This essay will explore the three dominant paradigms in the history of the American West. The first paradigm, the Frontier Thesis, was developed by Frederick Jackson Turner and presented by him at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in July 1893 and was intended to serve as a model for the development of American institutions in general. However, it also greatly impacted the study of the American West. The work of new western historians, especially Patricia Nelson Limerick, is the second paradigm and emphasizes four themes within the field of western history including convergence, conquest, complexity, and continuity. Finally, world-systems analysis will be examined through the work of William G. Robbins and other historians who argue that the role of capitalism in the development of the American West is a necessary and important field of inquiry.
Paradigm I: The Turner Thesis
Background of the Frontier Thesis
In his study of American historical interpretations, Gerald Nash argues that there are several important factors to consider in tracing the evolution of Turner’s frontier thesis. First, Turner’s personal experiences growing up in a frontier region of Wisconsin between 1870 and 1890 shaped his thoughts and left lasting impressions.[1] Second, Turner was influenced by the intellectual climates at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins, where his instructors shaped his thinking of historical processes. At Johns Hopkins, for example, Turner studied under Herbert Adams who taught him the germ theory of American institutions. According to this theory, American institutions evolved from Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic origins in Europe that were centuries old.[2] Based on his experiences in Wisconsin, Turner rejected most of Adam’s theory. Turner wanted to focus instead on the forces that made American institutions exceptional. Finally, Turner’s concerns with contemporary events found expression in his professional writings. Turner was concerned about the decline of the agrarian character of the nation in the face of industrialism, the rise of cities, and the changing face of the United States as immigrants continued to arrive in the late 19th century. These concerns, and others, found an outlet in Turner’s nostalgic writings on frontier life and the Old West.
The Frontier Thesis
In his highly influential essay, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, Frederick Jackson Turner proposed a paradigm to explain the development and expansion of American institutions. According to Turner, the development of these institutions could be explained by “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward.”[3] There are several important component parts related to the frontier thesis which require discussion. These include American exceptionalism, the frontier as both a process and place, the significance of the frontier for American history, and post-frontier anxiety.
American exceptionalism, the belief that America is the model for freedom and liberty in the world, is a key part of Turner’s paradigm. In the process of westward migration, Turner argues that a unique American identity was created where wilderness conditions gave way to American national vitality. Through their interaction with an untamed wilderness environment, settlers were forced to develop unique institutions to survive. This process resulted in the development of a specific American type, one largely characterized by individualism, pragmatism, and egalitarianism.[4] In the immediate decades following the publication of his famous 1893 essay, many American historians believed that the Turner thesis explained American development; however, historians today have shown that a number of nations experienced periods of frontier and territorial expansion.[5]
In describing the frontier in his essay, Turner avoided monolithic definitions, choosing instead to describe the frontier as both a process and a place. Turner argues that the frontier process is illustrated by the struggle with wilderness that turned Europeans into Americans. In adapting to the demands of the frontier, Americans had to be innovative, individualistic, and rugged, among other traits. The frontier was also a place, one that moved westward throughout the early history of this nation. In terms of nailing down a definition of ‘frontier’ Turner argues that it is the place where civilization meets savagery.
The collision of different cultures produced uniquely American characteristics and institutional forms; because of this, Turner argues that the center of American history could be found at its edges. As Americans migrated westward, the frontier represented the outer edge of a wave of civilization; this line represented the most effective and rapid force for the Americanization of foreigners. The western environment is central to this theme of transformation and is of great importance for Turner’s overall thesis, which is national rather than regional in explanatory aim.
While the criticisms of Turner and his essay have been effusive, especially during the last three decades, there are aspects of his paradigm that remain useful today. Foremost among Turner’s key points is a focus on the role of the environment and geography in shaping Americans and their institutions. As William Cronon points out, “it is no accident that much of what we today call ‘environmental history’ has been written in this country under the guise of western history.”[6] Turner believed that the environment or ‘free land’ west of the Mississippi River, exerted a transformative influence on immigrants, turning Europeans into Americans; this is one of the major themes of his thesis. Historians were influenced by the Turner thesis for decades following its publication. The work of historians such as Walter Prescott Webb, Frederick Logan Paxson and Ray Allen Billington added depth and nuance to Turner’s original thoughts.
Theme: The Transformative Power of the Environment
Beginning in the early 20th century, historians including Frederic Logan Paxson wrote extensively using Turner’s model. These historians focused on the American West specifically, while developing and augmenting Turner’s basic thesis. Paxson, for example, did not break with the Frontier thesis; however, after Turner’s death in 1932, many historians began to reassess the validity and application of the thesis. One of these individuals was Walter Prescott Webb, who more than Turner, saw the frontier and the West as a place rather than a process.[7] Webb’s conception of the American West was centered on the arid plains west of the 98th meridian. Webb defined the West as a specific and locatable area on a map, which marks an important difference between him and Turner. Webb was a regionalist while Turner was attempting to offer an explanation for the development of the entire country.
