Domesticating the West : the re-creation of the nineteenth-century American middle class
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Domesticating the West : the re-creation of the nineteenth-century American middle class
（Women in the West）
University of Nebraska Press, c2005
- : cloth
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-171) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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. Brenda K. Jackson is an assistant professor of history at Belmont University.
Table of Contents
- Prologue 1. The Early Years, 1833-1861
- 2. The Civil War, 1861-1864
- 3. The Aftermath of War , 1864-1876
- 4. Henry Villard and Transportation in the Pacific Northwest, 1876-82
- 5. Inland Empire "Pioneers," 1880-1890
- 6. Retirement and Reflections on the Past, 1890-1920 Epilogue
by "Nielsen BookData"
