Domesticating the West The Re-creation of the Nineteenth-Century American Middle Class / Brenda K. Jackson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jackson, Brenda K.

Series:

Women in the West.

Women in the West

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Community life--West (U.S.)--History--19th century.

Community life.

Frontier and pioneer life--West (U.S.).

Frontier and pioneer life.

Middle class--West (U.S.)--Biography.

Middle class.

Pioneers--West (U.S.)--Biography.

Pioneers.

Inland Empire (Pacific Northwest)--Biography.

Inland Empire (Pacific Northwest).

Inland Empire (Pacific Northwest)--History--19th century.

West (U.S.)--Social life and customs--19th century.

West (U.S.).

West (U.S.)--Social conditions--19th century.

Tannatt, Elizabeth F. (Elizabeth Forster), 1837-1920.

Tannatt, Thomas, 1833-1913.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 180 p. ) ill., map ;

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2012

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In 1881 Thomas and Elizabeth Tannatt said a final good-bye to Massachusetts and the eastern seaboard and set out in search not of land but of opportunities for social and political advancement. Facing severe limitations to their goals in the depressed and disheveled postwar East, the Tannatts went west to Walla Walla, Washington Territory, to pursue their dreams of influence and status. Domesticating the West examines the motivations of late-nineteenth-century middle-class migrants who moved west to build communities and establish themselves as leaders. The West offered new opportunities for solidly middle-class eastern families who endured hardship, uncertainty, and displacement during the Civil War, and who struggled to carve out meaningful social space in the war's aftermath. Brenda K. Jackson places the Tannatts at the center of this movement and demonstrates how gender, class, and place affected the new migrants' abilities to integrate into their new communities. She also shows how easterners redefined themselves as leaders of a new, moral western environment through volunteerism and political participation. While many studies of westward expansion focus exclusively on the earliest pioneers, Jackson adroitly shows how later arrivals shaped the social, economic, and cultural growth of the nation.

Contents:

The early years, 1833-1861

The Civil War, 1861-1864

The aftermath of war, 1864-1876

Henry Villard and transportation in the Pacific Northwest, 1876-1882

Inland Empire "pioneers," 1880-1890

Retirement and reflections on the past, 1890-1920.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-171) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9786610466146

9781280466144

1280466146

9780803251052

080325105X

OCLC:

61600367

Publisher Number:

9780803226029

9780803251052