1 / 34

The West

The West. The People, the Place, the Process. Major Questions (people, place, process). What is “the west”? – Myths vs. Realities Who were major actors? What were their interests? What were main conflicts? How and why did “the west” change over time?

zelig
Download Presentation

The West

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The West The People, the Place, the Process

  2. Major Questions (people, place, process) • What is “the west”? – Myths vs. Realities • Who were major actors? • What were their interests? • What were main conflicts? • How and why did “the west” change over time? • How did late-19th c. history of west affect later history of region and nation?

  3. Defining “The West” • “The West” can be defined as part of a longer historical process • Also an identifiable region and period • Both were defined by particular people with particular interests, vying with others for control of the region and future history

  4. The long historical process of the West

  5. John Gast, Manifest Destiny, 1872

  6. Gast image • What does image represent?

  7. The Real Place: region and environment • Donald Worster: “the story of men and women trying to wrest a living from a condition of severe natural scarcity and, paradoxically, of trying to survive in the midst of entrenched wealth.” • J.W. Powell (1878): arid, need irrigation to make region habitable and useful • Immense mineral and timber wealth • Enviro. conditions necessitated new economic techniques, new patterns of ownership, new social relations

  8. Role of Railroads • Railroad-building made west accessible • Transcontinental railroad finished 1869 • Routes spurred development • Profit motive – spurred new ways of thinking about and exploiting land and region • Led to diff. industries – cattle, towns, mining, agriculture • Necessitated diff. strategies of removal – Native Americans and bison would interfere with white settlers’ goals

  9. The American West “empty” for white settlement: the power of images/maps to shape imagination and ideas of the region

  10. Government Role • Question: when you think of “the west,” how visible is the power of fed. govt.? • Govt. often perceived as absent from west – made invisible • Reality: • National imperial ambitions, goal/process of accession of new territories, then incorporation into nation • Loans and land grants to railroads • Homestead Act, 1862, 160 acres to head of household • National war on Native Americans • Govt. set up and administered reservations • Provided Water – irrigation, dams, water rights • Economic and immigration policies that benefited west

  11. Making the West Safe for White Settlement • Appropriation of Native American land; crowding them out • Part of longer process/history of taking land, moving or killing Native Americans • Change fromborderlands relations (no clear dominance = compromise/trade/better relationships) to dominance (killing/removal relationships) • Population pressure combined with highly-trained small military (27,000 soldiers) • Environmental pressures: killing of bison

  12. Major Conflicts and Eventsbetween whites and N.A. • Shift from removal before Civil War to reservation system • Beginning of reservation system (1867) – N.A. were wards of govt. until they changed their ways • Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, Sioux/Cheyenne defeat Custer at Little Big Horn (1876) - Link • Plains Indian resistance – Nez Perce and Chief Joseph fight, flee, then surrender (1877) • Shrinking reservations in SD and Oklahoma (Sooners) • Dawes Act, 1887 – carved up reservations, individual plots of land, make N.A. become white • 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, Ghost Dance, Sioux, predicted whites would disappear in spring 1891 - Link

  13. Assimilation into White Society • Whites pushed goal of making N.A. become white: private property, farming, Indian schools = civilization, new language, beliefs, way of life

  14. Lakota Sioux boys at Carlisle (PA) Indian School

  15. The West’s Major Economic Areas • Centrality of rail lines and new technologies • Cattle – western long drives only lasted short time (myth much longer); fencing and ranches • Agriculture – grain on Plains; fruits/vegs. in CA • Mining – from prospecting to industry – important to labor history • Women’s roles – western scarcity and life allowed women to break out of Victorian gender roles – worked outside home in non-trad. jobs (farming, merchants, prostitution)

  16. The Real Frontier: Different Frontiers, Changing Class Relations • Three Frontiers: Mining, Cattle, Farming • Short period of individual social mobility • Each frontier quickly changed and consolidated – high capital $$$ needs – companies took over all 3 areas • Need for cheap labor: former cowboys, prospectors, African Americans, Chinese, and other immigrants • As a result, the west became site of class and racial conflict – fought over the spoils

