The history of westward expansion in the United States during the 19th century is often cited as a unifying feature of the American national identity. For over one hundred years, this era has been either glamorized or vilified according to the depictions of filmmakers, actors, and actresses who create fictionalized versions of this era. Historians today focus on the more inclusive role that various ethnicities had in shaping the West, as well as the serious issues in Native American culture that occurred. Yet from any angle, this important historical migration has been firmly established as a significant part of the American culture. “The whole history of the United States is that constant movement westward, that constant march from the Europeans to either progress, or to de-civilizing the civilizations that were already here” (Miller, Scharff, Brinkley, Ambrose, & Maier, 2016). These factors have given the westward expansion era a somewhat mythical tint, so it is sometimes difficult to sort fact from fiction.
One way to learn more from a realistic perspective is to read some of the primary sources available from the 19th century. There are many narratives, newspapers, and letters that recount some of the experiences of the westward expansion movement as it was happening. There are also major American historians and authors who wrote treatises, newspaper articles, and speeches. These documents show how different America was during the 1800s, not only because of the more rural lifestyle but also in the attitudes of many Americans, who were primarily of white European descent, at least in the Eastern developed regions. While historians today have a strong interest in understanding the cultural shaping of the West, “it is difficult to build a consistent measure of internal migration for the 19th century because the Census does not report population by state of birth and state of residence before 1850” (Vandenbroucke, 2008, p. 84). They know that the westward movement was a significant factor in developing the U.S. economy and population growth; beyond that, there are too many questions that are still unanswered.
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What is known is that a cultural shift occurred in the late 1800s that prompted even more people to move to the West, which was a result of several different influential people and government homesteading programs. The Homestead Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, which was a “chief factor in the shifting of settlement demographics in the United States” (Walvoord, 2009). However, many of these pioneer families did not actually go as far as the Western borders of the U.S. that stretched to the Pacific Ocean. That settlement took longer, which is one reason for the stories about a wild, lawless west.
Frederick Jackson Turner was a respected scholarly historian in late nineteenth century American culture and society. He delivered an important speech at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition that took place in Chicago, Illinois. At that time, most Americans did not have a very clear picture of the westward expansion. They may have known the types of circumstances their relatives who had traveled West explained to them in letters back home, but for the vast majority of people living in Eastern cities, the only picture they had of the West was how it was depicted by these descriptive accounts. Turner had an influential position in the ways mainstream Americans began to see fit Westward Expansion into the overall picture of American progress. “His assessment of the frontier’s significance was the first of its kind and revolutionized American intellectual and historical thinking” (Primary Sources, 2017). Although Turner’s rendition of this historical movement is very outdated due to his pronounced ethnic bias towards whites, it is perhaps one of the most accurate assessments of how many Americans perceived their role in shaping U.S. economic development in relation to westward expansion.
- Miller, D., Scharff, V., Brinkley, D., Ambrose, S., & Maier, P. (2016). Program 6: Westward expansion/the empire of liberty. A Biography of America. Retrieved from https://www.learner.org/
- Primary Sources (2017). Background. Primary Sources. Retrieved from https://www.learner.org
- Vandenbroucke, G. (2008). The US westward expansion. International Economic Review, 49(1), 81-110.
- Walvoord (2009). The Homestead Act of 1862. Walvoord History. Retrieved from http://www.walvoordhistory.com
