Grade 5, Unit 2: Cornerstone 2 Westward Expansion Database Articles Database Articles • Pioneer Women - http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/pioneer-womanx2019s-life-200-years-ago Note: you will have to log into the databases below using a DC Public Library Card or DC One Card. After logging in, click on the link again to get to the appropriate article. • Black Cowboys - http://www.worldbookonline.com.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/student/article?id=ar753924&st=exodusters#tab=homepage • Manifest Destiny - http://school.eb.com.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/levels/elementary/article/353420 • Oregon Trail - http://school.eb.com.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/levels/elementary/article/353574 • Oregon Trail - http://www.worldbookonline.com.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/kids/home#article/ar831676
Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land does a great job at depicting how the Early american west was created and all of the violence that the native people endured over many years. For as long as I can remember the American west was all about shooting and gun fights due to how most people in history portray it. However Ned Blackhawk does a great job bringing many hard aspects of the Early American West to light. Blackhawk brings a unique perspective to light discussing how many different empires from the Spanish to American’s bringing hardships, death and diseases to the Indian groups living on the land hinting at the title “Violence over the Land”. He discussed how over time the native population has had a very pauperized life.
Part one allows John Grady Cole to act as the often romanticized western hero incomplete in a constrained life off the open fields without horses. Part two continues perpetuating the mythic West through John Grady Cole’s ability to demonstrate his heroic skills of horse training, as the work’s true western hero. Part three’s introduction to blatant violence with Blevins’ death finally breaks the myth of the perfect west for John Grady Cole, introducing him to the inevitability of violence accompanying the western hero. Finally, part four demonstrates John Grady Cole’s rugged individualism as the western hero, estranged from his friends and family despite trying to reconcile the old aspects of his life in Texas. John Grady Cole’s evolution ultimately demonstrates the collapse of the frontier hypothesis at large, questioning if the notion of the frontier as central to American identity can take root in a modernized America.
The Wild West brought many great stories to foreign places, with the help of regionalism it made foreign places alive to people who didn’t know of them. In Mark Twain’s “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, is based out of California during the gold rush, a man named Jim smiley is a great gambler who bets on anything and everything. He will always win the bets, until an unknown man comes along and cheats out Jim smiley out of his money. He cheated Jim out by stuffing his famous jumping frog with a teaspoon of a quill shot (Twain 665). The other story by Bret Harte “The Outcast of Poker Flat”, a gambler, a thief and other outcast are thrown out of their town.
In Sarah Gleeson-White’s article, Playing Cowboys: Genre, Myth, and Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, she talks about how “Cormac McCarthy moved from the South to the Southwest in the 1970s, so did the settings and associated meanings of his novels.” This novel is somewhat related to the background of the author and the transitions they went through. John Grady Cole is a representation of the last generation cowboy of Western ancestry. As written in All the Pretty Horses, “People dont feel safe no more, he said. We’re like the Comanches was two hundred years ago.
Arguably the most famous and recognizable rifle of the Old West, the 1873 is a true icon of the frontier. The iron-framed, lever-action rifle was ideal in a saddle scabbard or at the homestead to take care of any chore a revolver couldn’t handle. And plenty of good and bad men had chores for the 1873, with the likes of William F. Cody, the Texas Rangers, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy and a long list of other western notables employing the rifle. In addition to its ease of use and low maintenance, what made the 1873 a success was Winchester chambering it for its proprietary pistol ammunition — .44-40, .38-40 and .32-20.
The novel, The Day the Cowboys Quit, by Elmer Kelton is not a typical cowboy story filled with waving guns and violent fights. Instead, this story shows what the real life of a cowboy would have been like through the story of Hugh Hitchcock. The Day the Cowboys Quit is based on a cowboy strike that occurred in Tascosa, Texas in 1883. Kelton based his fictional story on the causes of the strike and what became as a result of the strike. This paper will explain historical events concerning the cowboys and depict their true lifestyle which contrasts the stereotypes normally associated with being a cowboy, as well as summarize the novel The Day the Cowboys Quit.
Tombstone is an American western movie that was released in 1993. It is set in the town of Tombstone, Arizona, which was founded as a silver mining town. Wyatt Earp and his brothers Virgil and Morgan come to town to make money and live a life of retirement. However, the Cowboys threaten peace in the town.
Following the great explorative successes, some Americans would soon venture westwards which was largely supported by rhetoric, law and the vision of the founding fathers to have a far-reaching territory. As the manufacturing industry rose in New England, the westward expansion was both timely and economically viable. The American settlers were moving rapidly to what is referred to as the Midwest today and this necessitated the development of infrastructure through the development of canals, roads, and railroads. The rapid expansion of infrastructure, more specifically the railroads, would then purge the country into a new era of medicine, manufacture, and agricultural inventions (Neil, 1964). The Midwest became an inspiration that saw the symbolic development of the American identity in the 19th century with development of acting, painting, and writing.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn has come to symbolize the clash of two vastly dissimilar cultures: the buffalo/horse culture of the northern plains tribes, and the highly
During the “Gilded Age” period of American history, development of the Trans-Mississippi west was crucial to fulfilling the American dream of manifest destiny and creating an identity which was distinctly American. Since the west is often associated with rugged pioneers and frontiersmen, there is an overarching idea of hardy American individualism. However, although these settlers were brave and helped to make America into what it is today, they heavily relied on federal support. It would not have been possible for white Americans to settle the Trans-Mississippi west without the US government removing Native Americans from their lands and placing them on reservations, offering land grants and incentives for people to move out west, and the
Americans have learned about the Civil Rights Movement. They know about African Americans fighting for equal rights, the end of segregation, the integration of schools, and earning the right to vote. To say education is the civil rights movement of today is pathetic compared to what African Americans went through before and during the Civil Rights Era. There just isn’t a comparison between then and now.
They chased the cattle off the ranges. The buffalo loved their people as much as the Kiowas loved them.” (Marriott and Rachlin 1968) In conclusion, the Indian Story in the conquest of the American West was not simple.
Outlaws of the west created the spirit of the wild west and made America what it is today. Outlaws in the wild west were beneficial to the development of the American west because they made security more important, they gave people more jobs, and they helped create more structured laws. Outlaws in the west helped make security more important. Outlaws robbed many spots including trains, banks, salons, and stores.
Perhaps the most significant myth in American culture is that of the American frontier generated by the European encounters with the American West. The most noticeable part of the frontier myth is the mythic struggle between modern civilization and wilderness. Frontier is defined as “the meeting point between savagery and civilization”. Turner believes that the American frontier is closely related to American civilization and that frontier
