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58 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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101 Ranch
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-Wild West show started touring in 1907. Popularized many elements of the modern western and Wild West show, inspired by Buffalo Bill’s show. Often touted its authenticity. Gave Tom Mix, later a famous Western movie star, his start.
-One of the last Wild West shows, popularity declined after motion pictures. Shows enduring desire for authenticity in audiences of westerns. |
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American Indian Movement
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-willing to use civil disobedience, street patrol
-Russell Means, 1973- occupied site of Wounded Knee Massacre to protest conservative tribal government. National media attention, FBI surrounded them, public relations disaster for government because people were on Indian side. Federal government eventually hounded them to extinction, many natives now consider it a disaster despite earlier public support. |
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American Railway Union
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-Eugene Debs, founder, 150,000 members mostly in West
-Supported Pullman strike in 1894. Showdown with federal troops let 13 strikers dead. ARU then brought all trains but one to a halt. -High points of western protests against railroads. Shows ambivalence on feelings about railroads. Railroad as a monster versus marvel. |
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Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
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-Signed by Nixon, 1971. Settlement with natives of Alaska that transferred 44 million acres to the natives in exchange for permission to build the Alaskan Pipeline. Largest settlement ever with native, who in this case had never officially given up title to their land. Established native regional corporations to manage the land and cash payments.
-First significant land concession to Native Americans. Shows greater power of natives in Alaska and the thinking that relationships with Alaskan natives could be different than those in the lower 48. |
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Allotment
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-Indian policy passed 1887, tried to end communal ownership of land in favor of individual ownership, pushed by “friends of the Indians.”
-Indians opposed this. Opened tens of thousands of acres to white settlement, corrupt bargain. Wanted to absorbed and acculturative natives. -Cultural pluralism thought ended this, John Collier, ended with the Indian new Deal in 1934. |
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Ned Buntline
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-Author, first dine novel 1869, made William Cody into the fanciful character Buffalo Bill. Went on to write Scouts of the Plains, a melodrama that starred Cody.
-Beginning of the western genre, depictions of fantastic acts, racist, sexist portrayals given over to mass consumption in form of the dime novel. |
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Carlisle School
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-Founded 1879 in PA. Indian boarding school. Children adopted Anglo names, dressed in Anglo clothes, were forced to give up their cultures.
-Peak of forced acculturation, allotment, alienated youth from their reservation parents. |
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César Chávez
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-Mexican-American organizer of United Farm Workers. First strike against grape growers in 1966 was highly effective. Helped raise standards of living for farm works, although progress slipped in 1980s.
-Helped to bolster Mexican-American pride. |
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Chinese Exclusion Act
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-Passed 1882, extended through 1924, excluded all Chinese from immigrating unless they were related to wealth merchants. Came from racist agitation, accusations that Chinese were taking American jobs.
-Rise of “paper sons,” fake sons of wealthy merchants who came to work as laborers. -Repeating pattern of racist sentiments leading to strict immigration laws. Did not stop anti-Chinese attacks and xenophobic populism. |
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Crockett Almanacs
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-Long-running series imitations of Davy Crockett’s autobiography (published 1834) that told of his outrageous tales supposedly in his own words, even after he was dead.
-Popularization of outrageous western feats, western manliness, subversive alternative to Victorian culture. -Character continued to be popularized with the rise of dime novels in the 1840s. |
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William S. Cody
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-Got his start in a dime novel as a character by Ned Buntline in 1869
-Organized “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” toured American and the world for 3 decades starting 1882. Real Indian actors, Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull joined one tour. -Combined real and falsified west- suspended tour for Indian fight then displayed the scalp -Eastern & world consumption of highly distorted and stereotyped western culture |
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John Collier
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-Indian New Deal, 1934. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ended cultural repression, religious freedom on reservations, boarding schools phased out, increased Indian employees, ended allotment, Indian self government.