There were also similarities between the two men. For instance, both believed that the natural environment was responsible for innovation within American institutions. Webb argues that when Americans encountered the mostly level, treeless, and semi-arid environment of the plains, they were forced to transform their institutions in order to settle the region. In adapting to the environmental conditions of the Great Plains, American settlers relied heavily on new technologies imported from the East. Adapting to life on the Great Plains shaped the American character, requiring settlers to be innovative in solving problems while making them stronger in their efforts to cling to the land in the absence of material comforts. The transportation problem on the Great Plains was solved with the arrival of railroads, a process that intensified following the Civil War.[8] The significance of the railroad is that it made communication and transportation over large areas possible, while bringing construction materials from the East that enabled settlers to build communities.[9] The issue of fencing was resolved with the introduction of Joseph Glidden’s barbed wire invention of 1874.[10] Webb argues that the invention of barbed wire revolutionized land values on the Great Plains and without it, the plains homestead could never have been protected from the grazing herds of neighboring ranches.[11] Webb’s emphasis on the natural environment as a field of study links him to new western historians, including Elliott West and others. The overriding influence in Webb’s work was his focus on the study of civilizations and cultures from the physical foundation on which they rested.[12]
In the late 1940s, Ray Allen Billington began a career dedicated to preserving Turner’s frontier thesis. Throughout his long career, Billington modified Turner’s thesis to say that the frontier was not the only factor in the development of American institutions. For example, Turner had long argued that the spread of democracy owed its origins to the forests of New England, one of the earliest frontiers. Billington understood that he would need to compromise with Turner’s critics if he was going to salvage the frontier thesis. Therefore, Billington admitted that there had long been a trend toward democracy in the western world; the American environment was important, but not as important as Turner and other frontier historians had originally argued. The more Billington was forced to modify the thesis, the more people questioned which aspects were still valid for historical explanation and analysis.
Earl Pomeroy offers an excellent segue from old western historians to a discussion of new western historians. Long before the publications of Patricia Limerick, William Cronon, Richard White, and Donald Worster, Pomeroy called for a reappraisal of the “Turner-Webb environmental-deterministic” paradigm.[13] Where Turner saw innovative, nation-building frontiersmen, Pomeroy saw class stratification and hierarchies of power. Foreshadowing the new western history, Pomeroy argued against the significance of Turner’s closing frontier. Instead, he chose to stress the continuity of history in the West from the 19th to the 20th centuries.[14]
Paradigm II: New Western History
The origins of the new western history movement can be traced to the new social history movement of the 1960s and 1970s.[15] Many within the post-war generation who grew up in the 1960s became alienated by the crimes of our society, including nuclear testing, the violation of civil rights, the assassination of JFK, and especially the war in Vietnam. Practitioners of the new western history generally advocate new perspectives that illuminate the experiences of diverse groups of people. Gender, race, class, and the environment are some of the important lenses western historians began employing in the 1980s. The accomplishments of four new western historians have added a great amount of depth and clarity to the field; they include William Cronon, Richard White, Donald Worster, and Patricia Nelson Limerick. Each of these historians emphasizes distinct ways to practice the new western history.
In explaining his take on the new western history, William Cronon argues that there remains some value in Turner’s thesis. Cronon believes that one of Turner’s most fruitful suggestions was that invasion, settlement, and community formation followed certain broad, repeating patterns throughout most of North America.[16] Turner described a large-scale process referred to as parallel historical change through his argument about the ways in which the frontier process repeated itself as it moved westward. Cronon links his conception of western history to Turner while simultaneously striking out on his own by stating that he believes that Turner’s comparative study of parallel regional changes has much to offer the field today, especially in formulating new approaches. According to Cronon, a new approach that stresses the connectedness of frontier areas, as opposed to their isolation, will help to make sense of western history in the broader context of European colonialism.[17]
Richard White argues that the frontier thesis remains a source of environmental history and a window to the popular mind.[18] For White, the major source of continuity and the source for discontinuities between the old western and new western histories is the way that each group has formulated the role of the environment in creating a western region.[19] While both groups of historians acknowledge the importance of the environment, White argues that old western historians continue to wear ‘frontier blinders’ that restrict and narrow their view of the past. The narrative of the old western history is the story of a journey, a challenge, and a dual transformation of land and people. However, White argues that new western historians have abandoned ‘frontier blinders’, choosing instead to focus on three things in constructing western environmental history narratives. First, they look at the contesting groups, second, they examine the various perceptions of the land and ambitions for it, and finally, they examine structures of power that shape these contests over land use that result in environmental change. While this model goes beyond the simple dichotomy of the old western historians, it does retain the focus of the importance of the environment as a foundational belief.
In his book, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, White presents a new history of the American West. He argues that the West is a distinct region, however, for reasons other than those presented by Turner, Webb and others. White argues that the West is characterized by distinct sets of relationships that set the region apart from other regions in the nation.[20] Of great importance is the relationship between the federal government and the West, a dual labor system based on race, and patterns of political participation and organization. Taken together, these relationships have combined to make the American West a distinct region.
