Class And Race In The Frontier Army

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Class and Race in the Frontier Army

Author : Kevin Adams
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806185139
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Class and Race in the Frontier Army by : Kevin Adams

Download or read book Class and Race in the Frontier Army written by Kevin Adams and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-11-19 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have long assumed that ethnic and racial divisions in post–Civil War America were reflected in the U.S. Army, of whose enlistees 40 percent were foreign-born. Now Kevin Adams shows that the frontier army was characterized by a “Victorian class divide” that overshadowed ethnic prejudices. Class and Race in the Frontier Army marks the first application of recent research on class, race, and ethnicity to the social and cultural history of military life on the western frontier. Adams draws on a wealth of military records and soldiers’ diaries and letters to reconstruct everyday army life—from work and leisure to consumption, intellectual pursuits, and political activity—and shows that an inflexible class barrier stood between officers and enlisted men. As Adams relates, officers lived in relative opulence while enlistees suffered poverty, neglect, and abuse. Although racism was ingrained in official policy and informal behavior, no similar prejudice colored the experience of soldiers who were immigrants. Officers and enlisted men paid much less attention to ethnic differences than to social class—officers flaunting and protecting their status, enlisted men seething with class resentment. Treating the army as a laboratory to better understand American society in the Gilded Age, Adams suggests that military attitudes mirrored civilian life in that era—with enlisted men, especially, illustrating the emerging class-consciousness among the working poor. Class and Race in the Frontier Army offers fresh insight into the interplay of class, race, and ethnicity in late-nineteenth-century America.

Class and Race in the Frontier Army

Author : Kevin Adams
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Class and Race in the Frontier Army by : Kevin Adams

Download or read book Class and Race in the Frontier Army written by Kevin Adams and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have long assumed that ethnic and racial divisions in post-Civil War America were reflected in the U.S. Army, of whose enlistees 40 percent were foreign-born. Now Kevin Adams shows that the frontier army was characterized by a "Victorian class divide" that overshadowed ethnic prejudices. Class and Race in the Frontier Army marks the first application of recent research on class, race, and ethnicity to the social and cultural history of military life on the western frontier. Adams draws on a wealth of military records and soldiers' diaries and letters to reconstruct everyday army life--from work and leisure to consumption, intellectual pursuits, and political activity--and shows that an inflexible class barrier stood between officers and enlisted men. As Adams relates, officers lived in relative opulence while enlistees suffered poverty, neglect, and abuse. Although racism was ingrained in official policy and informal behavior, no similar prejudice colored the experience of soldiers who were immigrants. Officers and enlisted men paid much less attention to ethnic differences than to social class--officers flaunting and protecting their status, enlisted men seething with class resentment. Treating the army as a laboratory to better understand American society in the Gilded Age, Adams suggests that military attitudes mirrored civilian life in that era--with enlisted men, especially, illustrating the emerging class-consciousness among the working poor. Class and Race in the Frontier Army offers fresh insight into the interplay of class, race, and ethnicity in late-nineteenth-century America.

Duty beyond the Battlefield

Author : Le'Trice D. Donaldson
Publisher : Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN 13 : 0809337592
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Duty beyond the Battlefield by : Le'Trice D. Donaldson

Download or read book Duty beyond the Battlefield written by Le'Trice D. Donaldson and published by Southern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-31 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a bold departure from previous scholarship, Le’Trice D. Donaldson locates the often overlooked era between the Civil War and the end of World War I as the beginning of black soldiers’ involvement in the long struggle for civil rights. Donaldson traces the evolution of these soldiers as they used their military service to challenge white notions of an African American second-class citizenry and forged a new identity as freedom fighters willing to demand the rights of full citizenship and manhood. Through extensive research, Donaldson not only illuminates this evolution but also interrogates the association between masculinity and citizenship and the ways in which performing manhood through military service influenced how these men struggled for racial uplift. Following the Buffalo soldier units and two regular army infantry units from the frontier and the Mexican border to Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines, Donaldson investigates how these locations and the wars therein provide windows into how the soldiers’ struggles influenced black life and status within the United States. Continuing to probe the idea of what it meant to be a military race man—a man concerned with the uplift of the black race who followed the philosophy of progress—Donaldson contrasts the histories of officers Henry Flipper and Charles Young, two soldiers who saw their roles and responsibilities as black military officers very differently. Duty beyond the Battlefield demonstrates that from the 1870s to 1920s military race men laid the foundation for the “New Negro” movement and the rise of Black Nationalism that influenced the future leaders of the twentieth century Civil Rights movement.