-Some thought him to be romantic, too attached to traditional Indian values. |
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Congress of Rough Riders
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-Name comes from Buffalo Bill’s show, coined 1898, name adopted by Roosevelt’s Calvary during the Spanish-American war. Life imitating art. The Rough Riders, a large group of cowboy actors, rode as a finale in the show.
-Part of the myth of “manliness” culture that Roosevelt, Remington, Cody helped to perpetuate. Perpetuated heroic and patriotic myths about Roosevelt and the West. |
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Dawes Act
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-Passed 1887
-Senator Henry Dawes- “selfishness is at the bottom of civilization.” Began the policy of allotment for Native Americans. -Indians opposed this. Opened tens of thousands of acres to white settlement, corrupt bargain. Wanted to absorbed and acculturative natives. |
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Dust Bowl
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-Environmental crisis during the great depression. Huge dust storms sucked up by jet stream that deposited dust as far away as the Atlantic ocean. Worst was April 14th, 1935- Black Sunday.
-Caused by human exploitation and removal of the Great Plains grassland, extrapolated by drought. 24 million acres became desert. One of the worst manmade environmental disasters in human history. |
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Exodusters
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-Thousands of former slaves who went to Kansas after Emancipation in the spring of 1879. Most lived in segregated towns. Racism abounded.
-Example of a forced migration (from racism in the South) and new cultural exchange. |
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Exxon Valdez
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-1989 oil spill that occurred when a tanker carrying crude from the Alaskan pipeline after filling up in the port of Valdez in Prince William Sound ran aground. One of the worst environmental disasters ever.
-Demonstrates the price of development on Alaska and the price of civilization on Western environments. |
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“Factories in the Field”
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-1939; Cary McWilliams. condemns agribusiness and examined the lives of migrant farm workers. Also a name for the giant, monoculture farms that employed large numbers of migrant workers and produced the vast majority of the nations food since industrialization.
-Demonstrates a backlash against growing mechanization of farming, along with The Grapes of Wrath. |
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John Ford
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* Famous filmmaker with hits such as Stagecoach (where the civilized members of the group are portrayed as snobs). His works were made from 1917-1966.
* In the final westerns of his career, Ford's vision of frontier history turned increasingly sour (for instance, showing racism of Indian hatred, or depicting the black Buffalo Soldiers in frontier army, and noting all the good things lost in the process of civilization). This shift went along with the demise of the genre in the genera cultural crisis of the 1960s and 70s. * Changing attitudes toward west embodied in individual artistic decisions |
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Ghost Dance
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* Outburst of visionary religious energy in Indian communities of the West that emerged from the vision of the shaman, Wovoka, and included a dance ritual. Wovoka's vision was in 1889.
* Reflected some of the Indian revivals of the 1800s in which Indian prophets had a vision that they delivered to a widespread audience (such as the Shawnee Prophet and Delaware prophet) -- reaction to despair and devastation of a native community * Wovoka foresaw a day where the white man would disappear along with guns, whiskey, and manufactured goods. * Sitting Bull and Big Foot translated Wovoka's pacifist message into something militant and confrontational -- a theme recurring throughout Indian history * Ghost Dance inspired fear in whites, who had been trying to suppress Indian culture and religion -- see Wounded Knee Massacre |
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Grand Coulee Dam
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* A dam on the Columbia River that was three times the size of the Hoover Dam. The project was led by Henry J. Kaiser.
* Construction began in 1933 * One of many large, western New Deal construction projects -- "state capitalism" of the New Deal, in which the federal government invested heavily in western development projects, and was responsible for the west's industrial development |
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“The Great Train Robbery”
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* Made in 1903, this was the first motion picture to tell a complete story, and the first movie western. It was directed by Edwin S. Porter, and based on the holdup in 1901 of the east-bound Union Pacific by an outlaw gang led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
* Marked the birth of the American motion picture industry, which was always focused on western themes, and drew huge audiences. The Western invented the cinema. Lots of motion pictures were churned out after this, as had been the case with the dime novels. * Buffalo Bill Cody staged "The Great Train Hold-up" to compete with it in 1908 |
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Zane Grey
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* A former dentist, Grey was the most successful writer of western pulp fiction. He hit it big with his novel Riders of the Purple Sage in 1912.