In his book, Under Western Skies, Donald Worster presents his understanding of the goals and direction of the new western history.[21] Worster argues that with the new western history, we are beginning to get a history that is beyond myth, beyond the traditional consciousness of the white conquerors, and beyond a primitive emotional need of heroes and heroines.[22] According to Worster, there are four important arguments that the new western history makes. The first argument is that the invaded and subject peoples of the West must be given a voice in the region’s history. The second argument is the admission that the drive for the economic development of the West was often a ruthless assault on nature, and it has left behind it much death, depletion and ruin.[23] The third argument is that the West has been ruled by concentrated power, though here, as in other places, power has often hidden itself behind beguiling masks.[24] Finally, the single most important and most distinguishing characteristic of the new western history is its determination not to offer cover for the powers that be—not to become subservient to them, by silence or consent.[25]
While Worster takes Turner to task for his focus on process rather on fixing a specific geographic definition for the American West, he argues that Webb attempted to fix firm coordinates to the West as early as the 1950s.[26] This illustrates the link between old western historians and Worster’s understanding of western history today. Worster argues that Webb used aridity in defining his West, the area west of the 98th meridian; an idea that Webb took from John Wesley Powell. Webb’s definition of the West, the region’s aridity, fits with Worster’s own experience of growing up in Kansas and California. This experience has led Worster to accept Webb’s definition due in large part to his own understanding of the region as a place where people struggle for survival under a variety of circumstances, especially aridity.[27]
As has been demonstrated, the new western history coalesced in the 1980s in the writings of William Cronon, Richard White and Donald Worster; however, the work of Limerick is among the most expressive in terms of defining this new paradigm. Limerick argues that she did not create this paradigm; rather, she was a part of a larger movement of western historians who believed in trusting their own experiences and beliefs and who questioned the authority of the Turner thesis. Limerick articulates her understanding of the new western history in several groundbreaking books and articles.[28]
It is helpful to compare and contrast Limerick’s understanding of the new western history with Turner’s frontier thesis. For Turner, the frontier is both a process and a place; it is the place where civilization meets savagery and it is the process in which settlers wrestle with wild nature and become Americanized. Limerick also sees the West as both process and place. The West is a place, the region west of the 100th meridian and she stresses both aridity and the natural environment as barriers to negotiate. The West is a process due to the convergence of races, ideas, and environmental factors that come together to form something new. Like Turner, Limerick is making an exceptionalist argument about the West; however, she states that the West has characteristics that make it unique, not better. Among these characteristics are the border with Mexico, the presence of large Native American populations on their homelands, aridity, and the fact that the bulk of the land remains under federal control.
The Four C’s of New Western History
According to Limerick, new west historians employ new terms that reflect new perspectives; among these terms are the four C’s of the new western history: conquest, convergence, continuity, and complexity. Supporters of the Turner thesis utilized a vague definition of ‘frontier’, in which they envisioned an ever-expanding zone of freedom, opportunity and democracy. Limerick argues that such a definition exempted the United States from global history while attempting to downplay the significance of European actions. Limerick prefers to use the word ‘conquest’ rather than frontier because she believes that this is a more accurate description of what transpired. Using conquest as a lens to study the history of the American West allows historians to make sense of the seizure of resources, the imposition of colonial dominance, intermarriage, and syncretism and to recognize these events when they see them.
Limerick utilizes the theme of convergence to uncover and understand how the American West looked historically in terms of race, class, gender, etc. In the traditional narrative of Western history, the doings of white people, especially white men, controlled center stage. Native Americans were recognized as obstacles or barriers to the big process of frontier expansion, while Chinese and Mexican workers could find relevance only as they contributed to the building of railroads and the development of agriculture. Contrary to this traditional narrative, the West was a place of extraordinary convergence; people from all over the world met, negotiated for position, and tried to better understand one another.
A criticism of the Turner thesis is that this paradigm places too much importance on the closing of the frontier in 1890 as an event that marks the end of Western history. Supporters of the new western history see no gap between the 19th and 20th centuries; they argue that narrative and causal ties link the two centuries. For example, there was more homesteading after 1890 than before, major extractive industries saw their principle boom and bust cycles during the 20th century, conflicts and dilemmas stirred up in the late 19th century have remained to haunt Westerners in the 20th and now 21st centuries. Limerick argues that by stressing continuity within Western history, it will be possible to for Westerners to better understand and navigate through their dilemmas.
The final ‘C’ of new western history is aimed directly at many of those individuals who desire to see history in black and white; good guys and bad guys. Contrary to many of the myths and romanticized notions, Limerick argues that human behavior in the American West, both past and present, has shown the same level of moral complexity as human behavior in any other part of the planet. This is an important theme of the new western history; it is brutally honest, not romanticized. Limerick goes so far as to state that those who want to preserve their myths enjoy “appealing and colorful legends.”
Theme: Convergence
Migration and settlement are illustrative topics within the new western theme of convergence. The massive influx of migrants to the American West during the 19th and 20th centuries brought together different races and cultural groups that resulted in distinct challenges for the communities in which they settled.[29] White Americans and former slaves migrated West while Asians migrated East and Mexicans continued moving north; at the same time, the prior presence of thousands of Native Americans in the region set the stage for cultural and economic exchange, new understanding, and violence as these groups converged and interacted.
