“Wild” West Workshop – Wed 1/30
by Dr. H - January 30th, 2013
Use these links to navigate to the resource you picked up on the assignment sheet and use today’s class time to study the resource online. If you chose a book, there’s a stack in the front of the room you can select from. Remember to leave about 5-10 minutes at the end to compose a comment to this post sharing your findings and insights from this workshop with the rest of the class. Your submitted comment is my record of your attendance and participation in today’s workshop.
(These are in alphabetical order)
Buffalo Bill Historical Center
Chinese in California, 1850-1925 (Library of Congress American Memory)
Chronicling America Historical Newspapers
Colorado Historical Newspapers Collection
Custer Battlefield Museum
Daniel Freeman’s Homestead Application, 1862
Denver Public Library photographs (Library of Congress American Memory)
Digital Archives of Sioux County Nebraska
Edward Curtis’s North American Indian (Library of Congress American Memory)
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
Little Bighorn National Monument
“Mythbusters” from students in HI 207 American West Course, Fall 2009
“No Renters Here” – Homesteading a Sod House
Plains Indian Ledger Art
Rawhide
Stagecoach (directed by John Ford, 1939)
Texas Border Photographs (Library of Congress American Memory)
Texas Ranch House
Texas State Historical Association – Handbook of Texas Online
Utah and Western Migration (Library of Congress American Memory)
Worcester State Library – Articles and Databases
Wyoming Newspaper Project
This is Prof Hangen’s sample comment
I went to the Texas State Historical Association site. There I learned about the truth of cattle herding. Instead of the popular image of a life on the range, shooting Indians and fighting off bandits and cattle rustlers, the truth is that cattle herding was very uneventful. “Little of the work was glamorous. Most days were uneventful; a plodding, leisurely pace of ten to fifteen miles a day allowed cattle to graze their way to market in about six weeks. Drudgery was occasionally punctuated with violent weather, stampedes, dangerous river crossings, and, rarely, hostile Indians. Even so, few trail bosses allowed youthful waddies to carry pistols, which were prone to discharge and stampede cattle. The gun-totin’ image of cowboys owes more to Hollywood than to history.”
I found an attraction of an old western town, Rawhide, which people can still go visit. The western frontier town of Rawhide is situated in the Gila River Indian Community. Settlers came west and established the town of Rawhide. The town was small at first but became very large. “Pioneers and settlers soon came west; many of which passed through the Gila River Valley on their way to California”. On the way to California settlers would stop in the town of Rawhide to pick up supplies and munitions, this is why the town grew very rapidly. When the government passed the Homestead Act many 160 acre plots where given away around the town of Rawhide. John Stranieri
“The museum is located on the former site of Sitting Bull’s camp, on the famous Garryowen bend of the Little Bighorn River, a traditional summer hunting campsite for many Plains Indian tribes. As the Seventh Cavalry approached in late June of 1876, this was the site of one of the largest Indian gatherings ever recorded in North America. Several famous locations associated with the Battle of the Little Bighorn are visible from Garryowen. These sites include Reno’s hilltop defense site, Weir Point, Last Stand Hill, Medicine Tail Coulee, the Crow’s Nest, the Wolf Mountains as well as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and Custer National Cemetery.”
This Quote sums up the main points of the museum. It talks about why its location is important and the battles that took place on that sight. I feel like it gives a nice picture to what the west looked like at the time of the battle with the vast amount of indians.
This website is a link off of the main website given in class.
I looked up the “Utah and Western Migration” American Memory Collection. In the article it talked about how people migrated out towards west in search of religious freedom and also in hopes of getting rich finding gold.
“pioneers heading west during the mid-1800’s. Included are the experiences of Mormons heading west in search of religious freedom and those who headed west as part of the California gold rush.”
Kyle Protasowicki
I researched an article on the Wyoming Newspaper Project. The article was dated June 6, 1883 and the quote I chose was “Plain talk in regard to “ruined girls” …breaches of promise in Japan…the art of dressing well.” What I learned from this article was that women were required the “look good” and maintain the household. They had many rules for what they had to wear according to what time of day it was. They were very suppressed in this time period.
-Cassandra McGann
My website was about the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. I explored the whole entire website and read a few things I didn’t even know before. I saw some old pictures from the west. the pictures are in black and white and are noticeably old. This website exhibits the Buffalo Bills. The whole entire website gives a background on everything back then. I believe this website is logical and reliable because it gives some good information that I found on other websites. I learned that the Buffalo Bills experiences life as they wanted. The museum is open to the public and anyone can look into it. It stands out to everyone and is eye catching. This website is education and fun to explore. By explore this website fully i can get a good background understanding on the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.
