" brought death to those who drank milk produced by cows that had eaten poisonous plants. Most serious of all were the epidemics of small pox and cholera that swept through whole communities. As threatening as these diseases were for the settlers, they were often even more devastating for Native Americans.

In a region where strenuous work was a daily routine, recreation was largely cherished. Activities essential to rural life such as hunting, shucking corn, or quilting could also be made into enjoyable communal events and important points of association for a scattered community. Dances and church socials offered other opportunities for friends and relatives in a neighborhood to gather, as did speeches offered by candidates for public office. In villages and towns, more resources were available for popular activity. Larger populations could support regularly published newspapers and the establishment of lending libraries.

In California, there never were a more peaceful or happy people on the face of the earth than the Spanish, Mexican, and Indian population. The Spanish were the pioneers of the Pacific coast, building towns and Missions; they suffered many hardships or adversities, although it was a new country, they came slowly, and were well prepared to become settlers. All that was required for the protection and enjoyment of life according to the simple and healthy standards of those days was brought with them. They had seeds, trees, vines, cattle, household goods, and servants, and in a few years their orchards yielded abundantly and their gardens were full of vegetables. Poultry was raised by the Indians, and sold very cheaply; a few hundred huge Spanish ranches and Mission territories occupied the whole country from the Pacific to the San Joaquin. The Jesuit Missions established in Lower California, at Loreto and other places, were followed by Franciscan Missions in Alta California, with presidios for the soldiers, adjacent pueblos, or towns, and the granting of large tracts of land to settlers.