The West

 

 

 

Westerns are no longer the staple of Hollywood, yet the West that continues to capture our imagination.  Some, like historian Frederick Jackson Turner, found in the West the origins of American democracy and character.  Others described the West as a "Garden of Eden," a place of renewal, of second chances.  Ned Buntings's dime novels, Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and above all Hollywood elevated the West to mythic proportions.


The difference between now and in 1893 when Turner submitted his now famous frontier thesis is that the West is far more crowded and interesting.  Western historians now dispute much of what Turner found in the West.  Far from an egalitarian democracy where every man had his piece of land and promise of prosperity, their West was dominated by big money and a government overly generous to railroads and land speculators.  Whole groups--women, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans-- all but ignored by Turner are back in the picture.  In one aspect however, they do pay homage to Turner's idea that "invasion, settlement, and community formation followed certain broad, repeating patterns in most, if not all, parts of North America." But far from being unique as Turner contended, the West was one phase of a larger historical process, part of the worldwide expansion of European economies and nation-states dating back to the 14th century. **

The popularity of the recent PBS series, "The West" by Ken Burns and Stephen Ives reflects this fascination. To them:

            America without the West is unthinkable now. Yet there was nothing inevitable            about our taking it. Others had prior claim to its vastness, after all,

            and we could quite easily have remained forever huddled east of the Mississippi.            In resolving to move west and become a continental nation we would

            exact a fearful price from those already living on the land. But we also became a different people, and it is no accident that that turbulent history –

            and the myths that have grown up around it -- have made the West the most       potent symbol of the nation as a whole, overseas as well as in our own hearts.
                                            Ken Burns and Stephen Ives

Not only can you follow their story of how the West was settled but the educational materials that accompany the series provide a virtual mother lode of information about the West. Included also are extensive links to other sites on such diverse topics as conservation, women in the West, Custer's Last Stand, native Americans, and Buffalo soldiers among others. It's all there! See New Perspectives on the West.

*Painting by George Catlin, Smithsonian Institution.
**William Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin, "Becoming West," in Cronon, Miles, & Gitlin, Under An Open Sky:  Rethinking America's Western Past (1992)

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