My online article was about Goyathlay, a Native American warrior who protects his people from the Mexicans. Goyathlay finds his killer who killed his family. He’s been doing this for almost twenty years.
“He was raised as a warrior prince from birth, but did not start his warrior training till he was seven years old. He would train as a warrior and live in peace with the Mexicans and the white settlers, for the next twenty years. This would change in the mid 1850′s when Goyathlay’s family was attacked by Mexican forces, while he went to town with other warriors from the tribe.”
~Nam Cho
I went through and searched a number of keywords but “settlement” and “village” turned up results that i found interesting. Most of the images shown depict Native Ameican settlements and/or villages to be quite successful and some structures are quite intricate, sometimes reaching multiple levels and other villages are suspended in case of a high tide as shown in the image of “King Island Village from the Sea.” It depicts the Native American world in a much more straight forward way lacking much in bias and sticking to observations rather than opinions. It shows the Native Americans in a much better light than the regular notion of the people as thought by settlers from the East.
Today I researched about the Daniel Freeman’s Homestead application.
“Physical conditions on the frontier presented even greater challenges. Wind, blizzards, and plagues of insects threatened crops. Open plains meant few trees for building, forcing many to build homes out of sod. Limited fuel and water supplies could turn simple cooking and heating chores into difficult trials.”
I found this very interesting because I always thought that this was supposed to help people be able to own land, but instead a lot of people had trouble. Many people didn’t stay very long because it stared to get to expensive and to much work. For farmers these conditions were not good for growing their crops. It did not get better until Daniel Freeman and others made claims and started to help get the areas have schools, churches, and such. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 repealed the Homestead Act in the 48 contiguous states.
Chelsea Courtney
A topic i have chose to research is, the Gilded Age. This time period of American West history is the point of growth. A big impact in this time were the railroads. “The problem of railroad regulation in the Gilded Age involved two broad, very different issues: how should the railroads be regulated, and which sovereign? state or federal? is the optimal regulator.” (The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 97: 1017) The point of this article is to concluded that the railroads of this time have not supported federal regulations.
1) I investigated “Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument” website, and analyzed it’s reliability as an accurate depiction of the place and time.
2) I think the site’s historical section can be summarized by a quote on the main page:
“This area memorializes the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry and the Sioux and Cheyenne in one of the Indian’s last armed efforts to preserve their way of life.”
Unlike “the picture” we discussed at the beginning of class, this site has an almost equal distribution of U.S. and Native American history. In the ‘People’ section, there are short biographies for Custer and Sitting Bull, and the rest of the site displays a similar balance.
3) I learned that the Native American tribes did have a few momentary victories, like at the Battle of Little Big Horn, where they surrounded and killed 40 to 50 soldiers separated from the rest of their Cavalry.
-Andrew Silberstein
I used the Chronicling America website and searched for newspaper articles written in the west between 1865 and 1900. The newspaper I chose was called The San Fransisco Call which is based in San Fransisco, California. The article I chose to write about was dated April 29, 1895, and is entitled, “News of the Coast, Mysterious Drowning of Dr. Burnett of Los Angeles”. He was found floating down the stream that flows down Coldwater Canyon, some miles from Los Angeles, at 11 o’clock in the morning. “The manner of the drowning is a mystery,” states the news article. I learned that Dr. Burnett was was one of the most important and well known doctors in the city of Los Angeles, and “the most prominent doctor of the city railway and a man of means.”
Lauren Smith
I went to a Wikipedia article about the west and found that the transcontinental railroad was a prominent, economic event. It was interesting to read that Chinese immigrants built the bulk of the railroad and, despite tensions over immigration, were appreciated for their work ethic. “The Chinese were as steady, hard-working a set of men as could be found. With the exception of a few whites at the west end of Tunnel No. 6, the laboring force was entirely composed of Chinamen with white foremen.”
The link I was given was titled “Texas Ranch House.” On the website included a variety of games that I played which helped enhance my understanding of the ranch-life in Texas. It showed how the cowboys lead their cattle as well as how to stock a chuckwagon. There were also tests that tested your knowledge on cowboy slang. Through this link, I learned that cowboys and their families had various techniques and duties to perform on ranches.