* Tons of hollywood films were based off of his novel, and he went on to write 56 westerns – shows the proliferation of the genre * His works glorify the man's west, filled with violence, sex, and intrigue |
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Big Bill Haywood
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* A former western miner, once a member of the Western Federation of Miners, and helped to found Industrial Workers of the World in 1905.
* Believed in organizing all workers in an industry -- regardless of ethnicity, specific trade, or skill level -- into one union (industrial unionism) |
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Hetch Hetchy
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* The name of a valley in Yosemite National Park that became a rallying cry for preservationists like John Muir when the government proposed to dam it so that it could be a water supply for San Francisco
* The proposal was passed under the Wilson administration in 1913; first proposed in 1903 (Roosevelt was too ambivalent to agree) * A turning point for the preservationist/ environmental movement: even if they lost this battle, gained a lot of publicity; also, shows the theme of resource scarcity in the West, and how water could become a political issue. Finally, it was used as a rallying cry, not unlike the Alamo: "Remember Hetch Hetchy" |
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Henry E. Huntington
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* A nephew and heir of the "Big Four" member Collis P Huntington, Henry E Huntington invested his abundant family capital in Los Angeles rolley companies and real estate, and by 1900 he had become southern California's single largest landowner and majordomo of the interurban rail system known as the Pacific Electric. Built dozens of new trolley lines, so as to anticipate the growth of new communities.
* He helped create the conditions for what became the southern California preference for detached single-family homes with private landscaped yards, and in essence, created urban sprawl. |
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Ben Holladay
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* "The Stagecoach King," he used his stagecoaches and wagons to transport goods and mail westward. Known for his lavish lifestyle.
* moved out west 1852; bought pony express 1862; in 1866, American Express Company bought out Holladay, and consolidated into Wells Fargo * After leaving stagecoach business, Holladay invested in Pacific Railroad Stock * Shows transfer from old west to new; stagecoaches to railroad; smaller, one-man operations being consolidated into larger enterprises |
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Homestead Act
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* Passed in 1862 – the government gave men and women over 21 up to 160 acres of surveyed land on the public domain, so long as they cultivated it, erected a house or barn, and resided on the claim for five years
* Proponents argued it would be a "safety valve" that would alleviate the labor surplus in cities. Greeley (editor of New York Weekly Tribune) made this appeal to eastern elites by insisting it was a safety valve on another front: it would lessen the probability of strike. He said it would also create new customers for eastern industry * (in reality, far more people moved country to city than city to country) * Overturned land ordinance, which opened land to settlers w a price -- people who liked homestead complained the land ordinance favored capitalists and speculators over actual settlers * So Eastern v Western conflict * Though it paved the way for the little man to make a home out west, the cost of living often put them back in poverty * Women allowed to be homesteaders, too |
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Indian New Deal
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* A name for the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, spearheaded by John Collier
* It was the most radical shift in Indian policy in American history; put end to the government campaign of repression, gave cultural freedom to Indians (especially in terms of religion); boarding schools phased out, bilingual textbooks were allowed; Indian people had a greater role in the running of the BIA; and perhaps most importantly, it ended the policy of Allotment (remaining unalloted reservation lands were reconsolidated and placed under the control of tribal corporations) * Attempt to overturn unfair acculturation that had been forced on the Indians |
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Dennis Kearney
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* An Irishman of the Workingman's Party of California who despised capitalists such as The Big Four (arguing for popular power over the railroad instead of its being controlled by a select few), and launched a crusade against Chinese railroad workers. He was most politically active in the 1870s and 1880s. The nationwide railroad strike began in the east in 1877 (Kearney giving a speech at a meeting for this strike)
* After Kearney’s speech, three days of anti-Chinese violence broke out * Didn't lead to railroads getting rid of Chinese, but instead, Congress took note of the anti-Chinese sentiment in the West and passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Racism between low wage workers and migrant workers; nativist sentiment. |
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Lakewood, CA
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* One of many "instant cities" that appeared in the 1950s due to the boom from wartime industry.
