An untold aspect of the New Deal was the impact it had on the Native population.

Great Plains

2

West.

“Mindful of Americans attitudes toward public assistance, Hopkins meant CWA to dignify relief by providing work for employees, rather than handouts to clients.”11

“The West, a long stronghold of the ideal of rugged individualism, faced only reluctantly the need for generous, long termstate spending relief and welfare”.10

work.

FormerPresident,Herbert Hoover

On the Western Slope

3

“With WPA, the New Deal government frankly and fully entered the business of hiring the American peopleto end the Great Depression.” 2

1

through the fireside chats

government

Westerners held tight the philosophy of independence from the federal government.

of Government

identities.

4

3

Bruce Ayler is a writer and a son of an orphan train rider discusses

1

wasn’t

According to Michael B. Katz,

During the time of American expansion,the country was experiencing massive growth in all directions.

united states

and had negative consequences such as broken treaties, the mistreatment of the Native Americans

TO BE CONTINUED

The native tribes

Congressman Davy Crockett was known to have spokenout against the removal of nativesin a letter writtentoCharles Schultz in 1834writing “...I am truly afread that a majority of the free Citizens of these United Stateswill Submit to it and Say amen Jackson done it(Crockett 1834).”

n 1830

John Coffee

National Congress of American Indians n.d.).

States

10-12 Pages

West.

ofaWesternmovie

(Limmerick,pg.60)

another

assumption

Limmerick

would

Also

Ididnotwriteanintroduction

industry.

Limerick 259

stage coach where even the criminal white guy is a better guy then the Native Americans.

which is commonly the white guy versus the Native Americans

seem to outweigh the commonalities.

glance.

Overall westerns provide an insight to many of the realities of the American West.

The New Deal is in stark contrast to the idea of western independence,yet it became a lifelinefor many in the west.

Capitalism

Joad’s

couldn’t

In the filmThe Grapes of Wrath,

As the film continues

tagecoachalso portrays how capitalismhas ill-effects even in the west.

Also,in Stagecoach, the theme of an open border aligns with history prior to World War One.

“The frontier, far from being a refuge from the problems of ‘civilization,’ became the symbolic source of disunion” (Legacy 93).

In the film Stagecoach,

shares the attitude

To write about an adventurousWest as opposed to a destructive one.

3Fredrick Jackson Turner is also

“Independent living is hard work, after all; one needs all the help one can get”, says Limerick in The Legacy of Conquest, “Thereis nothing wrong with human interdependence; it is, among otherthings, a fact of life” (95).

Subtle yet present, the reality of the western life is presented in these three western films that can bring the viewer closer to the history of the region.

A prime example

in

Westerns provide more similarities to the history of the West in spite of a mixture of myth and fact for the purpose of entertainment.

an American West which did notexisted and lackedaccuratedepiction of race relations, the truecharacteristics of heroes within their narratives, and Westerstendedto assign submissive roles to female characterswhen there were many historical women in the history of the American West that could not be classified as submissive.

Annie Oakley5or Calamity Jane6

Women also have a story in the American West,

John Ford

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valanceis a 1962 film

the film exaggerated what a shootoutbetween a stagecoach and natives would have looked like in a real situation.

Hero’s

The Land Grab Act

Natives werealso depicted in both The Man Who Shot Liberty Valanceand Stagecoach, but their introductionswere brief and at times aggressive as Hollywood chose to depict natives in filmas aggressive, uncontrollable, and dangerous.

Patricia Nelson Limerick

awhites-only establishment.

“who sayshe can’t? Pour yourself a drink, Pompey(Wayne 1962).”

is historically inaccurate.

In the Unites States, whites have historically been associated with superiority and privilege, while people of color have historically been associated with inferiority and made out to be less than those of the white race.

their inaccurate depiction of race relations, the tendency to exaggerate positive characteristics of heroes within their narratives, and the tendency of 20thcentury Hollywood to assign submissive roles to female characters.

Westerns achieved high levels of popularity during the midpoint of the twentieth century, the Western, a genre of film, novels, short stories, radio, and television shows that are set in the American West around the time period of 1850s to the end of the 19thcentury.

place.

populous

By analyzing several Hollywood western movies such as “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, “Stagecoach”, and “The Grapes of Wrath” directed by John Ford, and comparing those to books written by historians such as “The Legacy of Conquest” by Patricia N. Limerick and “The End of The Myth” by Greg Grandin, there are clear inconsistencies between the film adaptations and the historical recorded facts and events

One example

Grandin’s “The End of the Myth” explores the same exploitation of nature by early American West settlers as does the earlier book.

Two out of the three ways to make a living in the West,

in stating that,

On the other sideof the spectrum

movie.

Valance

Tom

it is clear that

occurred.

Movies such as “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, “Stagecoach”, and “The Grapes of Wrath” directed by John Ford depict a symbiotic relationship between settlers and nature, whereas the books “The Legacy of Conquest” by Patricia N. Limerick and “The End of The Myth” by Greg Grandin describe the settler’s exploitation of nature throughout history.

In the early American West, there was a complex relationship between newcoining settlers and nature; one depicted in Hollywood western movies and historical analytical books.

Paper?

Theodore Roosevelt

system

Void of Federal support run by gunslingers and incompetent marshals.

“Nothing so undermines the Western claim to a tradition of independenceas this matter of federal support to Western development (Limerickpg. 82).”

grapes

33).”

