Three Frontiers
Family, Land, and Society in the American West, 1850–1900

This book studies how, in the Far West, Americans moved from communal values to individualistic and exploitative ones.

Dean L. May (Author)

9780521585750, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 April 1997

336 pages, 280 b/w illus. 4 maps 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.45 kg

"Three Frontiers is a masterful social history of community in the American West....richly detailed chapters..." David A. Johnson, Oregon Historical Society

This book explores the values and aspirations of early settlers in the American Far West. It compares those 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 their individualistic, commercial, and acquisitive values. 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 the present tendency to pursue individual pleasure and material well-being at the expense of communal and broader societal well-being? These two questions are central to this comparative study of the three groups who pioneered the Western frontier.

Preface
1. A long, tedious journey
2. His own customs are the best
3. These savage desert regions
4. The heirs of my body
5. The soil to our posterity
6. The place where we lived
7. Our paths diverged
Coda
Note on sources
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]