Richard White argues that historically, there have been three types of western migration, including community or kinship based, utopian (Mormons), and modern. The first two types of migration saw their destination, whether Oregon or Utah, as a site for the re-creation of an existing way of life or for the establishment of a new and better life.[30] The journey to California is an example of modern migration; this was often seen as a temporary migration with the purpose of accumulating portable wealth and property. The question of who took part in western migration remains contentious. White argues that networks of information ultimately determined which communities were likely to send migrants to California, Oregon, and points in between.[31] However, Susan Lee Johnson argues that it was the tentacles of capitalism that determined who could and ultimately would migrate to the California gold fields. Capitalist market economies around the globe linked people, places, and products together in the search for wealth; those individuals who ventured to the California gold fields were grappling with monumental economic changes.[32]
During the post-Reconstruction period in the South, a mass exodus of former slaves was launched with the hopes of evading the cultures of terrorism and poverty that characterized their existence after 1877. Beginning in 1878, thousands of ‘exodusters’ migrated to Kansas in the hopes of finding their personal Liberia or Canaan. This movement was one of the first migrations of African Americans westward and as such, it is an excellent example of the convergence of different racial and cultural groups. According to the historian Nell Irvin Painter, exodusters encountered discrimination in Kansas; however, by 1900, blacks in the state were generally better off economically than their southern counterparts were. As far as their impact on Kansas communities, Painter argues that the biggest fear many whites held was that Anglo-American migrants would choose to settle in Nebraska or Minnesota once word got out that thousands of former slaves had taken up residence as farmers and laborers in Kansas.[33]
Irish migrations to the copper town of Butte, Montana followed the same general pattern of other mining communities in terms of push and pull factors; however, there were some unique aspects, including the fact that the owner of the Anaconda Mine was born in Ireland. In an article on the Irish in Butte, David M. Emmons argues that the Irish in this mining community were representative of migrants who wanted to gain portable wealth and move on, perhaps back to their hometown or country of origin.[34] Josef J. Barton demonstrates that European immigrants in the American West also sought to recreate and maintain their traditional ways of life in this country without the intention of going back to their home countries, which was impossible for some groups.[35] Barton’s study of Czech farmers in south Texas details the steps taken by this group to maintain decent and secure lives.
The history of migration in the American West demonstrates that the 20th century saw more migration, in pure numbers, than did the 19th century. Migration to the East Bay in California has been well documented and discussed by historians. Marilynn S. Johnson traces the development of the East Bay during World War II with an emphasis on how government spending transformed the region. Johnson focuses on the convergence of different races, genders, and generations as new migrants mixed with old settlers and as all of these groups worked and lived in the same area.[36] The tension between newcomers and old time residents was palpable, as old timers attempted (successfully) to shape public policy decisions on everything from housing, to land use and the prosecution of criminals with the goal of maintaining traditional social patterns and limiting the influence of migrants.
Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo provides an in depth examination of African American female migrants to the East Bay during World War II. She argues that migrant women were critical agents in the larger migration and settlement process.[37] Many minority migrant groups faced racism and discrimination as they intermingled with Anglo-American migrants and the older inhabitants. Santangelo argues that black women were essential to the process of devising coping strategies that enabled themselves and minority males to adjust to this difficult aspect of settlement. Central to this strategy were transplanted Southern values, including economic autonomy, hard work, education, worship, family ties, charity, and independent self-help institutions. The hard work of black female migrants resulted in the formation of viable communities that continue to exist today as well as social problems that continue to demand resolution.
Theme: Complexity
In Something in the Soil, Limerick discusses how people around the globe see the American West as a place where one can go to escape complexity. Many individuals, known as tourists, explore the West hoping to find this romanticized and mythologized past still in existence. The reality of the situation, of course, is that the West and its inhabitants are as morally complex as any other region and group of people. This section will explore the ways in which tourism in the American West both masks and exemplifies moral complexity.
Hal K. Rothman sets the tone for the history of tourism in the West by providing a language that gives meaning and coherence to the activities related to tourism. In his book Devil’s Bargains, Rothman argues that the costs of tourism far outweigh the benefits. The zeal of many western civic leaders who have focused on tourism as their salvation from financial collapse belies a truth about tourism, that the industry transforms local culture into something new and foreign and all the while it may or may not rescue the local economy it was supposed to save.[38]
Modern tourism conceals the complex nature of most western states in several ways. First, and this is one of the primary functions of tourism, romanticized visions of the past are created and marketed to tourists. Rothman argues that the restrictive building codes in Santa Fe and the romantic imagery of southwestern tribes are examples of how people and places were commodified for the tourist trade at the expense of understanding. Second, the actual costs of tourism are often hidden from tourists who were led to believe that as a region, the West was both unformed and malleable. Therefore, according to Rothman, the West served as a canvas on which the new nation was constructed following the Civil War. The act of tourism in the West would enable some of the voids regarding the idea of America and its institutions to be filled.[39]
Some Western towns have turned to gambling tourism to save themselves from financial collapse, which in itself has been a gamble. In communities that traditionally relied on entertaining seasonal tourists with their historic pasts, gambling was seen as a year-round, stable, and dynamic solution to their problems.[40] The struggle to survive illustrates the complexity of the American West today. Far from being the romanticized West that many tourists envision encountering and exploring, communities throughout the region continue to struggle with the collapse of the industries responsible for their creation, e.g., mining, and the success of tourism, which has greatly added to the complexity of existence in tourist towns.
