History 4210
The American West
As defined by the
Census Bureau, the western United States includes 13 states:
Alaska,
Arizona,
California,
Colorado,
Hawaii,
Idaho,
Montana,
New Mexico,
Nevada,
Oregon,
Utah,
Washington,
and Wyoming.
Other scholars define the West as the 22 states west of the Mississippi.
Definitions of the American West
| "The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development."--The Significance of the Frontier in American History, 1893 |
| "The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman. The rude, fierce settler who drives the savage from the land lays all civilized mankind under a debt to him. ...[I]t is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races."--The Winning of the West, 1889-1896. |
| "The West is a semi-desert with a desert heart."--The Great Plains, 1931 |
| "...The West, which stretches from around the ninety-eight meridian to the Pacific, and from the forty-ninth parallel to the Mexican border, is actually half a dozen subregions as different from one another as the Olympic rain forest if from Utah's slickrock country, or Seattle from Santa Fe," Where the Bluebeard Sings to the Lemonade Springs . |
| "The West...begins with the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. So defined, the West would become, along with the North and the South, one of the three great geographical regions of the...United States."-- New West, True West |
| "The American West is that contiguous section of the continent west of the Missouri River acquired by the United States beginning with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803; continuing through the acquisition of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the Mexican Cession in the 1840s; and ending with the 1854 Gadsen Purchase of the lands between the Gila River and the present Mexican boundary"-- It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own. |
Patricia Nelson Limerick, one of the leading "new Western" historians, admits that the West is not "a unit of homogeneity and internal consistency," but that much of the territory shares common characteristics. We will use her list of characteristics which defines the West as our units of study:
- The West contains the bulk of the land still under federal control--and is a case study in how the U.S. conducts conquest.
- The West is characterized by long involvement with the commercial, intentional mythologizing of the region as a place of escape and adventure. The population of the country is shifting to this region.
- In the West are the majority of American Indian reservations and Indian people.
- The West is part of the Pacific Rim and shares a border with Mexico--much of the West was once under the sovereignty of Mexico.
- The West has a particularly dramatic and long-term involvement with boom/bust economies of extractive industries.
- The West is arid and semi-arid--which has inspired many campaigns to "normalize" this landscape.
- The West is the nation's dumping ground--for people (Japanese Relocation Camps), for waste (Nuclear Test Sites).