  17. Economic and Environmental Problems • Endangering native species – bison and others • Unsustainable agriculture – wet years raised expectations, then drought, stripping of native grasses • Ag. susceptible to world market, fluctuating prices for grain • Overexpansion; boom and bust in railroads, ag., and mining • Cattle and farming = monoculture, pestilence, introduction of invasive species • Conflicts over land and resources, labor conflicts • Solutions: agricultural cooperation (Grange and Populists); labor unions and parties

  18. Ethnic and Racial Conflict • West was place for whites to prove superiority • Whites vs. Native Americans • Similarities to Reconstruction South – white supremacy, control of land, labor, resources • Appropriation of Hispanic lands • Use of migrant or immigrant labor – Irish, African American, Chinese, Japanese, then Mexican • Labor castes and control • Labor conflict – CA, SanFran’s Workingman’s Party in 1870s and 1880s – who has the right to earn a living? – republicanism/exclusion

  19. Depicting the racial “other” – dehumanizing immigrant Chinese Making Chinese immigrants expendable Rationalizing exclusion (from nation, from work, etc.) – “they” don’t belong here

  20. White Workers Feared the Chinese Worker “Horde”

  21. Chinese Railroad Workers Erased from History of West Thomas Hill, "The Last Spike," c. 1881, completion of the transcontinental railroad

  22. Early Conservation and Environmental Movements • Beginnings of Conservation/ Environmental Movement conflicted with prior visions/uses/methods • John Muir and Yosemite Park, 1864 • Romantic wilderness ideals • Conflicts over water and land – should resources be used or preserved? – where does best “value” lie? • Conservation vs. Preservation • Issues of public land use – who had right to use lands?

  23. Link to more info. on Buffalo Bill, myths and realities

  24. Buffalo Bill and Early Films • Bucking Bronco, Edison Film, 1894 • Buffalo Dance, Edison Film, 1894 • Sioux Ghost Dance, Edison Film, 1894 • Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Parade, 1902

  25. The West: Myth and Reality • Case study: Columbian Exposition, 1893: a site where American racial and frontier ideas were worked out, exhibited • Chicago: western city, railroad city, cattle, grain, immigration • 1893 Exposition: 400th Anniv. of Columbus/New World – festival commemorating Euro. settlement • The White City – white progress, civilization – architecture, tech., arts • The Midway offered comparisons to other “races”, “primitives” • Expo. offered vision of what whites wanted the rest of the west to become

  26. The White City 1893 Chicago World’s Fair

  27. Staging the West: Turner and Buffalo Bill • 2 versions, 2 men – enactment of western myth in 1893 • F.J. Turner – historian, “frontier thesis” • Moving frontier, progress, farm families, Indians irrelevant, democracy, individualism, new Americans, econ./phys. mobility • Used images from history: free land, log cabins, stage coaches • 1890 U.S. Census declared frontier closed – Turner wondered about what that would mean for American character • Buffalo Bill – frontier conflict, whites and N.A., whites under attack, justified fight against N.A. • Real and imaginary; used images of conflict, heroic martyr (Custer) • White frontier men “know” Indians, then beat them

  28. Staging the West: Turner and Buffalo Bill (continued) • Similarities: • Whites justified in taking over “empty” continent • Conquest = a good thing • A “clean” story of “progress” • Use of prominent symbols and images, even if not historically correct • Turned attention away from Reconstruction and ‘nigger problem’

  29. Chicago -- The Frontier West Reenacted: Buffalo Bill, The White City, The Midway, and F.J. Turner

  30. Frontier Myth in American History • If American west closed in 1890, and it meant so much to American psyche, then what?

  31. Connections to Larger Themes • Connections to Reconstruction? • Similar themes or issues? • Connections to later U.S. history?

More Related