Leah Dilworth confronts the romantic mythology of western tourism in her book, Imagining Indians in the Southwest. Dilworth’s work focuses on the idea of ethnic tourism, specifically involving Native Americans from the Southwest and the ways in which these individuals have been commodified and simplified for tourist consumption.[41] According to Dilworth, the quest encounters with Native Americans during tours of the Southwest is part of the search for simplicity or authenticity that the primitive represents in American culture; however, that simplistic past is unattainable. Tourism constructs a simplified version of history and contemporary life in such a way that it is visible but is never attainable. In the search for what she refers to as the “imperialist nostalgia,” in other words, the search for a simplistic lifestyle that Americans are complicit in destroying, realistic Indians are undetectable. Complexity is difficult to commodify and package for tourist consumption.
Theme: Continuity
The history of mining in the American West illustrates the theme of continuity in several important ways. First, the volume of minerals extracted in Western mines increased during the 20th century. Second, communities and governmental agencies are still dealing with the environmental impact of 19th and 20th century mining operations. Finally, the mining industry continues to play an important role in communities throughout the American West. These are some of the key connections in the unbroken historical narrative of the American West.
Histories of 19th century mining usually emphasize several key themes, including the role of technology in the extractive process, economic and political struggles, and the transition miners undergo from gold-seekers to wage-laborers as the placer gold in streams plays out. In his book Mining Frontiers of the Far West, Rodman W. Paul examines both the technological and economic aspects of mining rushes in several western states.[42] Paul examines the mining movement in its totality through the identification of two unifying forces that occurred across widely scattered mining settlements. The first of these, the role of miners as they moved from discovery to discovery and in the process bringing with them extractive techniques and social relationships for the creation of new communities. Paul acknowledges the fact that the development of mining communities set the stage for the displacement of indigenous groups, people of color, and whites; however, it was Elliott West who finally added the story of the displaced to Paul’s narrative.
Paul continues to develop his theme relating to the impact of new technology on the industry in his final book, The Far West and the Great Plains in Transition. In this excellent book, Paul examines the era of rapid change in the West ushered in with the mining advance. The impact of new technologies on the mining industry is illustrated by his analysis of hydraulic mining and the changes it brought to placer mining, usually the first stage of mining before more capital intensive hard rock mining begins. Hydraulic mining enabled massive amounts of dirt to be worked on a fast scale; however, it brought with it environmental destruction and waste.[43] As the surface deposits played out, subsurface deposits were developed; this combination of new technology and the necessity for capital in hard rock mining turned gold seekers into wage laborers.[44]
Historians have continued to analyze the impact of the Industrial Revolution not only on the mining industry but also on miners. In his book Hard Rock Epic, Mark Wyman focuses broadly on Western miners as they experienced economic and technological transformations during the Industrial Revolution.[45] Wyman examines the response of miners to the introduction of a wide range of new technologies, such as the Burleigh drill.[46] The author reveals that the romanticized image of the miner is completely out of tune with the reality of the situation, which by the late 19th century was characterized by industrialized techniques and wage-laborers.
Mining corporations developed during the Industrial Revolution in this country and most came to dominate the communities and states in which their mines were located. One example of this historical era that straddles the 19th and 20th centuries is Butte and the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.[47] Michael Malone’s narrative focuses on the perspective of competing mine owners within the Butte area as they struggled for control of the copper during the late 19th century. Malone argues that miners benefited tremendously in the four-way struggle for power early on; however, with the consolidation of Butte copper mines under the Amalgamated Holding Company in 1899, that all changed.[48] Not only were miners forced to adapt to new technologies that rendered their skills unnecessary (e.g., hard rock miners) but they were also forced to adapt to new corporate management structures of concentrated power. In such a relationship, the new face of mining in Butte was one in which the workers and the people themselves, “lay at the mercy of a much more powerful and less sensitive corporation.”[49]
Historians of 20th century Western mining continued to chart the development of the industry and to demonstrate the continuity of the historical narrative long after the closing of the frontier in 1890. Historians continue to examine relationships between workers and owners, the influence of both groups in terms of economics, politics, and culture, as well as the impact of changing federal policies on mining communities, among others. James W. Byrkit, in his book Forging the Copper Collar, examines the mining industry in Bisbee, Arizona during the first two decades of the 20th century.[50] Bisbee serves as the backdrop to his argument regarding the role of eastern power in sponsoring and manipulating economic, political, social and cultural life in the American West. Byrkit’s book details the ways in which Arizona’s early statehood period was dominated politically and economically within a colonizer/colonized relationship. This book represents an excellent narrative bridge between the Industrial Revolution and the Wagner Act of the New Deal, which gave labor the right to organize.
