Frontier Myths

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Frontier Myths
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• Angela Brown

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The West by 1900

• A decline in the amount of unorganized territory
  created the sense that the opportunities of the
  frontier were fading.
• 1872 the federal government established
  Yellowstone National Park to preserve western
  lands

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s/map_yellowstone_caldera.gif
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• Nations 1st national park Wyoming, Montana, and
  Idaho
• 1890 the Superintendent of the census announced
  the end of the frontier.

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ver 20in20Hayden20Valley,20Yellowstone20Natio
nal20Park.jpg
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Turners Frontier Thesis

• Fredrick Jackson Turner 1893 claimed the
  frontier had played a central role in forming the
  American character
• Forced settlers to shed old ways and adapt,
  innovate, and invent

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• Created Americans who were ready for adventure,
  bent on self-improvement and committed to
  democracy
• Disregarded contributions of women, African
  Americans, immigrants, government, and big
  business.

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age/fr-vista.jpg
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Frontier Realities

• Diverse Western settlers women, Chinese,
  Japanese, and African Americans
• buffalo soldiers Native Americans called the
  all-black ninth and tenth cavalry regimen

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Limited View of Democracy

• gave women the vote before eastern counterparts
  but
• ran over rights of native Americans and Asians
• Settlers treated vast resources as though they
  were limitless

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Creating the Myths

• 1870 dime novels of writers like Edward Wheeler
• 1883 William F. Cody Buffalo Bill Wild West
  Show
• 1902 Frederic Remingtons painting The Cowboy

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r_0058The-Life-of-Buffalo-Bill-Posters.jpg

• Stereotypes fixed ideas held by people
• strenuous life for men

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pg
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o_Bill.jpg
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-3369.jpg

• 1912 Juliette Low founded the American Girl
  Scouts because she feared civilization had made
  girls too soft.
• She praised women homesteaders for strength and
  intelligence.
• Made scouting techniques for tracking woodcrafts,
  and wilderness survival the core of her program.

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• Reality is much more complex than the myths.
• It is balance between the dream of endless
  opportunities and the fact that opportunities
  were not equal for all.

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n /Arizona-Cowboy-Print-C10034065.jpeg