Kassandra Garcia
My task was to watch the first three minutes of John Ford’s 1939 Western film “Stagecoach”. The three minutes that I watched really depicted what the West looked like in that time period (1865-1900). The opening credits start with a wide view of open spaces in the west, with two men on horseback (with guns) galloping away. The next scene shows an old western town, with horses and horse drawn carriages in the streets. When people think of the west, usually these are the depictions they are thinking about. Personally, when I think of the Wild West I only think about wide open fields and horse drawn carriages. So it was nice to see an Old Western town because that is not one of the first things that come to my mind when I think of the West.
• Why is this source historically significant or important? “Texas Border Photographs collection was created by Robert Runyon, a longtime resident of South Texas. His photographs documented the history and development of South Texas and the border†(Ameritech Competition Awardee Institution, (1997), The South Texas Border 1900-1920, The library of congress.
• What does this source “add to the picture†we created at the beginning of class? Back in the 19c the soldiers were living in tents, and hunts on an open field. That field would be considered their base for the night or the rest of the week.
• What does it reveal about images, stereotypes, or depictions of the west? A few picture showed how devious some southerners were. Runyon captured photos of bandits raiding U.S border in 1915, during the Mexican Revolution.
• How does it expand your understanding of the real, as opposed to the mythical, American west? When I think about the U.S military I think about them helping others in need. But according to this website at Library of congress. The U.S officials stood around the Texas border and watched the dictator of Mexico Porfirio Diaz kill off the rebels.
What I did
Looking through the Library of congress, I found a few photo demonstrating how the military looked like back in the 19c in Mexico. Accordingly during the 1910-1920 the Mexican Revolution took place because of the dictatorship. Runyon was able to capture over a hundred picture over the course of the Revolution.
What I Learned
Learned that the Mexican Revolution happen because of dictatorship.
Sang Truong
I looked at the different photographs in the Denver Public library. There were several images about the American west in the period 1865-1900.
The picture i chose is about the railroad station in the Las Vegas, New Mexico. the picture depicts a large puff of smoke coming out from the engine of a train at the depot in Las Vegas, New Mexico. A second train stands on another track. A man stands next to the depot in the right background. I learned that the railroad reached Las Vegas in 1879 and transformed the character of the town which brought the likes of Doc Holliday, Jesse James and Hoodoo Brown to the area.
This is Prof Hangen’s second sample comment made for the 9:30 class.
I researched the Wyoming Newspaper Project, more specifically, I researched the Wyoming Industrial journal no. 11 April 01, 1900. “A monthly publication devoted to irrigation, live stock, agriculture, mines, and mining, railroads, forestry, finances and natural resources of Wyoming.” From looking at this source and the picture provided I can see that in Cheyenne, Wyoming is still a snowy landscape even in early April. The range is covered in snow and the landscape surrounding seems to be free of any human civilization. The picture I believe was taken to lure people to the beauty of Wyoming in hopes someone will settle there, harvest the resources, an help the industrial industry progress. Even the exact location is provided in the picture. “The snowy place, sixty miles west of Laramie.”
Devin LaPlaca
My task was to find a photograph in the Denver Public Library photographs collection (Library of Congress). One that stuck out to me was a photo by L.C. McClure. It is a photograph of when gold was first discovered in Colorado near Idaho Springs. The man looks amazed and ecstatic that he found a piece of gold in his process of panning for gold. He looks completely and utterly disheveled and dirty. He must have been looking though the dirt ground all day. It appears as an accurate depiction of the time because it shows the struggle of the poor people trying to make a living for their family. It expands my understand of the “real” American West because you can see the genuine emotion in his face after finding a piece of gold after a long day of work.
Meghan Deighan
My task was to analyze Daniel Freeman’s process of acquiring land under the Homestead Act (1862). That, according to Henretta, ” Powerful interests worked hard to overcome the popular notion that the plains were the Great American Desert” goes right along with the quote within Freeman’s proof of improvements. Both elements suggest the overwhelming desire of the United States to develop the west. The Homestead Act represented a tremendously high reward compared to the risk of the federal government. Just giving away this unoccupied* land held no cost to the government; while the strings requiring development were conducive to high reward. It was essentially a free was to provide the economic boom evident throughout the Gilded Age. I learned from this that while western expansion does in the modern day carry with it some sort of mythical element (Manifest Destiny); the reasoning was most fundamentally economic. Within the time frame it would appear that the Homestead Act was developed to benefit the common man/yeoman farmer; yet on further review the true beneficiaries were those who could benefit from the economic growth.