Reflecting the new western history’s desire to uncover the history of previously ignored groups, Mary Murphy’s Mining Cultures explores the social clubs, barrooms, sporting life, and other aspects of public leisure within Butte.[51] Similar to the narrative told by Byrkit, Murphy argues that during the interwar years, labor lost a great deal of their power. They occupied a world in which their working lives, political choices, and economic outlooks were constrained by the Anaconda Company. However, Murphy argues that Butte was different from other mining towns in which the controlling company would build towns and seek to control the morals of the workers. Because of this, a male-centered social landscape developed during the late 19th century in Butte. The changes to that landscape are the focus of this book, as Murphy discusses the re-creation of Butte as part of the struggle between women and men to adjust to new gender roles after World War I.[52]
That Western mining is an example of continuity should be clear by now, especially when the history of uranium mining communities are examined and compared to older mining communities. In his book Yellowcake Towns, Michael Amundson analyzes and compares the impact of changing federal policies on four uranium mining and milling communities in the states of Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Colorado.[53] As Amundson argues, yellowcake towns are excellent examples of continuity in the West for several reasons, including the remoteness of the places in which the mining took place and the lack of control those distant communities had on the trade networks that controlled the boom and bust nature of the industry. Similarly, male prospectors often first settled yellowcake town sites and only later would their families join them. In short, Amundson argues, “the persistence of continuity suggests that as unique as the history of uranium mining and yellowcake towns appears, strong undercurrents link them to major themes in the history of the American West.”[54]
Theme: Conquest
The theme of conquest includes a wide range of behaviors, including the conquest of the natural environment and extraction of resources. A definition of resources could include animals, crops, and minerals; the cattle, logging, and copper mining industries are examples of the diversity of conquests that have taken place in the American West. Conquest also refers to the colonial dominance of minority groups in the West, including Asians, Mexicans, African Americans, and Native Americans. The conquest of humans in the American West will be the focus of this section of the essay.
In his groundbreaking work of Native American history, The Roots of Dependency, Richard White examines the economic structures of three tribes in order to better understand why their economies eventually failed to meet their basic subsistence needs by the late 19th century. White studies agricultural systems, hunting methods, as well as their work as ranchers in attempting to explain the economic conquest of the Choctaw, Pawnee, and Navajo.[55] The conclusion which White draws from his examination of the changing Indian economies is that attempts by whites to bring indigenous resources, land and labor into the market was the primary cause of the resulting economic dependency and conquest by the United States. In arriving at this conclusion, White attacks the traditional belief that military supremacy and force were responsible for these changes.
Jeffrey Ostler’s work on the history of Lakota-U.S. interactions during the 19th century, culminating in the massacre at Wounded Knee in December of 1890 provides an excellent example of the new western history’s focus on conquest and indigenous perspectives.[56] Ostler utilizes colonialism as a lens through which to view Indian agency and resistance at a time when the Lakota were experiencing many political, social, and cultural changes. Ostler explains the development of U.S. colonialism among the Lakota while also discussing the ways that the Lakota developed policies and thereby were not simply acted upon by outside influences.
An example of Lakota agency was the way the tribe reacted to the invasion of their lands by Euro-American settlers using the Oregon Trail beginning in the 1840s. According to Ostler, the Lakota began to feel the indirect effects of agrarian expansion in the 1840s as settlers and cattle destroyed or consumed the food supply of indigenous animals, especially the buffalo. In retaliation, the Lakota decided to charge settlers for the damage they were doing to their economy; this was a good policy in terms of holding those responsible for the damages responsible for fixing them, but the normal reaction of the United States was to call out the cavalry and attack local Lakota villages for “harassing” settlers. By discussing the various ways in which the Lakota formulated responses to colonialism and attempts to conquer their land, Ostler strips away the myth that their demise as a power on the northern plains was inevitable. Tearing down myths is one of the goals of the new western history and this book is an excellent example of how it should be accomplished.
Conquest and dispossession also occurred during the early conservation efforts within the American West, but for reasons other than seizing land for agriculture or ranching. In his excellent book, Dispossessing the Wilderness, Mark David Spence states that wilderness preservation went “hand in hand with native dispossession”.[57] Spence’s argument is based on the experiences of a handful of Indian tribes that were dispossessed from certain parts of their traditional homelands by the federal government so that national parks (Yellowstone, Yosemite and Glacier) could be established. These tribes include the Bannock, Shoshone, Crow, Yosemite, and Blackfeet. Spence argues that “uninhabited wilderness had to be created before it could be preserved”.[58] The reason that these tribes were dispossessed had a great deal to do with changing American perceptions about wilderness, including debates on how to define it and how it should be preserved.
According to Spence, in the first half of the 19th century, nascent conservationists such as George Catlin, Washington Irving, Henry David Thoreau, and John Audubon believed that Indians and wilderness areas should be set aside from the influence of civilization. Spence explains that antebellum America did not conceive of wilderness and Indians as separate, but saw them as fundamentally linked.[59] All of that changed, however, in the years following the Civil War. Spence believes that frontier hostilities between the army and Indian tribes located throughout the Great Plains was one cause for America’s changing perceptions of Indians to the popular belief that they were “evil savages”.