Race and Radicalism in the Union Army

Author : Mark A. Lause
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252091701
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Race and Radicalism in the Union Army by : Mark A. Lause

Download or read book Race and Radicalism in the Union Army written by Mark A. Lause and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this compelling portrait of interracial activism, Mark A. Lause documents the efforts of radical followers of John Brown to construct a triracial portion of the Federal Army of the Frontier. Mobilized and inspired by the idea of a Union that would benefit all, black, Indian, and white soldiers fought side by side, achieving remarkable successes in the field. Against a backdrop of idealism, racism, greed, and the agonies and deprivations of combat, Lause examines links between radicalism and reform, on the one hand, and racialized interactions among blacks, Indians, and whites, on the other. Lause examines how this multiracial vision of American society developed on the Western frontier. Focusing on the men and women who supported Brown in territorial Kansas, Lause examines the impact of abolitionist sentiment on relations with Indians and the crucial role of nonwhites in the conflict. Through this experience, Indians, blacks, and whites began to see their destinies as interdependent, and Lause discusses the radicalizing impact of this triracial Unionism upon the military course of the war in the upper Trans-Mississippi. The aftermath of the Civil War destroyed much of the memory of the war in the West, particularly in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The opportunity for an interracial society was quashed by the government's willingness to redefine the lucrative field of Indian exploitation for military and civilian officials and contractors. Assessing the social interrelations, ramifications, and military impact of nonwhites in the Union forces, Race and Radicalism in the Union Army explores the extent of interracial thought and activity among Americans in this period and greatly expands the historical narrative on the Civil War in the West.

Cultural Construction of Empire

Author : Janne Lahti
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 0803244584
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultural Construction of Empire by : Janne Lahti

Download or read book Cultural Construction of Empire written by Janne Lahti and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1866 through 1886, the U.S. Army occupied southern Arizona and New Mexico in an attempt to claim it for settlement by Americans. Through a postcolonial lens, Janne Lahti examines the army, its officers, their wives, and the enlisted men as agents of an American empire whose mission was to serve as a group of colonizers engaged in ideological as well as military, conquest. Cultural Construction of Empire explores the cultural and social representations of Native Americans, Hispanics, and frontiersmen constructed by the officers, enlisted men, and their dependents. By differentiating themselves from these “less civilized” groups, white military settlers engaged various cultural processes and practices to accrue and exercise power over colonized peoples and places for the sake of creating a more “civilized” environment for other settlers. Considering issues of class, place, and white ethnicity, Lahti shows that the army’s construction of empire took place not on the battlefield alone but also in representations of and social interactions in and among colonial places, peoples, settlements, and events, and in the domestic realm and daily life inside the army villages.

Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay

Author : Don Rickey
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 9780806111131
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (111 download)

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Book Synopsis Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay by : Don Rickey

Download or read book Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay written by Don Rickey and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1963 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The enlisted men in the United States Army during the Indian Wars (1866-91) need no longer be mere shadows behind their historically well-documented commanding officers. As member of the regular army, these men formed an important segment of our usually slighted national military continuum and, through their labors, combats, and endurance, created the framework of law and order within which settlement and development become possible. We should know more about the common soldier in our military past, and here he is. The rank and file regular, then as now, was psychologically as well as physically isolated from most of his fellow Americans. The people were tired of the military and its connotations after four years of civil war. They arrayed their army between themselves and the Indians, paid its soldiers their pittance, and went about the business of mushrooming the nation’s economy. Because few enlisted men were literarily inclined, many barely able to scribble their names, most previous writings about them have been what officers and others had to say. To find out what the average soldier of the post-Civil War frontier thought, Don Rickey, Jr., asked over three hundred living veterans to supply information about their army experiences by answering questionnaires and writing personal accounts. Many of them who had survived to the mid-1950’s contributed much more through additional correspondence and personal interviews. Whether the soldier is speaking for himself or through the author in his role as commentator-historian, this is the first documented account of the mass personality of the rank and file during the Indian Wars, and is only incidentally a history of those campaigns.

U.S. Army on the Mexican Border: A Historical Perspective

Author :
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1437923038
Total Pages : 110 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (379 download)

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Book Synopsis U.S. Army on the Mexican Border: A Historical Perspective by :

Download or read book U.S. Army on the Mexican Border: A Historical Perspective written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This occasional paper is a concise overview of the history of the US Army's involvement along the Mexican border and offers a fundamental understanding of problems associated with such a mission. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the historic themes addressed disapproving public reaction, Mexican governmental instability, and insufficient US military personnel to effectively secure the expansive boundary are still prevalent today.