Michael Barton
I had the South Texas Border Photographs from 1900-1920. This article was specifically about the Robert Runyon collection, consisting of over 8,000 items, including photographs, glass negatives, lantern slides, and postcards from the South Texas Border region in the early 1900’s. Runyon’s work was said to be able to “document the history and development of South Texas and the border, including the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and along the border prior to and during World War I, and the growth and development of the Rio Grande Valley.” Robert Runyon’s work was donated to the Center for American History in 1986.
My task was to explore the “Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture” website and read through some of the articles. I focused mainly on the Women’s Suffrage article, which explained how women specifically in Oklahoma were trying to gain the rights that men had. The women wanted the right to vote, but were only granted the right to vote in schools. This is historically significant due to the fact that because these women stood up for what they believed in, not just in Oklahoma but around the country, we are now able to vote and are privileged with the rights that men have today. I think that the expansion of the west brought out new opportunities for a better future for women. We began standing up for what we believed in and eventually, because of women like the ones in the Oklahoma Women’s Suffrage Association, we now exercise the rights they fought for freely. One quote that clearly depicts the impact this Association had on other states is in paragraph 2, “From 1890-1920, the NAWSA constituted over one thousand branches in thirty-eight states with membership of more than two million women and men”. The affect that these women had on our country in such a short span of time is amazing and they really did change the way our world is today.
The link i was assigned was “No Renters Here,” this link explores the story of the Oblinger families’ move to a sod house in Nebraska from Indiana.
Every lick we strike is for ourselves. I tell you this is quite a consolation to us who have been renters so long. There are no renters here.
–Mattie to her family, June 16, 1873
I expect you think we live miserable because we are in a sod house, but I tell you in solid earnest I never enjoyed my self better.
–Mattie to her family, June 16, 1873
I learned many things from these articles. I had the perceived notion that these farmers were somewhat miserable. Toiling in their fields everyday, with full days manual labor, however these letters state otherwise. Mattie describes being totally happy in her new farm, and couldn’t as for more. Another aspect of this move to the “west” was the claiming of land process. A requirement to claim land was a 5 year residency, however Matties husband Uriah was a war veteran and his years serving counted towards his 5 year residency. Overall I learned that these people that moved to the West were grateful to own their own land, and no longer be in debt to any one else.
Megan Medeiros
Today in class I was told to look through the “Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture” and decide whether or not the information provided supported the typical image one has of western culture, or whether it takes a different point of view. After looking through several sites I realized that a lot of the information present went far beyond the typical image of the west. In other words, the page I focused on discussed the Free Homes Act. Within this section of the encyclopedia one can see a hint of the typical image of the west through the mention of “[the] drought, a depressed economy, and poverty” that kept a lot of citizens from being able to pay for the land they lived on. However, it then goes on to describe the Free Homes Act which “relieved settlers on Indian land of all charges except for filing fees and allowed them the privilege of commutation under existing laws”. To me, the fact that there were laws and acts in place reveals that the west at this time was not just a dried out place with cactuses, tumble weeds and cowboys, but a fully functioning society with some form of government.
I first imagined about the West, tumbleweed, cowboys, desert, and small gun fights with men. Until I researched a bit about the American West in the period 1900’s, I viewed a lot of photographs in the Edward Curtis collection. The West during the early 1900’s showed a lot of Native Americans living in that part of the United States. There were many tribes that lived in camps and villages. In most photographs, the view of the “cowboy, tumbleweed” and such weren’t portrayed in the photos. Most photos, in the desert there were some trees but looked really dry. There weren’t wood houses that some movies portrayed, instead there were tents that appeared to be hand made. There were also a lot of hand-made items inside the homes of the Native Americans that struck out to me. Also one image that really interested me was the Navaho women in the collection. For some reason the image was a bit dark, and it seemed as if there were some breeze in that was caught my the photographer. Three women were on horses, covered in blankets. It just brought my attention a lot more than the other images.
My task in involved reading the works of Ned Blawkhawk. In his Book ” Violence over the Land ” This resource looks into the history between the US expansion of the west and when the first settlers from Spain arrived. The book talks specifically about the indigenous Indians know as the Great Basin Indians. This Group of native Americans have gone almost un-heard of and the violent acts committed against them have gone almost completely without notice. These acts of violence attribute to much how the Indians reacted to the U.S. settlers when we again invaded and forcibly took the land from the native Americans. “This work suggest that American history is considered a place of comfort not of pain; a realm of achievement rather than one of indigenous trauma” This quote from the book perfectly sums up how unnoticed this era of history has become and it certainly has changed how I see the Western Expansion and what has led the west to become what it is today.
