Menu
Idea

westward expansion

273
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 61–90 of 273 results. Go to first page
Photograph of Sam Chamberlain

Crossing the Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy and American History

McCarthy imagined a vast border region where colonial empires clashed, tribes went to war, and bounty hunters roamed.
by Bennett Parten via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 9, 2022
partner

Land Acquisition and Dispossession: Mapping the Homestead Act, 1863-1912

Year-by-year maps of homesteading claims and the dispossession of Native Americans.
by Robert K. Nelson, Justin Madron, Julius Wilm via American Panorama on January 18, 2022
A pumpkin salt gourd

Salt and Deep History in the Ohio Country

Early American salt makers exploited productive precedents established by generations of people who had engaged with salt resources for thousands of years.
by Annabel LaBrecque via Commonplace on January 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
Image of George Washington in front a map of the United States.

The Storm Over the American Revolution

Why has a relatively conventional history of the War of Independence drawn such an outraged response?
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on November 18, 2021
Screen shot from Oregon Trail gameplay showing Conestoga wagons and people on a western-style main street. Text reads: "Now loading the wagon..."

Let Us Now Enjoy the Incredibly Pure Tale of the Teacher Who Invented The Oregon Trail

He didn’t make a penny.
by Robert Whitaker via Slate on November 17, 2021
Unaccompanied children in a train station

Novel Transport

The anatomy of the “orphan train” genre.
by Kristen Martin via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 1, 2021
The National Archive rotunda, Washington, D.C.

Why Americans Worship the Constitution

The veneration of the Constitution is directly connected to America’s emergence as global hegemon.
by Aziz Rana via Public Seminar on October 11, 2021
A cowboy on a horse surrounded by grazing cows on open grassland.

A Short Political-Economic History of Property Rights in the American West

How the Tragedy of the Commons theory played out in reality.
by Mathias Bühler via Broadstreet on September 10, 2021
Afghan children standing in rubble
partner

Invading Other Countries to ‘Help’ People Has Long Had Devastating Consequences

For more than a century, U.S. wars of invasion have claimed a humanitarian mantle.
by Joel Zapata via Made By History on September 10, 2021
The front cover of Kevin Waite's, "West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire."

Desert Plantations

A review of “West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire."
by Tom Prezelski via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 29, 2021
Cherokee leader and Louisiana governor shaking hands

The Cherokee-American War from the Cherokee Perspective

Conflict between American settlers/revolutionaries and the Cherokee nation erupted in the early years of the Revolution.
by Jordan Baker via Journal of the American Revolution on July 29, 2021
The Borden family in 1923

The Dust of Previous Travel

After inheriting a box of documents from her grandfather, Marta Olmos learns more about her family's history.
by Marta Olmos via Contingent on June 27, 2021
André Michaux walking through a landscape of botanical drawings.

The Forgotten French Scientist Who Courted Thomas Jefferson—and Got Pulled Into Scandal

A decade before Lewis and Clark, André Michaux wanted to explore the American continent. Spying for France gave him that chance.
by Shaun Assael via Smithsonian on June 22, 2021
A black man surveying destroyed property

B.C. Franklin and the Tulsa Massacre: A Triracial History

The life of Tulsa attorney B.C. Franklin is a testament to the triracial history of the West.
by Alaina E. Roberts via Perspectives on History on May 26, 2021
Illustration of black calvary officers with a Native American, circa 1874

Is This Land Made for You and Me?

How African Americans came to Indian Territory after the Civil War.
by Alaina E. Roberts via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 26, 2021
The construction of the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.

The City That Embodies the United States’ Contradictions

In the history of St. Louis, we find both a radical and reactionary past—and a more hopeful future too.
by Robert Greene II via The Nation on May 17, 2021
American Progress by John Gast, 1872. Painting depicting an angel hovering above white settlers heading west.

On Nostalgia and Colonialism on the New Oregon Trail

What does it mean to reform a game based on a violent history of land theft and appropriation?
by T. J. Tallie via Hyperallergic on May 16, 2021
A family poses outside their homestead, somewhere out west, in the late 19th century.

How Personal Ads Helped Conquer the American West

That tradition of finding partners in the face of social isolation persists today.
by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie via Atlas Obscura on April 29, 2021
A map of the eastern US, with a line from Washington DC to St. Louis.

The Ill-Fated Idea to Move the Nation's Capital to St. Louis

In the years after the Civil War, some wanted a new seat of government that would be closer to the geographic center of a growing nation.
by Livia Gershon via Smithsonian on April 22, 2021
Map of Indian Territory

The Troubling Paradox of Slavery in Indian Territory

My ancestors were enslaved—but their freedom came at a price for others.
by Alaina E. Roberts via TIME on April 14, 2021
Photographs from Tulsa shaped into a three-dimensional sculpture.

The Unrealized Promise of Oklahoma

How the push for statehood led a beacon of racial progress to oppression and violence.
by Victor Luckerson via Smithsonian on March 17, 2021
St. Louis arch

The Arch of Injustice

St. Louis seems to define America’s past—but does it offer insight for the future?
by Steven Hahn via Public Books on February 16, 2021
Illustration of a coastline with indications of industry and farming

Human History and the Hunger for Land

From Bronze Age farmers to New World colonialists, the stories of struggle to claim more ground have shaped where and how we live.
by Francisco Cantú via The New Yorker on January 11, 2021
Trump at a podium campaigning.
partner

1846 — Not 1861 — Reminds Us Why Seceding Won’t Work For Disgruntled Trump Supporters

Trump fans are better off as Americans.
by Thomas Richards Jr. via Made By History on January 4, 2021
Statue of Kit Carson

The Removal of Monuments: What about Kit Carson?

The West and the nation need worthier, more honest memorials.
by Susan Lee Johnson via We're History on November 24, 2020
Oglala Lakota Chief Red Cloud in a formal portrait arranged by William Blackmore, whose hand is visible at right

The Power Brokers

A recent history centers the Lakota and the vast territory they controlled in the story of the formation of the United States.
by David Treuer via New York Review of Books on November 11, 2020
A black and white picture of Clint Eastwood

Cowboy Confederates

The ideals of the Confederate South found new force in the bloody plains of the American West.
by Jefferson Cowie via Dissent on November 1, 2020

What Tecumseh Fought For

Pursuing a Native alliance powerful enough to resist the American invaders, the Shawnee leader and his prophet brother envisioned a new and better Indian world.
by Philip J. Deloria via The New Yorker on October 26, 2020
Lithograph of Chinese railroad workers waving to train as it comes through a mountain tunnel.

What Was It Like to Ride the Transcontinental Railroad?

The swift, often comfortable ride on the Transcontinental Railroad opened up the American West to new settlement.
by Erin Blakemore via HISTORY on October 16, 2020
View More
30 of
273

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History