Exploration of the West

The exploration texts of Lewis and Clark, John C. Fremont, and Charles Wilkes demonstrate a large array of American sentiments of the early 19th century towards the frontier. In these texts there is an increasing audacity in tone as the explorers grow more confident with the lay of the land. This confidence is indicative of the United States’ growing comfort with the western territories and its changing values as seen through the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. All four expeditions were sponsored by the United States government with very strict goals of cataloging the landscape and wildlife (the natives also being part of the “wildlife”) and how to best manipulate them. The language of these narratives is scientific and analytical on all accounts but especially towards Native Americans. What started as a gentle yet patronizing interest by Lewis and Clark turned into scorn and distrust in Fremont and finally transformed into Wilkes’ near blatant racism towards the natives and espousal of white superiority. Also distinguishing these texts is the fact that they were all written by military men. Their training and propensity to evaluate situations based on fulfilling the United States government’s expectations not only make for highly professionalized documents but also indicate a martial attitude towards the domination of a land and its people.

Narrative of The United States Exploring Expedition: During the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842 Sam Dalsheimer

Representations of Native Americans during the 1830’s and 1840’s were literally and physically produced by Thomas McKenney, Charles Bird King, and James Hall in their series The History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Principle Chiefs. This collection of portraits and biographies of influential Native American chiefs and leaders created a government catalogue of Native Americans with whom negotiation and treaties took place. However, the images and representations of the Native Americans within the collection set a stereotypical reflection of and bunching together of all Native Americans during this time period, which continues to play an important role in modern day portrayal of Native Americans.
Henry Schoolcraft’s Information Respecting the History Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States provides the reader a broad view of the General History, Mental Type, Antiquities, Physical Geography, Tribal Organization, Intellectual Character, and Government Statistics of all the recorded tribes of Indians. These volumes provide valuable first-hand drawings and sketches of Indian artifacts, written language, and villages drawn by Captain S. Eastman. The government records listed in these editions covers the comprehensive history of the Indians by source of income, agriculture, amount of workers, etc. Henry Schoolcraft provides a great text for anyone looking to find the History of Indian tribes and information on every facet of these tribes.
Within the extensive volume II of The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: Civilized Nations of his Native Races collection, he clarifies, in a rather ignorant manner, the attainment of a civilized mind from savagery, or the aggregate of Native American peoples he chronicles. He describes the binaries and absolutes of civilization and savagery, often in contradiction of previous statements, whereby he associates the disbelief in civilization irrationally to choosing disease and death over the wholesomeness of health in life, for instance. The term savagery, by his definition, not only debases the Native American position on the frontier as desensitized and detached from the significance of life, but portrays them as lacking what the rest of society, or non-Native settlers come to “benefit” from, this rich, comfortable, luxury called civilization.
 

Information Respecting the History Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States
Richard Dybas

The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft Volume II The Native Races: Civilized Nations
Amanda Leong

History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Principle Chiefs
Cynthia Robertson

Return to Top

From initial surveys of the territory upon which to build the railroad to advertisements of new regions accessible by the railroad, our four texts outline the evolution of American conceptions of the frontier from the mid- to the late-19th century. Volume XI of the War Department’s Reports of Explorations and Surveys of 1853 examines the land between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean and the potential for a cross-country railroad. Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis on the frontier likely stemmed from his examination of such documents. The surveyors’ accounts allude to the frontier as a source of great adventure in which developers could help establish new regions by conquering the savagery of nature. The addition of such claims to the Reports suggests an underlying boosterism and potential for new beginnings on the frontier. While obviously written so as to persuade the War Department to approve of the construction of the railroads, the ideas emphasized by the explorers were later mimicked in advertisements for the railroads. Many parts of Crofutt’s Trans-Continental Tourist Guide of 1871 stress the benefits of the railroad as a corridor to the West for pioneers to more easily access and take control over land. In an early incarnation of the modern tourist guide, such claims embodied America’s notion of “Manifest Destiny,” of having a divine right to expand across, and later beyond, North America. This focus still shows an extension of Turner’s theories of the frontier. The changes occurring out west, however, can be seen in the depiction of the far west as the ultimate destination, rather than the central territories and states.
Similarly, the Rand McNally’s Guide to the Pacific Coast of 1893 promotes the West as an ideal location for settlement which enabled people to explore new, entirely different worlds, even just in traveling from one part of California to another. While still somewhat enthusiastic about adventure, the perceived closing of the frontier prompted railroad companies and advertisers to place less emphasis on the need to “conquer” the land and more on the benefits of living in the region. Nonetheless, the opportunity to settle in a new region still portrayed the West, at least implicitly, as a place to create new lives and identities. Even when traveling to unsettled lands, the railroad became a corridor of domesticity for which to travel through foreign spaces.
As exemplified by portions of Health and Pleasure on “America’s Greatest Railroad”, railroad companies also began representing relatively unsettled areas as locations where people could get closer to nature. However, they no longer described nature as a savage and dangerous, and thus masculine, but rather as a place in which people could be psychologically and physically rejuvenated. A more therapeutic ethos took hold and claimed that people “needed” temporary, rather than permanent, sojourns to nature to reduce stress and to renew their tranquility. Despite a supposed closing of the frontier, as Turner stated in the same year that both the McNally Guide and Health and Pleasure were released, the railroad supposedly enabled people to simulate Turner’s challenges in different ways to obtain similar benefits.