Cody Steck
My assignment was to watch a clip from John Ford’s 1939 film, Stagecoach. This film reflects and reinforces the views that we hold today when we think of the wild west. It depicts saloons, horse-drawn carriages, weapons, and the interaction between the cowboys and Indians that rode in on horseback. Some of the images are true to the time, but a lot of it is exaggerated and built up leading to the stereotypes that we have. From watching this clip I have learned that the universal stereotype about the wild west started very early. The west was much more complex contrary to what we may believe. There was a lot more to it than just cowboys and Indians.
In this newspaper i tried to look up different articles to see how it was then compared to now and i found some interesting things i would not expect to see in an article. I spent most of my class time trying to look for an article like this. Akron Weekly Pioneer Press wrote about this drug called “Cosmo Buttermilk Toilet Soup” that made your skin smooth and white. I did not understand why someone would want their skin that white. Was this a drug that Blacks could use also? For me this seemed like a segregated kind of prescription drug only for white women.
For today’s assignment, I found a photograph in the Texas Border Photographs Collection. The picture i chose is a copy photo: “At Home Sign.” This picture also reads “Will be home at” and a clock with a needle to point to the time the person will be home. “Agents are requested not to solicit at this home without an appointment,” is what is posted on the sign. What i learned from this photograph is that in the West, agents would show up at a person’s home expecting to see them about something the agent needed or wanted but the person being unaware. Since people did not like agents showing up when they are home or away, this sign was created so people would stop being harassed.
Dave Carlin
I looked at Black Hawk Ledger, which was a collection of pictures drawn by the medicine man of the Sioux tribe. William Edward Oaton was an Indian trader, and he asked Black Hawk to draw pictures from a dream he had in exchange for some money. The ledger was bound in 1881. Black Hawk drew about 80 pictures. They varied greatly, and included pictures of battles with other tribes, many animals, and scenes of daily life in his tribe. the pictures reveal that the Sioux were a colorful tribe. They were very connected to the nature around them, and were familiar with the wildlife. Horses were numerous in the pictures, as well as bison (which were hunted). The Sioux had a lot of different ceremonies, and they were elaborately dressed in the pictures.
It is interesting to note that although the pictures show incidents with other tribes, none of the pictures show any interactions with the settlers. This may be because Black hawk was creating pictures for a respected Indian trader, and wanted to exclude any pictures that may create negative feelings.
This source is fairly reliable. Although it does not show everything about the times, it helps to show the West through the eyes of some of the Native Americans. It reveals that not all of the tribes had hostile relationships with the settlers.
The website portrays all kinds of different tribe ledgers, some with and without descriptions. It is good that it presents its audience with photographs of the ledgers, because it allows us to make inferences ourselves.
Overall, this ledger helped to show me that not all of the Native American tribes were fighting with the settlers. There were many interactions and trading between them.
I found a website that has newspaper articles from 1865 to the late 1900’s. Within this website I ended up looking at newspaper articles from The Cheyenne Leader which came from Cheyenne, Dakota in 1867. When reading the newspaper articles you could tell that these articles were mostly for white citizens, by the way they put the white men on pedestals when talking about them. Within the articles you can tell that newspapers are trying to sell products more than trying to write about the current events. When looking at the articles you can see that on the left and right side of the papers are just for adverting, whether its for alcohol, groceries or contractors to build your next home. These advertisements showed that Cheyenne was trying to become more modernized for the time and was trying to grow a society like there was on the east coast.
My task for this workshop was to explore the Chronicling America website. On this website I searched documents pertaining to the American West in the period 1865 to 1900. During my search I came upon an article regarding expansion in the west that was published by a news paper in Nebraska. This specific newspaper analyzed and criticized the United States territory hungry appetite. The article was appealing to me because it questioned whether or not the United States should expand solely based on the fact that the country has always done in the past.
My source was the Colorado Historical Newspaper Collection. The article I chose was from Friday December 2nd 1898. The Akron Pioneer Press represented eatern Colorado and published stories with news from all over the country. I found many articles in the same newspaper about a sickness going around and medicines trying to cure it. As suspected, medicine during this time period was not extremely advanced. One article is for Castoria, which is a soothing syrup used to cure stomach problems, fevers, and sleep problems. Other medicines discussed were root tea and Shiloh, which should cure colds and coughs. Another article talked about an illness called Croup, which was a fatal cough affecting many children. The extensive information on the subject was the part that surprised me about the west during that time. The writers seemed very educated about the different sicknesses and medicines being used at the time. The 4 page newspaper contained at least 5 articles relating to the health field. Making the people aware of the danger at hand and what they can do to prevent and protect themselves was fascinating and important.
