Three Frontiers: Family, Land, and Society in the American West, 1850-1900This book explores the values and aspirations of settlers in the Far West. It compares rural people who settled in the Willamette Valley in the 1840s, the Utah Valley in the 1850s, and the Boise Valley in the 1860s. The Oregon and Utah settlers tried with differing degrees of success to resist the modernizing trends represented by Idaho, but ultimately adopted the individualistic, commercial, and acquisitive values that prevailed in the New West. How did Americans move away from a culture centering on family and kin and from attitudes that valued and protected the land, not for its commercial worth, but as the base of support for future generations? What led to our present tendency to pursue individual pleasure and material well-being at the expense of communal and broader societal well-being? These are questions central to this comparative study of three peoples who pioneered the American frontiers. |
Other editions - View all
Three Frontiers: Family, Land, and Society in the American West, 1850-1900 Dean L. May Limited preview - 1997 |
Three Frontiers: Family, Land, and Society in the American West, 1850-1900 Dean L. May No preview available - 1994 |
Common terms and phrases
acres Ada County Albert Marsh Alpine's American Atkinson average bishop Boise River Boise Valley Book of Remembrance Bristow bushels church Civil commercial crops cultural decade districts early economic England farm towns Frederick Jackson Turner frontier gathered George Hunt Healey History Idaho Idaho State Archives Illinois interaction James John Downing Julia Junius Wright labor land Latter-day Saints limity living manuscript Marion County married Mary median Middleton Midwest miles mining missionaries Missouri Montana Mormon Mountain Nash neighborhood neighbors Nevada North offices Oregon Oregon State Archives organized percent pioneers population priesthood probate production records region religion reported River rural Salt Lake City Salt Lake Valley Sarah Hunt Steeves settled settlement settlers social society South southern Spangler Strong Sublimity and Alpine Sublimity area surnames territory U.S. Census University Press Utah County wealth West wheat Willamette Valley William women York Zion