How the West Was Fun: Children’s Literature and Frontier Mythmaking toward the Turn of the Twentieth Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-74
Author(s):  
Brian Rouleau
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
The United States ◽  
Juvenile Literature ◽  
The West ◽  
Western History ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
History Of Childhood ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article discusses the important role that juvenile literature played in creating America’s frontier mythos. It argues that children were a crucial audience for adult authors seeking to justify and normalize settler colonial policies. But, more importantly, young people themselves were active participants in the perpetuation of a popular culture that glorified westward expansion and the eradication of Indigenous peoples. In acknowledging as much, we arrive at a richer understanding of the important intersections between western history and the history of childhood in the United States.

American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Intellectual ◽  
American Intellectual History ◽  
American Thought

American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction provides an introduction to the history of American thought from the sixteenth century up until the present. Long before the United States was a nation, it was a set of ideas, projected onto the New World by European commentators and explorers. American thought grew from this foundation of expectation and experience, both enriched and challenged over the centuries by developments including the Revolutionary War, westward expansion, the rise of capitalism, the proliferation of diverse religions, immigration, industrialization, and the emergence of the United States as a superpower. This introduction provides an overview of some of the most compelling episodes and abiding preoccupations in American thought, while showing how ideas have been major forces driving the course of American history.

scholarly journals Book Review: An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 127-130
Author(s):  
Judith B. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genocide Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Perspective

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's, An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States, confronts the reality of settler-colonialism and genocide as foundational to the United States. It reconstructs and reframes the consensual narrative from the Native Indian perspective while exposing indoctrinated myths and stereotypes. This masterful and riveting journey provides truth and paths towards the future progress for all peoples. It is a must read and belongs in every classroom, home, library, and canon of genocide studies.

The Pacific Ocean as Highway to Gold Mountain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Sinn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Capital Flows ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

This chapter takes a broad look at the Pacific Ocean in relation to Chinese migration. As trade, consumption and capital flows followed migrants, powerful networks were woven and sustained; in time, the networks fanned across the Pacific from British Columbia along the West Coast of the United States to New Zealand and Australia. The overlapping personal, family, financial and commercial interests of Chinese in California and those in Hong Kong, which provide the focus of this study, energized the connections and kept the Pacific busy and dynamic while shaping the development of regions far beyond its shores. The ocean turned into a highway for Chinese seeking Gold Mountain, marking a new era in the history of South China, California, and the Pacific Ocean itself.

The Oriental Monk in American Popular Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Naomi Iwamura
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Tibetan Buddhism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Image ◽  
Dalai Lama ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Asian Religions ◽  
History Of

This chapter analyzes the history of representation that has contributed to the current image of the Dalai Lama. We “know” the Dalai Lama, not simply because of the fact that we may understand his views and admire his actions, but also because we are familiar with the particular role he plays in the popular consciousness of the United States—the type of icon he has become—the icon of the “Oriental Monk.” To get a sense of what makes the Dalai Lama so popular, we need to get a sense of the history of this icon and how it has been used to express and manage our sense of Asian religions. The chapter asks: How did the Dalai Lama come to represent all that he does for Americans? Indeed, what exactly does he represent? How have we come to “know” him? Is our ability to embrace someone and something (Tibetan Buddhism) once considered so foreign, anything other than a testimony to a newfound openness and progressive understanding?

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Denson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Government ◽  
National Council ◽  
Cherokee Nation ◽  
The West ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
History Of

This book began with tourism. In the summer of 1994, a friend and I drove from Bloomington, Indiana, where I attended graduate school, to Florida for a short vacation. As we sped along Interstate 75 through northern Georgia, I spotted a brown roadside sign announcing that, at the next exit, we would find New Echota, a state historic site interpreting the history of the Cherokee Nation. For a brief time in the early nineteenth century, New Echota was the Cherokee capital, the seat of the national government created by tribal leaders in the 1820s. The Cherokee National Council met at New Echota in the years prior to removal, and it was the site of the Cherokee Supreme Court. During a time when the United States and the state of Georgia pressured Cherokees to emigrate to the West, the new capital represented the Cherokees’ determination to remain in their homeland. It was also the place where, in late 1835, a small group of tribal leaders signed the treaty under which the United States forced the Cherokee Nation to remove. I had recently become interested in the history of Cherokee sovereignty and nationhood, and I concluded that I should prob ably know about this heritage attraction. We pulled off the highway and followed the signs to the site....

Resettlement as Securitization

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-89
Author(s):  
Fadi Saleh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gay Marriage ◽  
Hiv Positive ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
The West ◽  
Conviction Rate ◽  
History Of

This first-person activist reflection discusses the author’s experience immigrating to Canada as a queer AIDS activist. The author situates his experience navigating HIV-positive-exclusionary immigration policies where the only avenue for immigrating while HIV-positive is through gay marriage. Canada maintains a draconian set of discriminatory laws regarding the so-called “excessive demand” HIV-positive immigrants put on the publicly funded health care system in Canada. This piece briefly looks at the history of HIV travel and immigration bans as well as proposed HIV quarantine legislation across Canada. While Canada is often regarded as more progressive than the United States in many ways, its HIV immigration ban and high prosecution and conviction rate for HIV nondisclosure make Canada one of the most legally precarious countries for HIV-positive people in the west.

1. Drinking and temperance

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-27
Author(s):  
W. J. Rorabaugh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Heavy Drinking ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Temperance Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Viable System ◽  
The Revolution

‘Drinking and temperance’ describes the history of alcohol consumption in the United States and the introduction of the temperance movement. From the earliest European settlers to the fighters of the Revolution, Americans were among the world’s heartiest drinkers, producing their own corn beer and importing rum from the West Indies. The British blockades during the war meant access to rum was lost. Americans began to distill whiskey from corn instead, which became the country’s patriotic drink. Problems associated with heavy drinking resulted in reformers creating the temperance movement, a cause that was then taken up by Protestant preachers. In the 1850s, evangelicals lobbied for statewide prohibition laws, but there was no viable system of enforcement.

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