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American Studies 100
Monday, February 22nd, 1999
Announcements: No Class next Monday
Lecture notes:
The West
Not "West", but "Wests": Many ways to "map
out" or think about the West: by economy, such as fur, trading, mining,
farming wests. By geography, by time period, by peoples, etc.
We are reflecting, in part, upon historical interpretations of the West.
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Epic West: Westering presented as hard fought European-American
advance of "progress" against the wilderness to expand the nation, civilization,
and the "realm of freedom". Westering as the triumph of "civilization"
over barbarism. Key terms: Manifest Destiny, Yeoman Farmer
(Agrarian Deal), Freehold, Rugged Individualsim. (Early dime novels, early
cowboy movies- good guys and bad guys)
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Tragic West: Westering as tragic dislocation and often extermination
of various Native American peoples. Turns Epic West upside-down offering
views of crimes of conquest and dispossession. Sometimes presented
as a morality play with reversed white and black hats: ex: Dances
With Wolves
-
Mythic West: Used to emphasize ways in which our understanding
of the west has been influenced by mythic interpretations and to describe
the West's standing as a symbol of our nation as a whole. Underscores
the difficulty of coming to understand "real" west because it carries heavy
mythic baggage. At bottom, the West as the repository of dreams for
an astonishing variety of different people.
- Examples include: Kit Carson (Models himself
after his own fictional character), Buffalo Bill, John Wayne, Ralph Lauren,
Ronald Regan
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Westering: West understood as the historical process through
which the dreams and lives of an astonishing variety of people criss-crossed
and collided, transforming cultures, rewarding some while disappointing
others. Westing as the complex interplay between these peoples
and the transformation of cultures which resulted from that interplay.
- Rapid change
- Continuing culture conflict and change in contact
- Competing dreams and aspirations
- Process in time
"American history is the history of the West....The expansion westward
was....the vital force that....called into existence the institutions and
forms of American"
- Fredrick Jackson Turner
"Frontier is a force for secularization and democratization"
- Fredrick Jackson Turner
- activities
within lives not dealing with religion
- religion seemed to become less important as people moved west
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Democratization
-
A line could be drawn through the U.S. in the west, where civilization
ended and wilderness/salvagry began
-
What happens to the American character when there is no line drawn?
-
Expansion made it difficult for the groups in the East to control the actions
of the people in the West
- No
power base in the West
- Weak National Government
- No standing military force
-
Mixed groups go westering
- English
settling on East coast
- French, Spanish, Scots Irish, settling West
-
Commitment to a common future
- dangers
of the frontier
- thin margin between success and failure
-
Industrialization and Urbanization
- No
large settles in the West until the Industrial Revolution
- Ex: Railroads, etc.
Readings
From "Query XIX" - Thomas Jefferson
-
Making arguments against the European principles against whether or not
the U.S. should be independent or dependent in manufacturing
- difference
between land masses
- "Degenerous Theory" by Europeans (Buffon)
- History
shows no corrupt farmers
- Individual's character is built on what profession they do
- Yeoman farmers are the chosen people of God
- Analogy between farmer and National image
-
Argument against Jefferson's ideas
- Not
everyone is a farmer
- Creates ethnocentric views of other countries and cultures
- Cannot live by farming alone
- Jefferson was not a real farmer; he owned a plantation with slaves who
did his farming for him
- South protecting against the manufacturing of the North
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