Rachel Shea
In Our Hearts Fell to the Ground, a book of Plains Indians view of how the West was lost to the white man, there is an excerpt of a statement made by by the Kiiowa chief Satanttanta, aka White Bear, to the assembled Commisioners present to ratify a Treaty that apparently been just concluded between them.
The paragraph introductory to his speech suggests that the newspaper reporters present to observe the ceremony as well perhaps as the Commisioners were initially impressed with his physical strength and presence. The newspaper representatives apparently soured, finding him a bit too wordy and puffed up with himself, while the Commissioners were left cold by the time his speech was concluded.
It seems apparent, after reading over his speech, that the newspaper reporters haddock, as did the Commisioners no clue as to the all embracing trust that his tribe had given to the white man’s promise to his people that if they lived in cooperation with the whites that they would be left unmolested, and that his tribe as compared to many others should be given special credit for having done so, and his growing realization as a result of what the white man was doing, rather than what he promised to do, was a portent of a double crossing that might be attempted at his tribe as well, and he was giving fair notice that if thi were the case, his people would die free rather than submit to this crimes.
It is a very moving speech.
During the class period I learned a lot about the American West in the period of 1865-1900. I did research on the Edward Curtis collection (Library of Congress). I learned that “The North American Indian” by Edward S. Curtis is one of the most significant and controversial representations of traditional American culture ever produced. After reading that I was immediately interested in researching the images. I was intrigued with the many images that I found. Looking through them, my understanding of the real, American West definitely widened.
The photograph that I chose was called “The Sioux”. The image is a Native American man who is a member of The Sioux. The setting is in an open field. Trees, mountains, sand, and grassy hills filled the background. The picture to me was very simple. The Sioux man is sitting on a white horse, looking into the distance. He didn’t have any bags, other animals, or members of the tribe with him, which made me believe he wasn’t traveling, but maybe searching for food, or looking for new land. He is wearing two feathers on his head, which makes me believe that he could be an important member of his tribe. The picture in a way made me feel secure about the American West. It’s not your typical “Indians vs. Cowboys” picture that mythical American West makes you believe in. This picture is not violent nor angry. The Sioux tribe member is looking off to the distance. It’s a peaceful picture in my opinion.
I think this source expands my understanding because it shows how the West is not always what you imagine. This picture is real, it gave me an understanding of the everyday lifestyle of the Sioux tribe. The photograph was originally produced in Boston by John Andrew & Son.
I explored the “Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture” today in class. It is a reliable source because it was originally published as a printed version by the Oklahoma Historical Society and then converted to the online encyclopedia version by the Oklahoma State University Library Electronic Publishing Center. It offers a complete history of Oklahoma starting before 1541 to present day Oklahoma. I focused primarily on the ‘Territorial Era’ from 1861 to 1907; when it was established as a state. The most interesting snippet I found about this era in Oklahoma is the extreme struggle over land. The Oklahoma territory during this time period was inhabited by white settlers and indian tribes. These tribes had been pushed around for decades and decades and once they had moved over enough for the white settlers to completely occupy the area, the trouble then came to whether or not the land should be free for these settlers or if they would have to pay the government and/or the Indian tribes. Obviously these settlers did not want to pay anyone for the land they had secured, but the American government and the tribes they had moved thought otherwise. I just think it is amazing how important the land we live on is. I feel that people today take for granted the land they own and are able to inhabit.
Today I used the WSU library academic search complete search engine to do my search and found a few interesting articles on Ebsco Host though most of them were not in the exact time frame I was looking for. Among the articles were “The Pawnee Passion” and “Dancing with the Cowboys”. I finally found one the fit my search description and it was “the 1889 world exhibition in Paris: The French, The Age Machine, and The Wild West” which discussed as an intercultural source linking French and U.S. visions of the frontier.
During class today I researched the “Custer Battlefield Museum” website. On the homepage of the website there was a slideshow of pictures that were a representation of the way people lived in the American West in the period of 1865-1900. There were pictures of clothing that they wore. I noticed that they wore very colorful pieces. There was a picture of a showcase with a full outfit in it and there was a denim vest with different animals printed on it. The shoes in the picture were woven and had all different colors. I believe that the Native Americans put a lot of time and effort into their clothing. Everything was handmade and they used parts of animals to complete their outfits. There was also a picture of a hat that a leader would have worn, which looked very warm. This website changed my view on the time period. I no longer think of cowboys when I think back to the American West; I think of the Native Americans who used all of their resources around them to create a successful living for themselves. I give them a lot of credit for making use of every part of the cattle and ensuring that nothing goes to waste. In some ways I wish that Americans were like that today, but unfortunately we waste too many materials.
