American West

Electrifying Rural Nevada: Mining and Hydroelectricity in Nevada's Northeastern Frontier (1896-1920)

by Christopher Merritt

Draft in Review. Co-authored with Jacob N. Pollock.

In 1896, mine interests revived Tuscarora, a struggling busted silver town in Northeastern Nevada’s Independence... more In 1896, mine interests revived Tuscarora, a struggling busted silver town in Northeastern Nevada’s Independence Valley.  With the incorporation of a new mining company, the consolidation of existing claims, and the construction of a technologically forward-thinking stamp mill, Tuscarora was primed for resurgence.  Like other mining districts in Nevada, the newly formed company needed energy to power its stamp mill, surface and underground lights, ore and man-hoists, and other mining ephemera, but they were faced with the remarkable lack of woody fuel required for steam boilers.  To solve this problem, the company undertook a heavily capitalized venture to harness the power of the area’s second-most available resource, water.  In a parched and arid landscape, hydroelectric power served the needs of Elko County’s leading gold and cyanide producers between 1899 and 1920.  Archaeological survey and historical research has reconstructed the fascinating story of Independence Valley’s hydroelectric plants and power line, its impact on Tuscarora’s third mining boom, and the role homesteaders and ranchers in electrifying Nevada’s Northeastern Frontier.

Hand-Stacked Rock Terraces of Sanders County, Montana: The Archaeology and History of Poacher Gulch

by Christopher Merritt

Published in Archaeology in Montana, 2010. Co-authored with C. Milo Mcleod, USFS (Retired)

During the 2006 and 2007 field seasons, archaeologists from the Lolo National Forest and the University of Montana... more During the 2006 and 2007 field seasons, archaeologists from the Lolo National Forest and the University of Montana (UM) investigated a mysterious hand-stacked rock terrace site in Sanders County, near Plains, MT. Local folklore suggested that one potential interpretation of the site’s construction was related to disenfranchised Chinese railroad workers who sought gold at the site during the 1880s and 1890s. Lolo National Forest Archaeologist Milo McLeod first recorded the site in 1979 with location information provided by Plains Ranger District employees. UM doctoral student Chris Merritt began working on the site in fall of 2006 under the hypothesis that the site was Chinese and dating to the 1880s or 1890s. However, it appears that the site was constructed no earlier than 1905, and most likely relates to a vernacular use of mining waste rock to construct the terraces to supplement miner subsistence during the 1910s.

The Post-Industrial Regime of Production/Consumption and the Rural Gentrification of the New West Archipelago

by J. Dwight Hines

The contemporary American West is undergoing a round of rapid restructuring, which has been characterized as the shift... more The contemporary American West is undergoing a round of rapid restructuring, which has been characterized as the shift from landscapes of production to landscapes of consumption. Here I propose that a more effective description of current changes, which allows us to retain focus on the relevant inter- and intra-class-based dynamics of an ongoing capitalist-Modernity, is as a result of the transition from the prior dominance of a regime of production/consumption of commodities/natural-resources to the increasing ascendancy of the production/consumption of “experiences.” The rising dominance of this regime is, in large part, the result of the locally dramatic in-migration by ex-urban members of the post-industrial middle class to the “amenity-rich” counties of the region. This process of rural gentrification exacerbates preexisting social, geographic, and environmental disparities within the region creating an “archipelago” of changing communities commonly referred to as the “New” West. Drawing on almost two years of ethnographic research from one such “island” community in south-central Montana, I describe local-level change between the relative primacy of the two regimes of production/consumption.

In pursuit of experience: The postindustrial gentrification of the rural American West

by J. Dwight Hines

Contemporary rural gentrification – the colonization of rural communities and small-towns by members of the ex-urban... more Contemporary rural gentrification – the colonization of rural communities and small-towns by members of the ex-urban middle class – is a nationwide phenomenon that contradicts nearly two centuries of US urbanization. While previous research primarily describes such counter-urbanization as representing a profound divergence from previous patterns (i.e. urbanization, mass production/consumption, etc.), I contend that rural gentrification is best understood as the product of both continuity and change relative to the ideas/practices of Modernity and current postindustrialization. Based on ethnographic research conducted in a community in south central Montana, I present evidence that the choice by middle-class newcomers to migrate to the rural US is simultaneously the product of: 1) the continued efficacy of the Modern ideals of authenticity and progress; and 2) their aspirations to distinguish themselves as members of an emerging class faction – the postindustrial middle class (PIMC)– through their emphasis upon the production and consumption of experiences.

