In his essay, “Myth and the Production of History,” Richard Slotkin writes “Myth is the primary language of historical memory: a body of traditional stories that have, over time, been used to summarize the course of our collective history and to assign ideological meanings to that history.”1 For Americans, the myth of the frontier and the West captures the American ideals of independence, self-reliance, and the expansion and conquering of the unknown. H.W. Brands, of the University of Texas at Austin, summed up why this myth was created stating “The United States was a country that essentially had no past. So, it had to create a future. And the future for Americans meant westward expansion.”2 The popularized and romanticized idea of the West and America’s expansion across the frontier began with historian Frederick Jackson Turner who was considered the founder of western history. His 1893 essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” laid the foundation for the idea of the West as a frontier serving as a “meeting point between civilization and savagery.”
While the myth helped to explain both the American past and identity, it wasn’t until the 1850s with the ability to cheaply print that the mythos of the West took hold with the dissemination of “dime novels.” Because of its inexpensive and accessible format, the “dime novel” became an extremely popular mode of entertainment for the public. Stories about the heroes of the American West, known as “blood and thunders," cemented the Western tropes of cowboys versus Indians, black-hatted outlaws and white-hatted lawmen personifying the concept of good and evil or black and white, as well as frontiersmen bringing civilization and democracy to a savage unknown. Blood and thunder novels started the western genre long before the Hollywood movie genre came into existence in the early 20th century catapulting romanticized ideals about the West onto the popular stage.
Turner’s view of the West helped to shape the mythos that still surrounds the West today. This view, however, is not a true representation of the West and its importance to the history of America. Anglo settlers and frontiersman did not simply enter an unsettled land; rather, they entered a West that was a cultural crossroads where various groups comingled to create communities, develop rich cultural tapestries, as well as shape and challenge the very principles on which America was founded.
The mythologized Western past presents a one-sided series of historical events in which Anglo men forge westward bringing civilization, democracy, and enterprise with them for the greater good of the American character. In reality, this history was and remains multicultural and the Indigenous, Hispanic, African American, and Asian voices erased from the neat and tidy historical narrative perpetuated through the myths and classic representations of the West need to be reinstated through an examination and sharing of resources that encapsulate these historically excluded voices and experiences.
For almost 200 years, the myth of the West and westward expansion was used to justify tragedies like the expulsion and murder of Indigenous peoples, the taking and exploitation of land and resources for economic gains, as well the exclusion of minority groups, such as Asians, who were perceived as infringing on the rights and resources deemed exclusive to Anglo settlers. To counter this myth and explore the West as it exists today, this project’s foundational purpose is to use the stories and experiences of those negatively affected by the western mythos – communities that have been historically excluded and oppressed – to push against the dominant, and often misconstrued, historical narrative.
This resource is meant to be used an an entry point into larger topics related to the history of the West including its mythologies and its realities for those who lived and still live it.
1 Richard Slotkin, “Myth and the Production of History,” in Ideology and Classic American Literature, ed. Bercovitch, Jehlen, et al, 1987, p.70.
2 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-the-idealized-cowboy-helped-build-an-imagined-america-1.5762273