* Lakewood was carefully planned to be a complete community. The Lakewood Plan was the model for numerous other developments, essentially forcing the general county taxpayer to subsidize these middle-class enclaves (they contracted with LA to provide them with services, such as police, which allowed for very low property taxes) * Racial exclusion planned in such communities, too. |
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Dorothea Lange
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* Famous photographer who abandoned studio photography to go out West on the road and document migrant farmers, minorities, victims of the Dust Bowl, and more. Did much of her work for the Farm Security Administration
* First married to Maynard Dixon, then Paul Taylor * Her most famous image was “Migrant Mother” (1936), which depicted Florence Owens and her daughters * Perspective in her work very important. She often took many shots, moving around the sitter. * Art/photography as political activism (pleading for federal relief); plight of the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, migrant farmers; combination of text and images (especially in 1939 “American Exodus”) * Critics accuse her of being biased, and of manipulating her photos in order to suit her agenda. Candidly, said: “everything is propaganda for what you believe in” |
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Malaeska
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* The first dime novel published by Beadle and Adams in 1860 (by Ann Sophia Stephens), which retold the frontier legend of Pocahontas.
* Importance of frontier legends; rise of the female protagonist in some dime novels; yet not a triumphant story of progress (more?) |
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Manzanar
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* Early 1940s, World War II (approximately 1942 initiated; validated by Supreme Court in 1944)
* A Japanese internment camp in the Owens Valley in California (one of the many of World War II) where Japanese-American citizens were forced to relocate and live in terrible conditions * Greater significance: racism inherent in the legislation (only Japanese, and not other ethnic groups, were forced into these camps). Forced relocation a common theme throughout American history. Manzanar the site of a triple tragedy: previously several Indian tribes and farmers had been pushed off the land. Loss of civil rights of Japanese; shows war hysteria, fear of "the other" and government's misguided attempts to erase otherness |
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Tom Mix
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* A masterful veteran of wild west shows who became a cowboy hero. In his Stetson and cowboy clothes, he surely looked the part.
* By the 1920s he had been in many cheap films and was regularly featured on radio shows and his own series of comic books * Importance of celebrity and icons in sustaining the image of the wild west |
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John Muir
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* Famous wilderness preservationist identified with the Yosemite Valley (and Hetch Hetchy valley -- 1913); founder of the Sierra Club (1892)
* he was an idealist, romantic, and environmental politician. His relationship w/ Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot illustrates the conflict between preservatoinists like Muir and conservationists, or “utilizers,” like the Roosevelt/Pinchot, who wanted to responsibly harness wilderness for the public good ("wise use") |
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Annie Oakley
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* A female member of the cast of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show (1882 onwards)
W* as both the sweetheart of the show, but a crowd-pleaser who could skillfully shoot a rifle; combination of softness and femininity with frontier abilities |
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Owens Valley
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* The valley of the Owens River in eastern California that was made arid by diversion of water to LA beginning in the early 1900s
* An example of reclamation projects meant to benefit rural residents were hijacked by urban interests: LA commandeered the Owens River project that was supposed to benefit local farmers (Reclamation act in 1902) . Farmers fought back w/ dynamite! * LA prevailed; gargantuan Industrial projects like the Los Angeles aqueduct show huge bureaucratic infrastructure of West – this was the biggest project since the railroad and would remain so until the pipeline * The “original sin” of LA * Eventually California legislature passed a law requiring the city of LA to develop a plan to restore the valley to some semblance of its natural condition |
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Ely Parker
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Commissioner of Indian Affairs during the Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant from 1869-1877. He condemned the federal government and its treaty system with Native Americans for giving Indians a false impression of independence, believing instead that Indians should be under full control by the government. Parker himself was an Iroquois Indian, adding sadness and irony to his notion that native tribes should hand over their independence, customs, and history to the government.