I looked at a the poem “A Death-Sonnet For Custer” by Walt Whitman.I looked who Custer was and found out that he was in charge during the battle of Little Big Horn. Walt Whitman was a big fan of Custer and wanted to give him recognition for everything had done throughout his life, so he wrote this poem. It was actually published in the New York Times Tribune on July 10, 1976. There is a line in which i do not agree with “The Calvary companies fighting to the last-in the sternest, coolest, heroism”. They were not heros at all, in fact Custer got himself and them capture then killed. They had to surrender to the Indians. The Indians won this battle and should have the glory.
I have learned that people will put anything in the paper even if it is not correct but you have to do research and really question yourself if you will believe it or not. Just because this one man was a big fan of Custer does that mean he writes the truth about him? I don’t think Walt Whitman’s poem deserves to be in the newspaper.
Today in class I flipped through the book Violence Over the Land and read parts about Indians and others trying to claim and settle the western territory.
A quote from the epilogue describes what the violence led to.
“On the heels of Shoshone massacre came Doty’s vision of ‘peace.’ With one band of Northern Shoshones ‘almost exterminated,’ nearly all others soon confronted both the governor … in negotiations in which ‘treaties of peace and friendship’ channeled the Great Basin’s Northern, Western, Easter and Goshute Shonones onto the currents of state rule.”
This quote showed me peace and order had to be declared because all this land led to chaos and power-thirst. Land brings resources and property which results in status and respect. I’m not entirely surprised b/c I’m sure back then people were not concerned or valued the diversity/ethnicity of others.
I read about the American West from 1865- 1900. In the book, “Roaring Camp: The Social World of California Gold Rush.†A snippet that I would like to share is: “In order to comprehend the battles that raged in the southern mines over access to gold, one must understand something of the methods by which miners extracted the precious metal.†(Pg. 187) Some used picks shovels and buckets. Gold could be located in the land, streams, and rivers
Gold’s weight made it so that it could be relatively easy to separate it from the debris. Once found gold was easy enough to extract. However there was some corruption. Labor debates began, because of the use of free labor. To the north, it echoed what was occurring in other parts of the United States of America concerning African Americans. To the south, the idea of free labor was to try to build up the middleclass. Therefore, a man could become a successful laborer and business man in the future.
Personally, I do not believe that free labor was the way to go. I understand that holding a business in the south, at that time, was very difficult. However, the mentality of free labor was very individualistic. Free labor only created a bigger divide between the poor and the rich. It also condoned and furthered corruption.
During class I researched the book, Quilts and Women of the Mormon Migrations by Mary Bywater Cross. The book talks of the Mormons and their journey to find their Zion, a place to settle and raise their families and establish homes and a church. Aside from this, the book mainly forcused upon the women and the quilts that they made throughout their journey to the west. These quilts were stitched by Anglo women, at the time these quilts were stitched, women couldn’t read or write, so they told their stories through these quilts. As the Mormons moved westward the textiles of the quilts would differ according to its place, time and origin. These quilts defined the period between the 1800s and the early 1900s. The way the quilts were designed shows the progression of the people. The colors and dyes evolved, the weaves of the quilt went from handloomed to industrial machine produced, the designs went from traditional to modern attractive designs, and the quality of fabric changed as well, going from cotton to wool to silk.
Today in class I took a look at sample student essays that had to do with the Western “Mythbusters”. The essay “Mythbuster: Lewis and Clark” was reliable because the sources used to exemplify the writer’s argument. Often times people studying history misuse or get confused by certain terms. In this case the term “discovered” is a perfect example. The author wrote about the myth that people generally believe which is Lewis and Clark discovering the West. This text uses the accurate perception of discovery; Lewis and Clark did not technically discover the West, it was already inhabited. Though the West wasn’t civilized by the Natives, they were still the first to be there.
This is a link to an Image of all the skulls of slaughtered buffalos.