The border either brings order or it brings a free range of lawlessness and freedom.

desolate‘uncivilized’ cityborder.

“Others,

This depiction

“Investment l

An expectation is held

as

owed

Representation of the border and the reality of the border are often different however similarities can often be selected, with the truth often in the middle.

The constantly shifting border in the American west draws on distinct methods that always benefit the United States.

Writers such as Patricia Limerick and Greg Grandin are able to write books about the truth and have consumers and historians read their writing and continue to gain an understanding of the west. The books and movies portraying the west are very different because they had to be different to survive the culture and societal pressures that existed during the times of their creation.

set in the west are very different.

Maddison

A question can be asked

(Limerick, 39)

material.

This includes how the government's role was perceived in the west, the importance of different groups of people, and the exploitation of the land by the settlers.

Ford’s movies showed a different and more honest version of the west compared to other westerns yet, many aspects of his movies differed from the true history of the west, at least from the historian's perspective.

The American west has a deep history that many have studied,and many authors have shared their view of the west.

Race was not definedas the color of a person’sskin in the late nineteenthand early twentiethcenturies in the Westratherrace was definedby a person’scharacteristics, personalities, and even their mental abilities.

The Native Americans

arrived.

In the book

orphans.

Children

Racewasused

theydidunderstandwhatvaluemeant.

lessor

Theonlyromanticizedsettlers

status

is

IntheEasternAmerica’sracialsystem

entail

Thisresourceexploitationdidnotentailconcernforthelaborers.

aviewthat“white”andeconomicexploitationarethesam

extent

youwereallowed

tobeconsidered

weredefinedby

genocide

held

wasuniquetotheregion

TheseracialandeconomicsystemwereexploredthroughHeatherCoxRichardson’sWoundedKneeandLindaGordon’sTheGreatArizonaOrphanAbduction.

West.

RacewasatoolusedintheAmericanWestforeconomiccontrolandcheapexploitationofresources.

tribe.

apart

This massacrewas a direct cause of racism

“America’s postwar economic system seemed to be the pinnacle of humanorganization. It was impossible to believe that everyone would not want to share in it. Tothose who enjoyed this new world, it only made sense to spread an industrial economyacross the nation, all the way to the West Coast. As it spread, it would sweep across thePlains and absorb all the Indians there who still followed an ancient and far lessmaterially prosperous way of life. How could the Indians see this as anything but a greatgift?”(Richardson,58).

“The Indians’ economybeat the American economy hands down on the dry prairies. Generations of Indianhunters had made the prairies perfect for grazing animals. Eventually, settlers alsocame to rely on animal herds, realizing that the only way to make the prairies profitablein the days before irrigation was by ranging cattle on them. Herding animals, though,requires far more land than farming does. By cutting Indian land into small parcels,government policies destroyed Indians’ ability to practice the only economy that workedin the harsh environment of the Plains,” (Richardson, 97).

caused great harm

(Gordon,198).

The whites did not believe that they were causing harm to others but thoughtthat they were saving them by allowing them to conform to their societal norms.

but all the people who don’t fit into the “American ideal.”

doubted the capability of other races in raising children

they were trying to help

The racial tensions in the American west caused a separation of class, harshdiscrimination, and resulted in many unnecessary deaths.

The growth of America to the west product of several races and nationalities working together to build the nation. Regrettably that growth is tarnished by the racial views that resulted in discrimination against those people who were instrumental in the growth of the nation.

There was discrimination against Mexicans

page 180)

As mentioned previously,

The ensuing battles with the Native American

what was taking place in the American West during this time period.

“After a battle for control over the Louisiana territory the United States acquired from France in 1803, the North and South had found a way to coexist in the region. New states were admitted to the Union in pairs—one free and one slave—to keep the two sections balanced in the Senate, and the Missouri Compromise of 1820 guaranteed that slavery would not spread north of a line that ran east to west below the southern boundary of Missouri. The sections neatly divided the Louisiana territory between them (Wounded Knee page 21).”

Though race is just a societal creation in order to categorize people based off of difference, this does not mean that these racial categorizations did not come in handy for serving alternative motives and discriminating against entire cultures

Moving West, racial labels and titles shifted to one based off of cultural traditions and a tool for white settlers and the government to continue in the American expansion.

convinced,

“Indians were present as obstacles to the pioneering, never as pioneers themselves. Indeed, a substantial part of pioneering meant was racial: that which had to be braved, endured, and transformed was the low civilization of the earlier inhabitants” (Gordon, 165).

on a whole different level

Blacks were a separate race

(Gordon, 223).

“Even less did they know that that mobility took the form of a racial transformation unique to the American Southwest, that the same train ride had transformed them from Irish to white”

the spectrum of races

n.

epends on where in the west

As the racial focus moves westward

i

discrimination, economic power struggles, and cultural separation.

focused on

Race is a tool of American westward expansion and American society in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries that’s categorization changes depending upon the location of history that is focused on

And what other option

he categorization of white vs. nonwhite led to economic disparities between the two groups.

This is an important note because it explains that race was not the only factor being played in the west. It was also the views of culture and ways of life.

accounts

oddball

Another example of this new form of race relations

possibly prosperity

as part of manifest destiny

nhabitance

and that’s just how itwas

heroes

land of course was being taken

Racism is just the tool used to justify you taking of these things.

manipulatedto fit an agenda