Three Ideologies in Search of the American West: Reading Worster, White, and Limerick (circa 1998, revisions circa 2002 and 2003)

by Ronald Helfrich, Jnr.

“’So I Decided to Quit It and Try Something Else for a While’: Reading Agency in Nat Love’s The Life and Adventure of Nat Love.”

by Simone Drake

Eds. Peter Caster and Timothy Buckner. Fathers, Preachers, Rebels, Men: Black Masculinity in U.S. History and Literature, 1820-1945. Columbus, OH: Ohio State UP, 2011.

Building a Working Class Archaeology: The Colorado Coal Field War Project

by Randall McGuire

McGuire, Randall H. & Paul Reckner
2003 Building a Working Class Archaeology: The Colorado Coal Field War Project. Industrial Archaeology Review 25(2):83-95.

See also
Larkin, Karin and Randall H. McGuire
2009 The Archaeology of Class War: The Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

The Unromantic West: Labor, Capital, and Struggle

by Randall McGuire

McGuire, Randall H. & Paul Reckner
2002 The Unromantic West: Labor, Capital, and Struggle. Historical Archaeology 36(3):44-58.

A gang of historians has gunned down the "romantic West." They have dismissed the notion of the West as a... more A gang of historians has gunned down the "romantic West." They have dismissed the notion of the West as a frontier of opportunity for all comers. The American West has been redefined as an arena of struggle involving complex relations of class, gender, ethnicity, and race. Western work camps and company towns existed as extensions of a global economy centered on the eastern United States. From the mid-19th century through the first decades of the 20th century, capital and people flowed into the West from Europe, Asia, and Mexico. In this internal periphery of U.S. capitalism, workers experienced the same type of exploitation and engaged in the same struggles as their brethren in other parts of the United States. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the coalfields of Colorado. The work camps and company towns that archaeologists excavate were loci of struggle, and historians cannot claim to understand them without considering these conflicts.

The Sutro Tunnel Company, 1866-1878

by Chip Schroeder

The story of the Sutro Tunnel Company is one that weaves together social, economic, and political forces in the... more The story of the Sutro Tunnel Company is one that weaves together social, economic, and political forces in the Western United States in the 1860s and 1870s. Beginning in 1865, Adolph Sutro began soliciting investment in a tunnel that would drain and ventilate mines along the Comstock Lode in Nevada. In the thirteen years from 1865 to 1878, Sutro journeyed from Nevada to San Francisco to Washington DC to Europe in search of political and financial support. As the project’s feasibility and potential profitability became clear in 1866, the Bank of California tried to obstruct Sutro’s plan, which sparked a great rhetorical battle with the Sutro Tunnel Company. The debate highlights a pervasive suspicion of fraudulent business plans, profiteering and monopoly. Sutro attempted to accuse the Bank of California of monopolization of the Comstock mining industry, and portray himself as the victim of their avarice. While the Bank of California was unscrupulous in their opposition to the Sutro tunnel, Sutro was not the honest and reliable CEO that he tried to hard to portray himself as for thirteen years. Sutro’s stock liquidation in the Sutro Tunnel Company soon after the tunnel’s completion proved him to be a profiteer who reaped the benefit of the hype he created over the future profitability of the company, which never materialized.

Transportation Systems as Cultural Landscapes in National Parks: The Case of Yosemite

by Yolonda Youngs

"Remaking Urban in the American West: Urban Environmentalism, Lifestyle Politics, and Hip Capitalism in Boulder, Colorado" in Jeff Roche, ed. The Political Culture of the New West (University Press of Kansas, 2008)

by Amy Scott

The Indian of the North. Western Traditions and Finnish Indians

by Hannu Salmi

in Hollywood’s Indian. The Portrayal of Native Americans in Film. Edited by Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 1998, p. 39-57.

