Making of the American West

People and Perspectives

Benjamin H. Johnson

• Publisher: ABC-CLIO
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9781851097630
• eBook ISBN: 9781851097685
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

A richly researched, evocative account of the individuals and institutions involved in the settling of the non-Indian West—and of the impact of the development of the West on the nation as a whole. Making of the American West surveys the experiences of major social groups in the lands from the Mississippi to the Pacific, from the United States' penetration of the region in the early 19th century to its incorporation into national political, economic, and cultural fabric by the early 20th century. This revealing volume offers fascinating portraits of the people and institutions that drove the Western conquest (traders and trappers, ranchers and settlers, corporations, the federal government), as well as of those who resisted conquest or hoped for the emergence of a different society (Indian peoples, Latinos, Asians, wage laborers). Throughout, expert contributors continually return to the growing myth of the West and the impact of its promise of freedom and opportunity on those who sought to "Americanize" it.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Series Introduction
• Introduction
• About the Editor and Contributors
• Chronology
• 1 Give Me Your Home: Animals and the American West
• 2 American Indian Peoples
• 3 Latinos
• 4 Commerce of the Elsewhere: Trappers and Traders in the Antebellum West
• 5 Soldiers in the American West
• 6 Mormon Settlement
• 7 The Black West
• 8 Asians and Asian Americans in the West
• 9 Entrepreneurs
• 10 Working the American West
• 11 Women in the West
• 12 Bad Men, Unsexed Women, and Good Citizens: Outlaws and Vigilantes in the American West
• 13 Artists and Boosters
• Primary Documents
• Reference
• Bibliography
• Index