Global West, American Frontier: Travel, Empire, and Exceptionalism from Manifest Destiny to the Great Depression

330 Pages·2013·22.556 MB·English

by  David M. Wrobel

:
WESTERN HISTORY • AMERICAN STUDIES
DAVID M. WROBEL holds the Merrick Chair in “A provocative, revealing book overflowing with new information and insights. WROBEL THIS THOUGHTFUL EXAMINATION of a
Western History at the University of Oklahoma. He Illustrates once again why David Wrobel is at the top of the list of cultural-intellectual century of travel writing about the American West
historians interpreting the American West.”
is also the author of The End overturns a variety of popular and academic stereo-
—Richard W. Etulain, author of
of American Exceptionalism: types. Looking at both European and American trav-
Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West
Frontier Anxiety from the elers’ accounts of the West, from de Tocqueville’s
Old West to the New Deal Democracy in America to William Least Heat-Moon’s
“In this perceptive, splendidly researched book, David Wrobel upends enduring
and Promised Lands: Promo- impressions of the army of travelers who wrote about the American West. Rather than Blue Highways, David Wrobel offers a counter narra-
tion, Memory, and the Cre- dewy-eyed innocents caught up in the mythic West, many were surprisingly shrewd tive to the nation’s romantic entanglement with its
ation of the American West. observers who understood that the places they saw emerging, as well as their own travels, western past and suggests the importance of some
were part of a global story of exploration and empire building. Full of intriguing charac-
long-overlooked authors, lively and perceptive wit-
ters and revelatory moments, it is itself an eye-opening trip into the well-traveled West.
nesses to our history who deserve new attention.
—Elliott West, author of
Prior to the professionalization of academic dis-
The Essential West: Collected Essays
ciplines, the reading public gained much of its
“Historians of the American West, myself included, have a bad habit of knowledge about the world from travel writing.
looking only at travel accounts that provide fodder for the mill of a mythical West.
Although in recent decades western historians have
David Wrobel has had the very good sense to find travelers who wrote about the Amer-
paid little attention to travel writing, Wrobel demon-
ican West from a global perspective rather than as an ‘exception’ and source of ‘excep-
strates that this genre in fact offers an important and
tionalism.’ The result is a fascinating and extremely important book by one of the best
Western historians of this generation.” rich understanding of the American West—one that
—David M. Emmons, author of extends and complicates a simple reading of the West
Beyond the American Pale: The Irish in the West, 1845–1910 a GLOBAL WEST, that promotes the notions of Manifest Destiny or
m American exceptionalism.
“Global West, american Frontier demonstrates why we need to know history. e G Wrobel finds counterpoints to the mythic West of
Understanding nineteenth- and twentieth-century travel narratives, guidebooks, and r AMERICAN FRONTIER
l the nineteenth century in such varied accounts as
other ‘mythologies’ gives us a solid context for grasping our own issues today. This book i o
c George Catlin’s Adventures of the Ojibbeway and Ioway
is written with clarity and savvy.” b
a
—Ronald Primeau, author of a Indians in England, France, and Belgium (1852), Rich-
n
Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway l ard Francis Burton’s The City of the Saints (1861), and

FW Travel, Empire, and Exceptionalism Mark Twain’s Following the Equator (1897), reminders
r of the messy and contradictory world that people nav-
jacket painting: Grand Canyon of the Colorado River Calvin P. Horn Series in Western History and Culture o e
from Manifest Destiny igated in the past much as they do in the present. His
(ca. 1892–1908) by Thomas Moran. Courtesy of n s
Encore Editions. t book is a testament to the instructive ways in which
University of New Mexico Press t
,
jacket design: Catherine Leonardo unmpress.com | 800-249-7737 ie to the Great Depression the best travel writers have represented the West.
r
ISBN 978-0-8263-5370-2
ËxHSKIMGy353702zv*:+:!:+:!
david m. wrobel
GLOBAL WEST, AMERICAN FRONTIER
A volume in the Calvin P. Horn Lectures
in Western History and Culture
GLOBAL WEST,
AMERICAN FRONTIER
Travel, Empire, and Exceptionalism
from Manifest Destiny
to the Great Depression
david m. wrobel
University of New Mexico Press
Albuquerque
© 2013 by the University of New Mexico Press
All rights reserved. Published 2013
Printed in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5 6
My thanks to The Historian, Montana The Magazine of Western History,
and the Pacific Historical Review for permission to draw
on my work previously published therein:
“Exceptionalism and Globalism: Travel Writers and the Nineteenth-Century
American West,” The Historian 68 (Fall 2006): 430–60.
“The West in the World, the World in the West: Gerstäcker, Burton,
and Bird on the Nineteenth-Century Frontier,” Montana The Magazine
of Western History 58 (Spring 2008): 24–34.
“Global West, American Frontier,” Pacific Historical Review 78
(February 2009): 1–26.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wrobel, David M.
Global West, American frontier : travel, empire, and exceptionalism from manifest
destiny to the Great Depression / David M. Wrobel.
pages cm. — (Calvin P. Horn lectures in western history and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8263-5370-2 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-8263-5371-9 (electronic)
1. West (U.S.)—Description and travel—History. 2. Travel writing—Historiography.
3. West (U.S.)—Historiography. 4. West (U.S.)—Public opinion. I. Title.
F595.3.W76 2013
978’.02—dc23
2013017317
book design: Catherine Leonardo
Composed in 10.25/13.5 Minion Pro Regular
Display type is Matchwood Bold WF
For my brother Marek (1955–2012), in loving memory.