Health and Pleasure on "America's greatest railroad": Descriptive of Summer Resorts and Excursion Routes, Embracing More Than One Thousand Tours
Ronni Toledo

Reports of Explorations and surveys: to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Made under the direction of the secretary of war, in 1853
Kayt Fitzmorris

Crofutt’s Trans-Continental Tourist’s Guide
Jon Ingram

Rand, McNally & Co.'s new guide to the Pacific coast : Santa Fé route: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas
David Halperin

Return to Top

The California Gold Rush infused images of opportunity and individual glory to thousands of prospectors traveling west, creating an event that was dictated more by fictitious ideas of wealth than of the actual possibility. For many, the event helped solidify the possibilities out west, as “the discovery of gold, always an object of ambition, has not infrequently been prosecuted with eagerness and avidity, and the wildest schemes have been proposed to obtain these coveted treasures” (Shuck, 1869). The hysteria created by the Gold Rush, first appearing in San Francisco and then throughout the entire state of California, reshaped not only the region, but also the entire country, something Hubert Howe Bancroft describes in the History of California Volume XXIII. However, it was the hysteria that produced visions of widespread gold and wealth, as the event itself was short-lived and not nearly as prosperous as it was exaggerated to be out west.

This study will focus on defining some of the key factors of the Gold Rush, and use primary source documents to detail the experience of the event. The California Scrapbook, written by Oscar T. Shuck, examines the mining tools used by prospectors during the Gold Rush, emphasizing the technological advances that changed both the state of California and the event itself. The idea of “panning” for gold was often viewed as the main form of mining during the event, yet, in reality, it was almost a complete myth, exaggerated by the hysteria caused by the event. Another key factor during the Gold Rush was the contact zone between Native Americans and prospectors. Frank Marryat illustrates the relationship between these two groups in his book, Mountains and Molehills. Prospectors often treated these people as bloodthirsty savages, a treatment which Edward Said would define as a clear example of Orientalism, thus allowing prospectors to obtain powerful hegemony over these indigenous people. Furthermore, the lack of government and political institutions created an emphasis on individuality in a world of increasing crime, which is expressed in The Letters of Dame Shirley, by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp. This problem was a key reason why settlements became so dangerous, as the lack of an organized society drove prospectors to care little about the ethics and laws of society and thus, focus entirely on individual ideals of wealth.

The Gold Rush impacted the not only the country, but also the world, as prospectors became so engrossed with the idea of wealth and glory that they were willing to give up almost anything in order to have a shot at the “American Dream”. The mythologies of the Gold Rush provided people with an unprecedented ambition; the drive to obtain gold fueled desires to obtain a lifestyle that had the potential to be incredible. While the Gold Rush was often viewed as a powerful antidote to withering western expansion, its true nature provided prospectors with only dreams of wealth, as almost everyone did not “strike" it rich.

[i] Cabeza de Vaca, Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America, (New Mexico: Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, reprinted in 1983), p.63

[ii] Dame Shirley, California in 1851[-1852] ; the letters of Dame Shirley, (San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1933), p. 120

[iii] Dame Shirley, California in 1851[-1852] ; the letters of Dame Shirley, (San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1933), p. 122
 

History of California Volume XXIII
Jordan Helle

California Scrapbook
Adam Lawrence

California in 1851[-1852] ; the letters of Dame Shirley
Marisa Pulcrano

Mountains and Molehills
Patrick Ryan

Return to Top

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, boosters marketed Southern California to residents of other states, purporting it to be a land of permanent vacation. Americans from the Midwest and the East were encouraged first to visit the wonderful land of California, and then eventually make permanent residence there. Charles F. Lummis edited two magazines that beautifully illustrate the ethos of the culture of boosterism. Land of Sunshine and Out West provided ready-made examples of the good life in California. Particularly interesting is the postcard provided by Land of Sunshine that could be sent to friends and families back home along with a subscription to the magazine. Lummis urged newly transplanted Californians to spread the message of boosterism to their Eastern friends by saying, “You have not forgotten them – the people you grew up with back in Ohio, or New York… they often speak of you and say, ‘He is out in Southern California now, making money hand over fist. Lucky fellow! I wish I were there.’” (13) Such blatant promotion is rampant in these magazines. The focus of this strategy was centered around several themes. These include quality of climate, abundance of agriculture, romanticization of California’s mission history, and the real estate boom of Hollywood. The following essays discuss these aspects of California boosterism in more depth.

Lummis, Charles F. Land of Sunshine. Land of Sunshine Publishing   Co., June 1894: 13.

Land of Sunshine, article: “The Orange in Southern California” – Volume II, No. 4, March 1894
Maddy Kiefer

Land of Sunshine, A Magazine of California and the Southwest
Danielle Mantooth

Olden Times in Southern California
Molly Nelson

Out West
Stefanie Ramsay

Return to Top