Document Type
Book
Publication Date
1994
Abstract
A fluke of geography makes ours a westward-moving culture. Explorers and European settlers, the Atlantic at their backs, necessarily moved westward in their endeavors, and the pattern was begun. Succeeding eras saw new populations, the Gold Rush, and the Homestead Act, steadily pushing the line of settlement westward, until movement to the west became intimately associated in the public mind with the course of “progress” and the advancement of the nation. From this association come two of the most evocative of American cultural myths, those shared stories in a society’s history that provide “a symbolizing function that is central to the cultural functioning of the society that produces them....[and contain] all of the essential elements of our world view” (Slotkin 16). They are the beliefs that bind us together as a culture and that color our view of ourselves, our society, and our nation.
Recommended Citation
Erisman, Fred. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Boise, ID: Boise State University, 1994. Digital. Western Writers Series, 112.