No longer seen as living in harmony with nature, due to the fact that they were impeding America’s manifest destiny, setting fires in forests, and hunting game in areas intended for protection, conservationists of the second half of the 19th century began to reconsider the ideas of earlier conservationists, that is, placing Indians in protected wilderness areas. At the same time that Indians were forced off of their traditional homelands onto reservations in order to make the land uninhabited so that it could be preserved, a myth began to circulate that Indians had not inhabited the now-protected wilderness areas located throughout the West for decades. Spence provides evidence linking Indian tribes to each of the three national parks discussed in this book, detailing how that land was used over several centuries and the ways that the various tribes attempted to preserve their treaty rights to practice religious customs and economic tasks in those parks today, long after their ancestors were dispossessed.
Paradigm III: World-Systems Analysis
The final paradigm examined in this paper is world-systems analysis. Immanuel Wallerstein developed this mode of analysis during the 1970s; however, within the discipline of history, William Robbins has been one of the most vocal advocates for its use and acceptance. According to Wallerstein, at its most basic level, world-systems analysis characterizes the global world-system in which we live as a set of mechanisms which redistributes resources from the periphery to the core. In his terminology, Wallerstein describes a ‘core’ as a developed, industrialized part of the world and a ‘periphery’ as an underdeveloped, raw materials exporting, poor part of the world. Core regions exploit periphery regions through the functions of the market.[60]
In a series of books and articles, Robbins has built an interpretive model of history which states that the best way to understand change and interactions in the American West is through a capitalist framework. The key is his definition of capitalism, which he defines as a system of social relations expressed in characteristic class structures, modes of consciousness, patterns of authority, and relations of power.[61] Robbins’ work bears some similarities and shares some intersections with both old and new western historians. Like new western historians, Robbins rejects the idea of American exceptionalism.[62] Robbins sees the region as a unique arena for scholarly endeavor, insisting that the American West can be seen as a prototype for modern capitalism.[63]
In his emphasis on the association between capitalism and its revolutionary consequences for a particular place, Robbins’ work can be seen to closely resemble that of Donald Worster, (Dust Bowl, Rivers of Empire); William Cronon, (Changes in the Land, Nature’s Metropolis); and Richard White, (Roots of Dependency). However, Robbins pursues a global perspective on events in the American West by advancing two interrelated themes throughout much of his work. First, the history of the West should be examined as a part of the worldwide expansion of corporate capitalism. Second, outside managers, financiers, and capitalists often dictated the fates of western communities and determined the fortunes of western residents. In short, Robbins is arguing that the development of the West is the story of the region’s integration into a global economic system. As Robbins explains, the fur trade, settler movement, mineral rushes, and the transportation revolution were all manifestations of the influence of global capitalism. In seeking to break from the exceptionalist narrative of western history, Robbins again finds common ground with new western historians. Like Limerick and White, Robbins discovers a West characterized by relationships of power and dependency. The celebrated freedom and autonomy of the West, if it existed, was the province of the few, of those individuals with power, influence, and especially capital.
The adoption and use of world-systems analysis in the writing of western history has produced several admirable volumes, two of which will be discussed in this section. The first, William G. Robbins’ Colony and Empire has already been briefly mentioned. Robbins’ analysis stretches from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and takes on the entire West, from the 98th meridian to the Pacific, exclusive of Alaska and Hawaii, but inclusive of the Mexican and Canadian borderlands. This is a macrocosmic study divided into four parts in which the author makes his case by outlining the complexity of capitalist networks in the West, the relationship of hinterlands to metropolises, and of eastern and foreign capital to western development.
As Robbins makes clear, part of his rationale for writing this book is that scholars have yet to forge an analytical tool to explain the transformation of the American West from an area dominated by pre-industrial societies to a region that is an integrated segment of a modern world capitalist system.[64] The basic, broad framework advanced by Robbins reads as follows: the penetration of market forces in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the subjugation and colonization of native people between 1840 and 1890, the re-peopling of the western landscape during that same period, and the progressive integration of the West into national and international exchange relationships.[65]
In his book, Capitalism on the Frontier, Carroll Van West provides a microcosmic analysis of the Clark’s Fork Bottom region of the Yellowstone River Valley; a 25 mile long region including the city of Billings, Montana. The focus of Van West’s study are the revolutionary impacts of capitalism in transforming the landscape from a pre-industrial site of economic activity to its absorption into the mainstream of American capitalism.[66] There are parallels between the works of Robbins and Van West, including their examination of the impact of outside capital on the West. Also, both authors chronicle boom-bust cycles and document the late 19th century transition from an individualistic capitalism to an impersonal corporate capitalism by the turn of the 20th century. However, Van West’s narrative actively seeks out the human element, the people, institutions, and economic forces that guided the settlement and development of Billings through the end of the century.[67]
When Frederick Jackson Turner wrote his famous essay in 1893, he was seeking to explain the development of American institutions and history, not the American West specifically. Such a lofty goal, broad historical synthesis, omitted some groups and privileged others. The work of new social historians during the 1960s can be seen as an attempt to broaden the focus of historians by increasing the number of research lenses to include topics such as race, gender, and class. While new social history theories were brought to the field of western history only in the 1980s, well after other regional specialists began using them, the impact was widely and immediately felt.