The passage I was able to read was from a book called “First Peoples”, which is a documentary survey of American Indian history. The passage was about Americans inducing a Indian tribe in Dakota
to accept reservation lands. But, the Indians were not willing to compromise, which caused the Americans to launch a series of campaigns to punish Indian raids and “bring in” tribes who refused to accept confinement. One way the Americans induced this campaign was by literally exterminating the buffalo’s. “At the same time the buffalo herds-the staple diet of the Plains Indians and the basis of their culture were systematically slaughtered between 1867 and 1883”. This strategy from the Americans left the indians with the choice of starvation or the reservation.
This passage is extremely interesting, it showed how far Americans would go to achieve their dominance over the indian tribes in the 1800’s.
Today I used the Digital Archives of the Sioux City to discover articles pertaining to the treatment of Native Americans. From my other class, I have learned of the deep prejudices and social inequalities of Native Americans vs. white settlers, but I was really surprised to see it worked into the publication of newspapers. I had initially searched for reports on Indian Massacres, thinking that I would get responses of Native Americans being murdered, instead I found that just the opposite was greatly publicized. In the August 3rd, print of the Alton Democrat, I read about a ceremony memorializing the deaths of white settlers at the hand of the Sioux, “Yesterday was a memorable day for Spirit Lake…where so many remember the vividness that can never be effaced… when a band of roving renegade Sioux ravaged the new settlement…ending their depredations by massacring 36 of the settlers in and around the lakes.” This one story makes headlines and portrays the Sioux negatively, but it fails to mentions the prejudice, violence, and brutality that those same Native Americans suffered on a daily basis.
Jessica Rennie
Today, I explored the Texas Border Photograph Collection. Many of the photos were taken by Robert Runyon (1881-1968.) The collection contained 8,241 items. I think the source was reliable because of its vast collection of photos which provides us visual evidence of the West during the late 1800’s, which is historically significant. The source adds the author, year and location of the photograph, along with how the photo was captured and a title. I chose to study a picture of a train accident, which showed that the railroads were still in developement because there were many pictures similar to it. This photo supports our images of the West in the way that railroads were just beginning to become more common during this time, and we learned in class how the railroads helped with the expansion of the West.
-Taylor Stokowski
I chose the book Roaming Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush written by Susan Lee Johnson. From reading the Epilogue I was able to deduce that Johnson had reliable, accurate knowledge on the California gold rush considering she is a History Professor at the University of Colorado. This book was actually her dissertation and was then funded by the Mrs. Giles Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Huntington Library, as well as Yale University. Johnson was also granted funding for research by the Women’s Studies Program and Department of History from the University of Michigan. All this, I believe, makes Johnson a credible source for the basic picture she painted of the gold rush in her book. Even if some characters are fiction, they accurately represent the lifestyle and attitudes that would have been in real people from that time. This book expands the understanding of the real West, as opposed to common myths, by bringing to light and exploring the many facets of the gold rush population. Contrary to popular belief of the gold rush consisting of many white men, it was actually one of the most multiracial events in American history. The gold rush attracted European immigrants, Chinese immigrants, Chileans, Mexicans, many other Latin Americans, African Americans, and Indians from all parts of the country. The diversity of the gold rush was not limited to race either; it was also a diverse event as far as gender is concerned as well. A particular quote from the Epilogue, “It is the task of this book both to interrogate and to dismantle the stories white Americans have told themselves about the California Gold Rush, and to offer instead a pastiche of tales that will help us think as complexly and critically about the conquest of history as we have begun to think about the history of conquest.†This quote sums up Johnsons approach to writing her book and that the main goal is to open people’s eyes to what the California Gold Rush was really like.
My task as to read/skim through the book “Our Hearts Tell To The Ground” which talked about the Indians and how the White settlers invaded their land and tried to change their original ways of living and customs into modern accounts. Within the article it talked about all the famous succes that occured throughout the 19 century such as the Lewis and Clark expedition, fur trade, manifest destiny and so forth but what they did not put into account was the dramatic effect all of this succes was having on the Native Americans and the changed that wee effecting them. Since the White American’s were coming and destroying/taking over their lands the Native American numbers were dwindling due to war and killing, disease, lack of food, and their shelter being stripped from them. The White’s were able to take over these Native American lands due to the Manifest Destiny which “gave the Americans the right to occupy all lands westward to the Pacific, were Indians become taken over”. Through the Indian lands, the White’s created roads and built on the lands, which took away from Indian cattle. The American’s also brought to the Native American lands diseases such as “cholera, measles, scarlett fever” which also killed off the Indian population. In my eyes the Indians were very benefical seeing they traded with emigrants for food, supplies, fur and many more essential items. The White American’s should have offered a deal with the Native Americans to help share the land, and let them keep thier culture alive.