Promised Lands

Whether seen as a land of opportunity or as paradise lost, the American West took shape in the nation's imagination with the help of those who wrote about it; but two groups who did much to shape that perception are often overlooked today.

Promoters trying to lure settlers and investors to the West insisted that the frontier had already been tamed -- that the only frontiers remaining were those of opportunity. Through posters, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and other printed pieces, these boosters literally imagined places into existence by depicting backwater areas as settled, culturally developed regions where newcomers would find none of the hardships associated with frontier life.

Quick on their heels, some of the West's original settlers had begun publishing their reminiscences in books and periodicals and banding together in pioneer societies to sustain their conception of frontier heritage. Their selective memory focused on the savage wilderness they had tamed, exaggerating the past every bit as much as promoters exaggerated the present.

Although they are generally seen today as unscrupulous charlatans and tellers of tall tales, David Wrobel reveals that these promoters and reminiscers were more significant than their detractors have suggested. By exploring the vast literature produced by these individuals from the end of the Civil War through the 1920s, he clarifies the pivotal impact of their works on our vision of both the historic and mythic West.

Wrobel shows that these works were vital to the process of identity formation among westerners themselves and to the construction of a "West" in the national imagination. He also sheds light on the often elitist, sometimesracist legacies of both groups through their characterizations of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans.

Wrobel suggests that the West has not really changed much: promoters still tout its promise, while old-timers still try to preserve their selective memories. His book shows us that the West may well move into the twenty-first century, but our images of it are forever rooted in the nineteenth.