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Gifford Pinchot
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Leader of the Forestry Commission who was named the chief forester of the United States in 1898 by President McKinley. He later became a close advisor and friend to President Theodore Roosevelt on environmental policy. He and Roosevelt believed in a conservationist approach to the environment, insisting that national parks and forests should be used for their resources but in a restricted, efficient way that would ensure their future survival. This view was opposed by preservationists like John Muir.
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“Plundered Province”
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A phrase coined by Bernard DeVoto in a 1934 Harper’s magazine article. This phrase characterizes the commercial aspect of the American West before WWII as “plundered” and exploited by eastern interests. These aspects include exploiting and selling crops, timber, gold, minerals, and cattle and even extend back to the exploitation of furs by the Europeans. This imbalance of commercial power was somewhat balanced out during and after WWII with the production of war materials, the rise of technology, and the discovery of oil in Alaska.
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Ranch House
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The classic architectural housing style of the postwar building boom that originated in southern California and started appearing in planning books in the early 1940s. These houses captured the myth of the West with low-slung roofs, flowing rooms, and sliding glass doors that perpetuated the feeling of spaciousness and “elbow room.”
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Frederic Remington
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An eastern aristocrat that decided to go West in 1883 to prove to his domineering mother and his acquaintances that he could get a real man’s job and become a cowboy. Once he went West, he rediscovered is knack for painting and produced such works as “A Daring Feat of Horsemanship” (1911) and “The Last Stand” (1890). His paintings follow Roosevelt and Wister in perpetuating the cult of masculinity, believing that true manliness developed through a man’s struggle against raw nature.
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Route 66
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Famous American highway that was constructed in 1926 and runs from Chicago to Los Angeles. During the Depression and the Dust Bowl, it served as a major route for migrants headed west to the hope and promise of California. It also symbolizes the freedom and adventure of the West in twentieth century, a modern update of the traditional view of the West from earlier generations. It was officially closed in 1985 and replaced by the Interstate Highway system.
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Rural Electrification Administration
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A program implemented by the New Deal administration by the Department of Reclamation during the Presidency of FDR. The program focused on multipurpose river development, building dams across the country to provide hydroelectric power and water for farm irrigation. The program began with the success of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933 and sought to connect tens of thousands of rural households to the nation’s power grid.
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Safety Valve
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A term coined by the American historian Fredrick Jackson Turner and perpetuated in his “frontier thesis,” which he stated in his essay “The significance of the Frontier in American History” in 1893. He believed that the frontier was a place of opportunity and escape that could defuse social discontent from American cities by providing space and “elbow room.” Ironically, the American West has been the most urban part of the country for most of its history.
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Six Companies
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A merchant-dominated group of Chinese clans that governed the Chinese community, providing security and representation in business dealings and living environments. Representatives from the Six Companies often cut deals with city officials that allowed them to bypass zoning and labor laws. The development of the Six Companies demonstrates the prejudice and discrimination of nativist sentiment against the Chinese that began with the building of the Trans-Continental Railroad and culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The rise of the Six Companies began in Chinatown in San Francisco in the early 1880s.
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Paul Taylor
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An activist professor at UC Berkley that married Dorothea Lange in 1935 after her divorce from Maynard Dixon. Taylor took Lange along with him when he did research on site, using her expertise with the camera to document people and the manners they were living in. Together they compiled visual reports of their findings to convince federal officials and the government to provide assistance to those homeless and without work during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.