CONTENTS
Y
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Roads Traveled 1
Beyond the Mythic West 1
Roads Traveled and Not Traveled 8
Part One
THE GLOBAL WEST
OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Chapter One: Exceptionalism and Globalism:
Revisiting the Traveler 21
Exceptionalism and Empire 21
Resituating the Traveler 29
In Europe and Around the World 32
Chapter Two: The World in the West, the West in the World:
Travels in the Age of Empire 48
From the African Continent to the Mormon Kingdom 48
From the Western Rockies to the Near and Far East 61
Across the Plains, Around the World, and Back to Africa 66
vii
viii contents
Part Two
THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Chapter Three: “No, Adventure Is Not Dead”: Frontier Journeys
in the last Great Age of Exploration 85
Global Frontiers 85
From Hawaii to Africa 86
On the River of Doubt 103
Coda: In Asia 112
Chapter Four: The End of the West?
Automotive Frontiers of the Early Twentieth Century 114
The Pioneering Strain 114
The Great Race and the Acids of Materialism 117
The Acids of Modernity 122
Of Tourists and Travel Writers 129
Chapter Five: Rediscovering the West:
Regional Guides in the Depression Years 136
The Promise of the West 136
Portrait of a Nation and a Region 142
Tour 1: California Coast to the Lone Star State 144
Tour 2: Southern Plains to the Northern Border 151
Tour 3: Rocky Mountains and Great Basin 160
Tour 4: Pacific Northwest to the Last Frontier 170
Coda: Returning to Native Grounds 178
Conclusion: Enduring Roads 181
Premature Endings: The Presumed Death of the Travel Book 181
Enduring Western Roads 187
Legacies of the Global West and the American Frontier 194
Notes 197
Selected Bibliography 259
Index 297
ILLUSTRATIONS
Y
Figure 1: The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly 34
Figure 2: Poster, The 14 Ioway Indians and Their Interpreter 35
Figure 3: Blistered Feet Addressing an Audience in the Egyptian
Hall by George Catlin 36
Figure 4: Fourteen Iowa Indians by George Catlin 37
Figure 5: Twelve Ojibway Indians by George Catlin 38
Figure 6: Photograph of Friedrich Gerstäcker 40
Figure 7: Sketch, Punishing “the Mohammaden” (artist unknown) 42
Figure 8: Photograph of Ida Pfeiffer 44
Figure 9: Swimming Horses (artist unknown) 50
Figure 10: Portrait of Richard Francis Burton 52
Figure 11: Portrait of Richard Francis Burton in Arab dress 53
Figure 12: Portraits of Richard Francis and Isabel Burton 58
Figure 13: Sketch of Salt Lake City 59
Figure 14: Photograph of the Tomb of Sir Richard Francis and
Isabel Burton 61
Figure 15: Photograph of Isabella Bird 62
Figure 16: Isabella Bird’s Home in the Rockies 63
Figure 17: Isabella Bird among the lava beds at Long’s Peak 64
Figure 18: Isabella Bird in Perak, Malaya 65
Figure 19: Photograph of Isabella Bird on horseback in Erzurum 66
Figure 20: Photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson 68
Figure 21: Photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson and family 72
Figure 22: Photograph of Mark Twain 73
ix