Question for Discussion: Where is the "American
West" and what role does it play in shaping our
larger national "American" culture?

Reading: Nugent, "Western History, New and Not So";
Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American
History"; Worster, "New West, True West"; Limerick,
"What on Earth is the New West History?" ; Malone,
"Parameters and Purposes" (Web); Nugent, "Where is
the West?" (Web); Morris, "Where is the American West?"

Adobe Acrobat Reader download link.
The password for the "pdf readings" is "westsap".

Download PDF Editor for PCs: You can use this program to use a yellow highlighter to highlight your PDF documents after you download and save them to your computer. Download PdfPen for Mac .

Film: West as Dream

Maps of the Old West

• American Indian Tribes, 1600 (in-class)
  
  
• Native American Indian Tribes, 1783 (in-class)
  
  
• European Possessions Bordering the U.S., 1783
  
  
• American Indian Tribes, 1600 (in-class)
  
  
• Native American Indian Tribes, 1783 (in-class)
  
  
• European Possessions Bordering the U.S., 1783
  (in-class)
  
  
• U.S. Territorial Growth, 1775 (in-class)
  
  
• U.S. Territorial Growth, 1810
  
  
• U.S. Territorial Growth, 1820 (in-class)
  
  
• U.S. Territorial Growth, 1830 (in-class)
  
  
• Republic of Texas, 1836
  
  
• U.S. Territorial Growth, 1840
  
  
• U.S. Territorial Growth, 1850 (in-class)
  
  
• U.S. Territorial Growth, 1870 (in-class)
  
  
• Boundaries of the Contiguous U.S. (in-class)
  
  
  Maps of the New West
  
  
  
• National Atlas MapMaker (in-class)
  
  
• World Map, 1997
  
  
• Topographic Map of North America (in-class)
  
  
• Topgraphic Map of the United States (in-class)
  
  
• Topographic Map of the American East (in-class)
  
  
• Topographic Map of the American West (in-class)
  
  
• Maps of the Old West (in-class)
  
  
• Map of Indian Reservations today (in-class)
  
  
• State Map of the 20th Century American West
  (in-class)
  
  
• The Real or Unambiguous West (in-class)
  
  
• The Marginal or Interior West (in-class)
  
  
• Population per Square Mile in the West (in-class)
  
  
• The West from Space at Night (in-class)
  
  
• Percentage per state of Western Land
  owned by the Government
  
  
• Government Agency Land in the West
  
  
• Annual Rainfall in the West (in-class)
  
  
  Satellite Maps of the U.S.
  
  
  
• Google Earth (in-class)
  
  
• Google Maps Mania
  
  
• MSN Virutal Earth (in-class)
  
  
• Globe Explorer.com
  
  
• National Atlas.gov
  
  
  Visions of the Frontier
  
  
  
• Jefferson's Mythic Geography of the West
  
  
• American Progress by John Gast (1872)
  
  
• University of Oregon American Progress image
  
  
• Explanatory Text used to Market American Progress
  
  
• Modern version of American Progress
  
  
• American Manifest Destiny
  
  
• Manifest Destiny Exhibit
  
  
• Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier (1893)
  
  
  

Editing the PDF Readings

• Boehret, "Creating Documents for All to Read "
  
  
• Demonstrate the Use of CAD-CAS PDF Editor
  
  Download PDF Editor for PCs: You can use this program to use a yellow highlighter to highlight your PDF documents after you download and save them to your computer. Download PdfPen for Mac .
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Examples of marked-up readings
for today

• Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (in-class)
  
  
• Gast's "American Progress" (in-class)
  
  
• Nugent, "Western History, New and Not So"
  
  
• Worster, "New West, True West"
  
  
• Limerick, "What on Earth is the New West History?"
  
  
• Malone, "Parameters and Purposes"
  
  
• Nugent, "Where is the West?: A Survey "
  
  
• Morris, "Where is the American West?"
  