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Tejanos
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Native inhabitants of Texas that resisted the rise of commercial agriculture, which imbalanced the control of local county governments and instituted laws that enforced segregation in public buildings and elections. Rising tensions led to a violent revolt in 1915 in which Tejano raiders attacked farms, bridges, and railroads and killed several dozen Anglos. The new Anglos inhabitants of the region, embodied by the Texas Rangers, counterattacked and killed almost five thousand Tejanos. This violence soon led to the rise of Pancho Villa who terrorized the Southwest with his Mexican vaquero army.
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Termination
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A new form of Indian policy that was passed by Congress in 1953 and became the primary goal for dealing with Native Americans during the Eisenhower administration. It created the Indian Claims Commission to investigate tribal claims and award monetary compensation; however, once tribes agreed to a monetary compensation from the federal government, all official treaty obligations were considered null and void and the tribe surrendered its sovereignty to the government.
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Trans-Alaskan Pipeline
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An oil pipeline running from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez that was completed in 1977 by several major oil companies. Its construction portrays Alaska as a continuation of the western frontier and the exploitation of natural resources by eastern merchants. It also highlights the continuing struggle between preservationists and developers about the environmental hazards of development and utilization, depicting Alaska both as a new frontier of renewed, plentiful resources and as the last remnant of true wilderness left in America. The oil spill of the Exxon Valdez in 1989 fulfilled decades old cries of preservationists and environmentalists about the hazards of development.
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United Farmworkers (UFW)
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An organization that was created by Cesar Chavez and his colleagues in 1962 to protect migrant farmworkers, developing as a result of the rising political and social renaissance among Mexican Americans in the Southwest. It was the first farmworkers’ organization to be established since the 1930s. In 1966, Chavez and the UFW launched a nationwide grape boycott that effected the entire nation and brought the organization national attention.
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The Virginian
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A 1902 novel written by Owen Wister that became the most influential and widely-read of all western novels. The novel is staged in a series of tests of the main character’s manhood, culminating in the Virginian’s courtship of an eastern schoolmarm. In the end, she must either accept his moral code – the rule of honor – or live with his rejection. This closing scene demonstrates a revolt against women and the values they embody. This novel also helped to create many of the modern tropes of the cowboy, such as the shootout.
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Owen Wister
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Another prominent, well-to-do easterner like Remington and Roosevelt who went West in 1885 when ordered to by his doctor. He soon became the manager of a large Wyoming cattle ranch, taking his western experience as a test of his manhood. Wister believed that the West was entirely masculine and served on as a playground and testing ground for young men. Wister wrote the hugely influential western book called The Virginian (1902).
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Wouded Knee
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A massacre in 1890 of Sioux Indians by the Seventh Calvary in response to the Ghost dance and increasing Native American spirituality. Approximately 146 Indians were killed, many of which were women and children. It gained national attention and brought new activism to the surface in 1970 with the publication of the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and with the military occupation of a church on Wounded Knee Creek by activists from the American Indian Movement.
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Wovoka
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A Paiute shaman and spiritual leader who was inspired by visions of the Great Spirit to tell all Indians that they should act as brothers and sisters and forsake violence. These visions told him that if his people did this, gave up alcohol, lived simple lives, and dedicated themselves to prayer, the Great Spirit would restore control of their lives and lands. His message developed into a ritual of worship, slow dancing, and meditation that lasted several days. In 1890, Sitting Bull learned of this movement and transformed it into a militant message that his people, the Sioux, followed. They elongated the periods of dancing and called it the Ghost Dance, eventually provoking the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
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Zoot Suit Riots
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An attack in 1943 of hundreds of sailors on so-called “zoot-suiters” in Los Angeles after growing public controversy. “Zoot-suiters” were young Mexican Americans that created a defiant cultural style in response to racism and segregation, including speaking “Span-glish,” wearing distinctive long coats and pegged pants, and joining gangs. These riots demonstrate the internal conflicts spawned by assimilation and acculturation and the growing discontent within Mexican communities in response to continued segregation and discrimination.
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Gene Autry
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Singing cowboy, like hopalong casidy (1935) marketing to children, etc.
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