In the Wake of War

Author : Andrew F. Lang
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807167088
Total Pages : 423 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis In the Wake of War by : Andrew F. Lang

Download or read book In the Wake of War written by Andrew F. Lang and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-12-18 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War era marked the dawn of American wars of military occupation, inaugurating a tradition that persisted through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that continues to the present. In the Wake of War traces how volunteer and even professional soldiers found themselves tasked with the unprecedented project of wartime and peacetime military occupation, initiating a national debate about the changing nature of American military practice that continued into Reconstruction. In the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, citizen-soldiers confronted the complicated challenges of invading, occupying, and subduing hostile peoples and nations. Drawing on firsthand accounts from soldiers in United States occupation forces, Andrew F. Lang shows that many white volunteers equated their martial responsibilities with those of standing armies, which were viewed as corrupting institutions hostile to the republican military ethos. With the advent of emancipation came the enlistment of African American troops into Union armies, facilitating an extraordinary change in how provisional soldiers interpreted military occupation. Black soldiers, many of whom had been formerly enslaved, garrisoned regions defeated by Union armies and embraced occupation as a tool for destabilizing the South’s long-standing racial hierarchy. Ultimately, Lang argues, traditional fears about the army’s role in peacetime society, grounded in suspicions of standing military forces and heated by a growing ambivalence about racial equality, governed the trials of Reconstruction. Focusing on how U.S. soldiers—white and black, volunteer and regular—enacted and critiqued their unprecedented duties behind the lines during the Civil War era, In the Wake of War reveals the dynamic, often problematic conditions of military occupation.

Taking the Field

Author : Amy Kohout
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496215214
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (962 download)

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Book Synopsis Taking the Field by : Amy Kohout

Download or read book Taking the Field written by Amy Kohout and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking the Field draws on the experiences of U.S. soldiers to examine interconnected ideas about nature and empire during the Progressive Era.

Duty beyond the Battlefield

Author : Le'Trice D. Donaldson
Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809337606
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Duty beyond the Battlefield by : Le'Trice D. Donaldson

Download or read book Duty beyond the Battlefield written by Le'Trice D. Donaldson and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2020-02-07 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a bold departure from previous scholarship, Le’Trice D. Donaldson locates the often overlooked era between the Civil War and the end of World War I as the beginning of black soldiers’ involvement in the long struggle for civil rights. Donaldson traces the evolution of these soldiers as they used their military service to challenge white notions of an African American second-class citizenry and forged a new identity as freedom fighters willing to demand the rights of full citizenship and manhood. Through extensive research, Donaldson not only illuminates this evolution but also interrogates the association between masculinity and citizenship and the ways in which performing manhood through military service influenced how these men struggled for racial uplift. Following the Buffalo soldier units and two regular army infantry units from the frontier and the Mexican border to Mexico, Cuba, and the Philippines, Donaldson investigates how these locations and the wars therein provide windows into how the soldiers’ struggles influenced black life and status within the United States. Continuing to probe the idea of what it meant to be a military race man—a man concerned with the uplift of the black race who followed the philosophy of progress—Donaldson contrasts the histories of officers Henry Flipper and Charles Young, two soldiers who saw their roles and responsibilities as black military officers very differently. Duty beyond the Battlefield demonstrates that from the 1870s to 1920s military race men laid the foundation for the “New Negro” movement and the rise of Black Nationalism that influenced the future leaders of the twentieth century Civil Rights movement.

More Work Than Glory

Author : John P. Langellier
Publisher : Helion and Company
ISBN 13 : 1804516031
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis More Work Than Glory by : John P. Langellier

