History 4110   

Issues Topic: Overland Migration

Earlier scholarship on the overland trails highlighted the deeds of heroism and the suffering that came with the momentous move of people into the West. More recent scholarship emphasizes the daily lives of individuals on the trails. Based on at least one monograph length study of a particular trail or migration route West, describe the people involved in traveling the trail, their motivation, their daily lives on the trail. 2-3 pages

Pacific survey route (North route, the Stevens-McClellan survey)

Coronado’s routes  (consult: Coronado Expedition to Tierra Nueva...)

Texas (cattle) Trail (consult: Teddy Blue Abbott, We Pointed Them North...)

Fremont’s routes (consult: Incidents of Travel and Adventure....)

Cheyenne-Black Hills/Sidney-Black Hills stage routes (consult: Spring, Cheyenne/Black Hills Stageline)

Oregon Trail (consult: Unruh, Plains Across; Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail)

Transcontinental railroad (survey and construction stages) (Consult: Maury Klein, The Union Pacific; Bain, Empire Express)

Pony Express route (consult Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred)

Bozeman Trail (consult:  Susan Badger Doyle, ed., Journeys to the Land of Gold...)

California Trail (consult:  Holiday, The World Rushed In)

Cherokee (Overland) Trail (consult: Whiteley; Townley; and Erb, Brown & Hughes).

California Trail (western end) (consult: Donnor Party journal)

Santa Fe Trail (consult: Levander, Santa Fe Trail)

Mormon Trail  (consult: Unruh, Plains Across; Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail)

Pacific Railway surveys (Gunnison's route) (consult: Mumey, John Gunnison...)

Bridger Trail (consult: Jim Lowe, The Bridger Trail)

Chisholm Trail (consult Hubert Collins, Donald Worcester books on the trail)