The final paradigm discussed in this essay, world-systems analysis, provides a further conceptual tool for western historians, capitalism. Supporters of this model argue that the margins and peripheries of our stories lack coherence because they lack an interpretive synthesis to unify them.[68] Both new western historians and supporters of world-systems analysis argue that we need to move beyond American exceptionalism as a form of interpretive synthesis. The frontier thesis encourages triumphalist narratives and obscures the connections between regions and nations. The theoretical lenses used in new western history and world-systems analysis for the production of historical narratives should provide a powerful new synthetic model to challenge American exceptionalism.
[1] Gerald D. Nash, Creating the West: Historical Interpretations, 1890-1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), 6-7.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ray Allen Billington, ed., The Frontier Thesis: Valid Interpretation of American History? (Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company, 1977), 9-20.
[4] William Cronon, “Revisiting the Vanishing Frontier: The Legacy of Frederick Jackson Turner,” The Western Historical Quarterly 18 (Apr., 1987): 157-176.
[5] Patricia Nelson Limerick, Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000).
[6] Cronon, “Revisiting the Vanishing Frontier: The Legacy of Frederick Jackson Turner,” 171.
[7] William R. Jacobs, John W. Caughey, and Joe B. Frantz, Turner, Bolton, and Webb: Three Historians of the American Frontier (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965), vi & 83-85.
[8] Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1931), 273-280.
[9] Ibid., 279.
[10] Ibid., 299-300.
[11] Ibid., 317.
[12] Jacobs, et al., 83.
[13] Richard Etulain, ed., Writing Western History: Essays on Major Western Historians (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), 320.
[14] Ibid., 321.
[15] Gene M. Gressley, ed., Old West/New West: Quo Vadis? (Worland, Wyoming: High Plains Publishing Company, 1994), 3-4.
[16] William Cronon, et al., ed., Under An Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1992), 6.
[17] Ibid., 8-9.
[18] Michael Steiner, “From Frontier to Region: Frederick Jackson Turner and the New Western History,” The Pacific Historical Revew 64 (Nov., 1995): 500.
[19] Patricia Nelson Limerick, Clyde A. Milner II, and Charles E. Rankin, eds., Trails: Toward A New Western History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 27.
[20] Richard White, ‘It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own’: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).
[21] Donald Worster, Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
[22] Ibid., 12.
[23] Ibid., 13.
[24] Ibid., 15.
[25] Ibid., 15-16.
[26] Ibid., 22-23.
[27] Limerick, Trails, 190-191.
[28] See, for example, her books, The Legacy of Conquest and Something in the Soil.
[29] Richard White, ‘It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own’, 183-211.
[30] Ibid., 193.
[31] Ibid., 186-190.
[32] Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000), 58-59.
[33] Nell Irvin Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1979), 258-260.
[34] David M. Emmons, “Irish Miners: From the Emerald Isle to Copper Butte,” in European Immigrants in the American West: Community Histories, ed. Frederick C. Luebke (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998), 49-64.
[35] Josef J. Barton, “Czech Farmers and Mexican Laborers in South Texas,” in Ethnicity on the Great Plains, ed. Frederick C. Luebke (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), 190-209.
[36] Marilynn S. Johnson, The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
[37] Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, Abiding Courage: African American Migrant Women and the East Bay Community (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).
[38] Hal K. Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 10.
[39] Ibid., 35.
[40] Katherine Jensen and Audie Blevins, The Last Gamble: Betting on the Future in Four Rocky Mountain Mining Towns (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998), 72.
[41] Leah Dilworth, Imagining Indians in the Southwest: Persistent Visions of a Primitive Past (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 78-82.
[42] Rodman W. Paul and Elliott West, Mining Frontiers of the Far West, 1848-1880 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001).
[43] Rodman W. Paul, The Far West and the Great Plains in Transition, 1859-1900 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 35-38.
[44] Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1988), 106.
[45] Mark Wyman, Hard Rock Epic: Western Miners and the Industrial Revolution, 1860-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
[46] Ibid., 84-87.
[47] Michael P. Malone, The Battle for Butte: Mining and Politics on the Northern Frontier, 1864-1906 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981).
[48] Ibid., 207-210.
[49] Ibid.
[50] James W. Byrkit, Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona’s Labor-Management War of 1901-1921 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982).
[51] Mary Murphy, Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914-1941 (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1997).
[52] Ibid., xvii.
[53] Michael Amundson, Yellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2002).
[54] Ibid., 178.
[55] Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983).
[56] Jeffrey Ostler, The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism From Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
[57] Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 3.
[58] Ibid., 4.
[59] Ibid., 10.
[60] Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2004).
[61] William G. Robbins, Colony and Empire: The Capitalist Transformation of the American West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994).
[62] William G. Robbins, “Western History: A Dialectic on the Modern Condition,” The Western Historical Quarterly 20 (Nov., 1989): 429-449.
[63] Robbins, Colony and Empire, 19.
[64] Robbins, Colony and Empire, 11-12.
[65] Robbins, “Western History: A Dialectic on the Modern Condition,” 434.
[66] Carroll Van West, Capitalism on the Frontier: Billings and the Yellowstone Valley in the Nineteenth Century (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 2.
[67] Ibid., 3-4.
[68] William G. Robbins, “In Pursuit of Historical Explanation: Capitalism as a Conceptual Tool for Knowing the American West,” The Western Historical Quarterly 30 (Autumn, 1999): 277-293.