Download or read book More Work Than Glory written by John P. Langellier and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2023-10-12 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior to the 1960s, the term “Buffalo Soldier” was a fairly obscure one. Then, a trickle of titles became a torrent of books, articles, novels, monuments, and expanding numbers of historic sites along with museums all of which have changed the picture. Even an occasional nod from television and movies helped transform these once relatively little-known Black U.S. Army troops into familiar figures, who have taken their place in a mythic past. Indeed, powerful imagemakers from William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his Congress of Rough Riders to Frederic Remington, the dean of frontier artists, helped lionize the Black troops whose exploits brought them to the American West, Cuba, the Philippines, Mexico, Alaska, and Hawaii in the years between 1866 and 1916. Despite a significant shift in emphasis, numerous efforts treating this element of the vital, complex story of the post-Civil War U.S. Army frequently repeated earlier studies rather than added fresh perspectives. Also, the narrative typically ended with the so-called Indian Wars or Spanish American War. Many authors likewise dwelt on military operations rather than numerous other relevant contributions and activities of these men who played a role in the nation’s complex evolution during the half century after the American Civil War. Profusely illustrated with compelling images and detailed maps, along with an array of appendices, this latest addition to the Buffalo Soldier saga represents over five decades of research by military historian John P. Langellier. Further, More Work an Glory: Buffalo Soldiers in the United States Army, 1866–1916 combines the best features of prior scholarship while enhancing the scope with new or underused primary sources. The author views the subject through the broader perspectives of race. He sets the text against the backdrop of the transition of the U.S. Army from a frontier constabulary to an international power. In the process, he highlights the staggering assortment of non-military missions including assignments to national parks and forests; road building; exploration; pioneer military bicycling; duty along the explosive border between the United States and Mexico; employment as agents of law and order, along with a litany of other contributions that enhanced an impressive combat record against formidable Native Americans and others. Langellier frames the narrative within the context of continuity and change from Reconstruction in the 1860s through the early twentieth century. Above all, he focuses on the soldiers themselves to provide a human perspective as well as challenges prevalent misconceptions that often overshadow more fascinating facts.

The Significance of the Frontier in American History

Author : Frederick Jackson Turner
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 014196331X
Total Pages : 92 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis The Significance of the Frontier in American History by : Frederick Jackson Turner

Download or read book The Significance of the Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-08-07 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This hugely influential work marked a turning point in US history and culture, arguing that the nation’s expansion into the Great West was directly linked to its unique spirit: a rugged individualism forged at the juncture between civilization and wilderness, which – for better or worse – lies at the heart of American identity today. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Watching over Yellowstone

Author : Thomas C. Rust
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700629610
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Watching over Yellowstone by : Thomas C. Rust

Download or read book Watching over Yellowstone written by Thomas C. Rust and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2020-06-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When, in 1883, Congress charged the US Army with managing Yellowstone National Park, soldiers encountered a new sort of hostility: work they were untrained for, in a daunting physical and social environment where they weren’t particularly welcome. When they departed in 1918, America had a new sort of serviceman: the National Park Service Ranger. From the creation of Yellowstone National Park to the conclusion of the army’s superintendence, Watching over Yellowstone tells the boots-on-the-ground story of the US troops charged with imposing order on man and nature in America’s first national park. Yellowstone National Park had been created only fourteen years before Captain Moses Harris arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs with his company, Troop M of the First United States Cavalry, in August of 1886. And in those years, the underfunded, poorly supervised park had been visited freely by over-eager tourists, vandals, and poachers. Thomas C. Rust describes the task confronting Congress, military superintendents, and the common soldiers as the ever-increasing number of tourists, commercial interests, and politics stained the unruly park. At a time when the army was already undergoing a great transformation, the common soldiers were now struggling with unusual duties in unfamiliar terrain, often in unaccustomed proximity to the social elite who dominated the tourist class—fertile if uncertain ground for both the failures and the successes that eventually shaped the National Park Service’s ranger corps. What this meant for the average soldier emerges from the materials Rust consults: orders, circulars, inspection reports, court-martial cases, civilian accounts, and evidence from excavated soldier stations in the park. A nuanced social history from a rare ground-level perspective, his book captures an extraordinary moment in the story of America’s military and its national parks.

American Military History

Author : Brad D. Lookingbill
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119335981
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (193 download)

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Book Synopsis American Military History by : Brad D. Lookingbill

Download or read book American Military History written by Brad D. Lookingbill and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-01-14 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of primary documents that explore the many facets of the American military from the colonial period to the present The second edition of American Military History offers an exceptional collection of primary documents relating to history of the military of the United States from 1607 through the present. The writings offer insight into the armed forces in relation to the social, cultural, economic, political, and territorial development of the United States. Several documents comment on strategic initiatives, combat operations, force structure, public policy, and home fronts. The writings also present firsthand testimony of extraordinary men and women in uniform and most of the documents explore the connections between combatants and the societies that produced them. From the beginnings of the war against the natives through the tragedy of the Civil War and up to the current Global War on Terror, American Military History offers a chronological account of the evolution of the United States military. This vital text: Includes writings that explore the diversity of the armed forces Explores leadership in America’s military affairs Traces America's ways of war beginning in 1607 through the present Examines the patterns of design and purpose of the American military over time Reveals the vitality of civil-military relations in the United States Written for academics and students of military history, American Military History is an important text that draws on primary sources to explore the many facets of America's military history.

