Re-living the American Frontier


Book Description

Who owns the West? -- Buffalo Bill and Karl May : the origins of German Western fandom -- A wall runs through it : western fans in the two Germanies -- Little houses on the prairie -- "And then the American Indians came over" : fan responses to indigenous resurgence and political change -- Indians into Confederates : historical fiction fans, reenactors, and living history.




Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past


Book Description

Americans have long cherished romantic images of the frontier and its colorful cast of characters, where the cowboys are always rugged and the ladies always fragile. But in this book, Peter Boag opens an extraordinary window onto the real Old West. Delving into countless primary sources and surveying sexological and literary sources, Boag paints a vivid picture of a West where cross-dressing—for both men and women—was pervasive, and where easterners as well as Mexicans and even Indians could redefine their gender and sexual identities. Boag asks, why has this history been forgotten and erased? Citing a cultural moment at the turn of the twentieth century—when the frontier ended, the United States entered the modern era, and homosexuality was created as a category—Boag shows how the American people, and thus the American nation, were bequeathed an unambiguous heterosexual identity.




History of the West with Jemmey Fletcher


Book Description

History of the West with Jemmey Fletcher; Ride to Rendezvous is the first book in the Jemmey Fletcher series. This book follows young Jemmey Fletcher as he decides to leave his Missouri homestead, and strike out for the mountains. Along the way he meets a colorful mountain man named Laramie, who breaks the greenhorn in. As Jemmey makes his way to a mountain man rendezvous, he'll have to battle hunger, thunderstorms, attacking Indians, and most often himself to find out if he has what it takes to be a Rocky Mountain trapper. The first of a series, Jemmey Fletcher books were written to take students on an adventure through the American frontier in a historically accurate way. Each book was written to tell a particular story of the West, and highlight a specific event, or time period of that history. Written for educational purposes by award winning teacher Cody Assmann, each chapter has reflection questions to reinforce the factual information contained in the chapter. Many chapters also end with extension research links, to allow students the opportunity to continue learning about factual events or people portrayed in this book of historical fiction. Finally, nearly all the chapters end with an extension activity that students can complete at home. These activities have been developed to enhance student's grasp of history, by actually participating in historical skills. Not only will the reader get to learn about history in a fun and entertaining way, but they will also get the opportunity to live out scenes from the book.




"I Do!"


Book Description

The Westward Expansion Was A Time Of radical change in America. The upheaval of moving west and beginning a new life from scratch was difficult for those who made the trip. "Except for love..." said Isabella Bird of Colorado in 1873, "this is a wretched existence." In spite of the rough conditions and frequent shortages of suitable partners in the West, the pioneers met, fell in love and married, but were forced to adapt their courting to a frontier life. The civilized comforts and proprieties of the East yielded to many new ways of finding a mate, from personal ads to rental brides. The West was not all wild, however: Religion still played a strong role in western life, whether lovers were Mormon, Catholic, Baptist or Buddhist; and the traditions of immigrants from Europe, Asia and the Americas all helped to form courtship and marriage rituals on the frontier. Through period photographs, extracts from journals and letters and reminiscences, Cathy Luchetti's subjects tell the true story of romantic life on the American frontier, reminding us of what it was like to fall in love then -- and now. "I sat there in the dark waiting. I had waited only a few minutes. when I heard the longed-for footsteps come to my gate. I went to meet him and would have thrown my arms around him, dust covered and dirty as he was, but he would not allow it. He caught me by the arms, and with he on one side of the low fence and I on the other, he delivered a tirade of accusations and abuse.... "Then he put his hand on my face, pressing gently, and said, 'Now, old lady, if you're going to marry me you've got to say so right now, and we'll get married and camp under a tree, for I haven't a damn cent.What d'ya say?' "I had been waiting all this time for the tirade to be over so I could say yes. Now I said it. "'Good God, old lady! Do you mean it?' And it didn't take him long to jump that low fence. He didn't even stop to open the gate. Then our arms went around each other in one long embrace." -- Sarah Olds "And so I told her girl, that I would come the next Thursday, and bring a horse, bridle, and saddle for her, and she must be ready to go. Her mother declared I shouldn't have her; but I know'd I should, if somebody else didn't get her before Thursday." -- David Crockett




Nothing Daunted


Book Description

From the author of The Agitators, the acclaimed and captivating true story of two restless society girls who left their affluent lives to “rough it” as teachers in the wilds of Colorado in 1916. In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, bored by society luncheons, charity work, and the effete men who courted them, left their families in Auburn, New York, to teach school in the wilds of northwestern Colorado. They lived with a family of homesteaders in the Elkhead Mountains and rode to school on horseback, often in blinding blizzards. Their students walked or skied, in tattered clothes and shoes tied together with string. The young cattle rancher who had lured them west, Ferry Carpenter, had promised them the adventure of a lifetime. He hadn’t let on that they would be considered dazzling prospective brides for the locals. Nearly a hundred years later, Dorothy Wickenden, the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff, found the teachers’ buoyant letters home, which captured the voices of the pioneer women, the children, and other unforgettable people the women got to know. In reconstructing their journey, Wickenden has created an exhilarating saga about two intrepid women and the “settling up” of the West.




The Significance of the Frontier in American History


Book Description

2014 Reprint of 1894 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. The "Frontier Thesis" or "Turner Thesis," is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1894 that American democracy was formed by the American Frontier. He stressed the process-the moving frontier line-and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed consequences of a ostensibly limitless frontier and that American democracy and egalitarianism were the principle results. In Turner's thesis the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents. Frontier land was free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won very wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories. By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in the U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines.




Indians, Missionaries, and Merchants


Book Description

Lightfoot examines the interactions between Native American communities in California & the earliest colonial settlements, those of Russian pioneers & Franciscan missionaries. He compares the history of the different ventures & their legacies that still help define the political status of native people.




The End of the Myth


Book Description

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall. Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America hasa new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home. It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.




History of the American Frontier - 1763-1893


Book Description

"History of the American Frontier - 1763-1893" is an enthralling exploration of the dynamic and transformative period in American history. From the aftermath of the French and Indian War to the closing of the frontier, this comprehensive account delves into the remarkable events, personalities, and conflicts that shaped the development of the American frontier. With meticulous research and engaging narrative, this book offers readers a captivating journey through the untamed landscapes and the clash of cultures that characterized the frontier experience. From the pioneers and settlers venturing into uncharted territories to the interactions with Native American tribes, this history unravels the complex and often tumultuous relationships that unfolded on the American frontier.




Blood and Treasure


Book Description

The Instant New York Times Besteller National Bestseller "[The] authors’ finest work to date." —Wall Street Journal The explosive true saga of the legendary figure Daniel Boone and the bloody struggle for America's frontier by two bestselling authors at the height of their writing power—Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the thirteen colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, the French, and the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world. This is the setting of Blood and Treasure, and the guide to this epic narrative is America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder, Daniel Boone—not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women who witnessed it. This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.