The articles focuses on Finnish westerns, made in the 1950s and 1960s. It can be read in Google Books, follow the link... more The articles focuses on Finnish westerns, made in the 1950s and 1960s. It can be read in Google Books, follow the link below.

Vitvan and the School of the Natural Order: New Age Culture with a DIY Ethic

by Daniel Gustav Anderson

This paper began as a presentation at the Western Literature Association conference in Prescott, AZ, in the fall of 2010.  I published it afterward at Frank Visser's Integral World site.

Spaces of Remembering and Forgetting: The Reverent Eye/I at the Plains Indian Museum

by Brian L. Ott

SOURCE CITATION: Dickinson, G., Ott, B. L., & Aoki, E. (2006). Spaces of remembering and forgetting: The reverent eye/I at the Plains Indian Museum. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 3(1), 27-47.

Museums, memorials, and other historic places are key sites in the construction of collective memory and national... more Museums, memorials, and other historic places are key sites in the construction of collective memory and national identity. The Plains Indian Museum in Cody, Wyoming is one such space of memory where the (pre)history of ‘‘America’’ and its native peoples is told. Based on the view of texts as experiential landscapes, it is argued that this museum works to absolve Anglo-visitors of the social guilt regarding Western conquest through a rhetoric of reverence. This rhetorical mode invites visitors to adopt a respectful, but distanced observational gaze. A concluding section assesses the social and political consequences of memorializing in this mode.

Memory and Myth at the Buffalo Bill Museum

by Brian L. Ott

SOURCE CITATION: Dickinson, G., Ott, B. L, & Aoki, E. (2005). Memory and myth at the Buffalo Bill Museum. Western Journal of Communication, 69(2), 85-108.

Few places tell the myth of the American frontier more vigorously than the Buffalo Bill Museum does in Cody, Wyoming.... more Few places tell the myth of the American frontier more vigorously than the Buffalo Bill Museum does in Cody, Wyoming. Traveling to the museum through the ‘Western’ landscape of Wyoming into the foothills of the Rockies prepares visitors for the tale of Western settlement. This narrative, which works to secure a particular vision of the West, draws upon the material artifacts of Cody’s childhood and his exploits as scout, Pony Express rider and showman. The museum retells the story that Cody first told to millions at the turn of the twentieth century in his Wild West arena show. In this paper, we argue that the museum privileges images of masculinity and Whiteness, while using the props, films, and posters of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West to carnivalize the violent conflicts between Anglo Americans and
Native Americans.

The Guns that almost won the West: Repeating Weapons and the American Western Frontier

by Thomas Lecaque

Published in the Apprentice Historian, 2008

Imagining the West

by Nicolas Witschi

A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American West
ed. Nicolas S. Witschi (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011): 3-10

The Culture of the Rocky Mountain West

by Daniel Harrison

This essay offers some observations about culture in the American West.  I try to piece together what exactly it... more This essay offers some observations about culture in the American West.  I try to piece together what exactly it means to be a westerner and how to understand western culture.  This effort can be considered a resting point about how I think about the west and the people and politics that inhabit this place.   

Wallace Stegner once referred to the west as offering “geography of hope.” I see more ambivalence. If people are going to make it in the west, they will need to be able to withstand the soaring highs as well as the punishing lows.  This is because this place, and the people who live here are geared for extremes.

In the following pages, I offer some observations on the peculiarities of Rocky Mountain culture, its positive and negative dimensions, and my story of the vibe of the people who live there.  I seek to cover the same sort of territory as Colorado College does in their 2004 State of the Rockies Report Card (Hecox and Holmes 2004).  I hope that this work will seek to inform some academic debates about “old west” versus “new west” (Wrobel and Long 2001) questions, but I refrain from ushering in bold proclamations and generalizations.  It is more a depository of some of the more important things I thought about when I was in the west, both of how westerners perceive themselves and are perceived by other people.

Appropriation as Agrarianism: Distributive Justice in the Creation of Property Rights

by David Schorr

The first water-privatization debate: Colorado water corporations in the gilded age

by David Schorr