Ways of War

Author : Matthew S. Muehlbauer
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136756116
Total Pages : 697 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (367 download)

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Book Synopsis Ways of War by : Matthew S. Muehlbauer

Download or read book Ways of War written by Matthew S. Muehlbauer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first interactions between European and native peoples, to the recent peace-keeping efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, military issues have always played an important role in American history. Ways of War comprehensively explains the place of the military within the wider context of the history of the United States, showing its centrality to American culture and politics. The chapters provide a complete survey of the American military's growth and development while answering such questions as: How did the American military structure develop? How does it operate? And how have historical military events helped the country to grow and develop? Features Include: Chronological and comprehensive coverage of North American conflicts since the seventeenth century and international wars undertaken by the United States since 1783 Over 100 maps and images, chapter timelines identifying key dates and events, and text boxes throughout providing biographical information and first person accounts A companion website featuring an extensive testbank of discussion, essay and multiple choice questions for instructors as well as student study resources including an interactive timeline, chapter summaries, annotated further reading, annotated weblinks, additional book content, flashcards and an extensive glossary of key terms. Extensively illustrated and written by experienced instructors, Ways of War is essential reading for all students of American Military History.

Making the White Man's West

Author : Jason E. Pierce
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1607323966
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Making the White Man's West by : Jason E. Pierce

Download or read book Making the White Man's West written by Jason E. Pierce and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2016-01-15 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The West, especially the Intermountain states, ranks among the whitest places in America, but this fact obscures the more complicated history of racial diversity in the region. In Making the White Man’s West, author Jason E. Pierce argues that since the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the American West has been a racially contested space. Using a nuanced theory of historical “whiteness,” he examines why and how Anglo-Americans dominated the region for a 120-year period. In the early nineteenth century, critics like Zebulon Pike and Washington Irving viewed the West as a “dumping ground” for free blacks and Native Americans, a place where they could be segregated from the white communities east of the Mississippi River. But as immigrant populations and industrialization took hold in the East, white Americans began to view the West as a “refuge for real whites.” The West had the most diverse population in the nation with substantial numbers of American Indians, Hispanics, and Asians, but Anglo-Americans could control these mostly disenfranchised peoples and enjoy the privileges of power while celebrating their presence as providing a unique regional character. From this came the belief in a White Man’s West, a place ideally suited for “real” Americans in the face of changing world. The first comprehensive study to examine the construction of white racial identity in the West, Making the White Man’s West shows how these two visions of the West—as a racially diverse holding cell and a white refuge—shaped the history of the region and influenced a variety of contemporary social issues in the West today.

The Republic for Which It Stands

Author : Richard White
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190619074
Total Pages : 964 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Republic for Which It Stands by : Richard White

Download or read book The Republic for Which It Stands written by Richard White and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 964 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multivolume history of the American nation. In the newest volume in the series, The Republic for Which It Stands, acclaimed historian Richard White offers a fresh and integrated interpretation of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age as the seedbed of modern America. At the end of the Civil War the leaders and citizens of the victorious North envisioned the country's future as a free-labor republic, with a homogenous citizenry, both black and white. The South and West were to be reconstructed in the image of the North. Thirty years later Americans occupied an unimagined world. The unity that the Civil War supposedly secured had proved ephemeral. The country was larger, richer, and more extensive, but also more diverse. Life spans were shorter, and physical well-being had diminished, due to disease and hazardous working conditions. Independent producers had become wage earners. The country was Catholic and Jewish as well as Protestant, and increasingly urban and industrial. The "dangerous" classes of the very rich and poor expanded, and deep differences -- ethnic, racial, religious, economic, and political -- divided society. The corruption that gave the Gilded Age its name was pervasive. These challenges also brought vigorous efforts to secure economic, moral, and cultural reforms. Real change -- technological, cultural, and political -- proliferated from below more than emerging from political leadership. Americans, mining their own traditions and borrowing ideas, produced creative possibilities for overcoming the crises that threatened their country. In a work as dramatic and colorful as the era it covers, White narrates the conflicts and paradoxes of these decades of disorienting change and mounting unrest, out of which emerged a modern nation whose characteristics resonate with the present day.