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The logo for Canada Lumber.

French Canadians in the New England Woods

French Canadians held a distinct position in an American labor landscape in which experts viewed different “races” as being suited to different kinds of work.
by Livia Gershon, Jason L. Newton via JSTOR Daily on June 5, 2025
Painting depicting the U.S. Army and American Indians signing the Treaty of Greenville, 1785.

How the (First) West Was Won: Federalist Treaties that Reshaped the Frontier

Treaties with Britain, the Confederated tribes, and Spain revealed that America was still dependent on the greater geopolitics of the Atlantic World.
by Brady J. Crytzer via Journal of the American Revolution on December 29, 2022
Herd of bison

Reopen the American Frontier

Let us let the ghosts of the megafauna rise, but let us leave the old imperialists to lie in their graves undisturbed.
by Jason Morgan via The American Conservative on March 1, 2022
An engraving of the American pioneer and folk hero, Daniel Boone.

Daniel Boone: A Frontiersman in Full

The life of Daniel Boone underlines how the North America of the era was a welter of conflict among and between natives and Europeans.
by Rich Lowry via National Review on December 16, 2021
Mountain landscape.

The Never-Ending Frontier?

The US imperialist wars in the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan grew from US wars against Indigenous people in the 19th century.
by Karl Jacoby via Public Books on February 9, 2021

When the Frontier Becomes the Wall

What the border fight means for one of the nation’s most potent, and most violent, myths.
by Francisco Cantú via The New Yorker on March 4, 2019
Enoch and Deborah Harris

Mementos of a Forgotten Frontier

The black pioneers who tried to start over out west.
by Anna-Lisa Cox via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 14, 2018
The rebuilt Blennerhassett mansion.

Paradise Lost

Aaron Burr spoke of far-flung fortune, and then the Blennerhassetts’ West Virginia Eden went up in flames.
by Zack Harold via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 29, 2017

Old West Theme Parks Paint a False Picture of Pioneer California

As the nation debates monuments and public memory, it’s important to understand how other cultural sites help people learn (false) history.
by Amanda Tewes via The Conversation on August 30, 2017
Frederic Remington painting of cowboys galloping through the desert, firing guns over their shoulders at their pursuers.

“Lord, Teach My Hands To War, My Fingers To Fight”

The cowboy apocalypse and American gun fandom.
by Rachel Wagner via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on July 15, 2025
The insolvent brothers giving queer bail

Insolvent Brothers: The Generals Ethan and Ira Allen

How could two renowned, high-ranking men of the American Revolution have fallen into such dire straits that they feared the loss of all they worked for?
by Gary Shattuck via Journal of the American Revolution on May 22, 2025
John Quincy Adams
partner

Are You Not Large and Unwieldy Enough Already?

John Quincy Adams challenges the idea of an expanding American frontier. 
by Andrew C. Isenberg via HNN on April 23, 2025

The Historical Roots of Donald Trump’s Aggressive Nationalism

What the President’s confrontations with Panama, Greenland, Canada, and Colombia suggest about his expansionist vision.
by Greg Grandin, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on January 28, 2025
The cover of "Martian Time-Slip," featuring a man tending to a farm on Mars.

“Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine

A critique of colonialism from Martian science fiction.
by Jonathan Lethem via The Paris Review on November 14, 2024
A screenshot from "Red Dead Redemption 2" of cowboy protagonist Arthur Morgan riding a horse in a western landscape.

What Red Dead Redemption II Reveals About Our Myths of the American West

On the making of a centuries-old obsession at the heart of American national identity.
by Tore C. Olsson via Literary Hub on August 28, 2024
"American Progress" painting by John Gast, 1872.

Reconsidering Expansion

Historians question "expansion" as the defining process of U.S. growth, proposing alternative terms like "empire" and "settler colonialism."
by Rachel St. John via Teaching American History on August 20, 2024
White settlers traveling west in Conestoga wagons.

America as Filibuster Society

American expansionism goes beyond territory.
by Nick Burns via American Affairs on August 20, 2024
American Indians outside of Fort Laramie.

“Invasion is a Structure Not an Event.” On Settler Colonialism and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

When he reflected on the consequences of empire, Conrad saw no logic or teleology. He saw mayhem. There is no surety in "Heart of Darkness."
by Robert G. Parkinson via Literary Hub on May 29, 2024
A rider from the 9th US Cavalry, one of several segregated units called the Buffalo Soldiers.

Meet The Black Cowboys Who Shaped Colorado History

The gunslingers, innovators, and explorers who carved their destinies from the sprawling promise of the West.
by Corey Buhay via Atlas Obscura on May 29, 2024
A house and people from the American frontier.

The Wild Blood Dynasty

What a little-known family reveals about the nation’s untamed spirit.
by Adam Begley via The Atlantic on May 14, 2024
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
partner

Walt Disney Presents Manifest Destiny

On the St. Louis theme park that never made it past the drawing board.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on April 30, 2024
Richard Slotkin.

“A Theory of America”: Mythmaking with Richard Slotkin

"I was always working on a theory of America."
by Kathleen Belew, Richard S. Slotkin via Public Books on April 19, 2024
Couriers’ duties included fetching patients from cabins, weighing babies, delivering medicine, cleaning saddles and bridles, and escorting any guests who rode the routes between FNS outposts.

Why Debutantes Volunteered to Be Horse-Riding Couriers in Rural Kentucky

Between the 1920s and 1940s, wealthy young women signed up to run errands and carry messages for the Frontier Nursing Service.
by Eliza McGraw via Smithsonian on March 28, 2024

Space Isn’t the Final Frontier

Mars fantasists still cling to dreams of the Old West.
by Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith via Foreign Policy on January 21, 2024
Map of the Mason-Dixon line.

Mason-Dixon Lines

The boundary lines preceding Mason and Dixon, everybody knows, were a sham. What’s to follow will be no better.
by Edward G. Gray via Commonplace on January 16, 2024
A herd of bison.

A Panoramic View of the West

A sweeping new history examines many untold stories of the American West in the late nineteenth century.
by Bradley J. Birzer via Law & Liberty on December 13, 2023
Cormac McCarthy.

Cormac McCarthy’s Unforgiving Parables of American Empire

He demonstrated how the frontier wasn’t an incubator of democratic equality but a place of unrelenting pain, cruelty, and suffering.
by Greg Grandin via The Nation on June 21, 2023
A skeleton woman in a black dress floating in a cemetery.

The Elusive, Maddening Mystery of the Bell Witch

A classic ghost story has something to say about America—200 years ago, 100 years ago, and today.
by Colin Dickey via Atlas Obscura on May 2, 2023
Man carrying bundle of sugarcane over his head walking on plank in Guyana sugarcane fields

The Capitalist Transformations of the Countryside

Centuries of capitalism saw the global countryside ruthlessly converted into cheap commodities. But at what cost?
by Sven Beckert via Aeon on October 6, 2022
Collage of summer camp, toasting marshmallows, swimming, boating, camping, trees, and wildflowers.

The Life Lessons of Summer Camp

A few weeks in the woods have taught kids to face new situations, make their way among strangers, solve their own problems—and live a more authentic life.
by Rich Cohen via The Wall Street Journal on July 8, 2022
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