  
• Limerick, 7 Characteristics of the Modern West
  (in-class)
  
  
• Vale, 8 Popular Mental Images of the West
  (in-class)
  
  -----------------------------------------------------------------

Where is the American West?

1. National Atlas MapMaker
   
   
2. Satellite Maps of the United States (in-class)
   
   
3. Topographic Map of North America (in-class)
   
   
4. Topgraphic Map of the United States (in-class)
   
   
5. Topographic Map of the American East (in-class)
   
   
6. Topographic Map of the American West (in-class)
   
   
7. Why Should we Study the American West?
   
   
8. What is the West in American Culture? (in-class)
   
   
9. Maps of the Old West (in-class)
   
   
10. Nugent Map of Historian's West (in-class)
    
    
11. Nugent Map of Western Writers' West (in-class)
    
    
12. Robert Athearn's West (in-class)
    
    
13. The Real or Unambiguous West (in-class)
    
    
14. The Marginal or Interior West (in-class)
    
    
15. State Map of the 20th Century American West
    (in-class)
    
    
16. Geographical Definitions of the American West
    (in-class)
    
    
17. Annual Rainfall in the West (in-class)
    
    
18. Population per Square Mile in the West (in-class)
    
    
19. The West from Space at Night (in-class)
    
    
20. Maps of the New West

----------------------------------------------------------------

Why Study the American West?

1. Certificate Program in Western American Studies
   
   To understand the West as Home
   
   To understand the past, present, and future
   history of the United States
   
   To understand the Myths of American History
   
   To understand the people, culture, and society
   of the American West
   
   
2. Because we want to live-in and protect the West
   

---------------------------------------------------------------------

What is the West in American Culture?

T he West as the Home of Indian Peoples

The West as unsettled Wilderness

The West as Spain

The West as Mexico

The West as the United States

The West as a "Garden of the World"

The West as the "Great American Desert"

The West as Frontier

The West as "Safety Valve"

The West as "the Wild West"

The West as Freedom from Society and the Past

The West as "Free Land"

The West as under-Developed Region

The West as a "proces " of Frontier Settlement

The West a a Place to make your Fortune.

The West as vast, empty Wasteland

The West as Property of the Federal Government

The West as "Borderlands" for diverse peoples

The West as a distinct region in the United States

The West as wide-open Spaces

The West as a Pristine Environment

The West as untapped Natural Resources

The West as Tourist and Nature Preserve

The West as a Place that represents America

The West as crowded, Urban Centers

The West as vast Rural Wasteland

The West as Small Towns and Communities

The West of Farmers, Ranchers, Miners, and
Loggers

The West as a Nuclear and Military Waste Dump

The West as California

The West as Arid Land

The West as our Home for the future

----------------------------------------------------------------

Turner's Frontier Vision of the West

Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History":

In a recent bulletin of the superintendent of the census for 1890 appear these significant words: "Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly he said to be a frontier line. Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development. Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organs into life, and shape them to meet changing conditions. Now, the peculiarity of American institutions is the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people—to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life.

..... . Thus American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area. American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West.

What is the frontier? It is not the European frontier—a fortified boundary line running through dense populations. The most significant thing about it is, that it lies at the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is treated as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the square mile. The term is an elastic one, and for our purpose does not need sharp definition. We shall consider the whole frontier belt, including the Indian country and the outer margin of the "settled area" of the census reports. This paper will make no attempt to treat the subject exhaustively; its aim is simply to call attention to the frontier as a fertile field for investigation, and to suggest some of the problems which arise in connection with it.

... Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe, not simply the development of Germanic germs, any more than the first phenomenon was a case of reversion to the Germanic mark. The fact is, that here is a new product that is American. At first, the frontier was the Atlantic coast. It was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense. Moving westward, the frontier became more and more American. As successive terminal moraines result from successive glaciations, so each frontier leaves its traces behind it, and when it becomes a settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics. Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence on American lines.

American Studies Web