Jamestown: The Starving Time

Teaser

Only 60 settlers out of 600 survived the winter of 1609–1610 in Jamestown Virginia. Was "the Starving Time" due to natural circumstances or planned extermination?

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Description

Students analyze a variety of primary and secondary sources to determine the cause of the Jamestown starving time during the winter of 1609–1610.

Article Body

This lesson provides a great opportunity for students to engage in real historical inquiry with prepared sources. The lesson is displayed in three locations on the site: the student view, which guides the student through the activity; the teacher view, which provides additional background information; and a PDF file that contains scripted instructions for the lesson.

Students first read a textbook passage about the Jamestown colony in 1609 and 1610. They then discuss how the writers of the textbook might have obtained their information, and go on to analyze primary source documents that expand upon the textbook account. Students essentially "do history" as they use a variety of sources to answer a clear, concise historical question—one that can be answered in multiple ways with the given data.

Another strength of this lesson is the document collection itself. A wide variety of primary sources offer greater insight into the reasons for the food shortage that resulted in the death of over 400 colonists in Jamestown during the winter of 1609–1610. Particularly helpful to teachers with struggling readers is the fact that the lesson includes not only the original documents, but also "modern" versions of the documents, written in language much more accessible to students.

While the detective log graphic organizer included in the lesson provides space for students to record source information, and the lesson itself provides a great exercise in sourcing, the documents themselves contain little source information. We recommend that teachers support students in using the available information about each document to understand its perspective and meaning. In general, the lesson provides good opportunities to engage in historical inquiry, to open up and go beyond the textbook, and to use primary sources to analyze the causes of an event.

Topic
Jamestown
Time Estimate
2-3 class sessions
flexibility_scale
5
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

Yes
A passage from Joy Hakim's Making Thirteen Colonies is included in both the student view and the teacher view of the lesson.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes
Teachers will want to support students in using information about the perspective of the various sources as they interpret each document's significance and meaning.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

Yes
Documents are included both in their original form, and in an adapted "modern version" that will be more easily accessible to most students.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

Yes
No assessment criteria are included, but the final writing assignment provides a great assessment of students' understanding and historical thinking.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes

Indiana Historical Society Digital Image Collections

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This website boasts a growing collection of more than 38,000 photographs, lithographs, letters, cards, poems and other texts centering around Indiana history from the early 19th century to the present. The collection is especially strong in African American history in Indiana, with browseable collections on Madam C.J. Walker (1867–1919), a nationally renowned businesswoman and philanthropist, Flanner House, the first agency in Indianapolis devoted to meeting the social service needs of African Americans, and the Indianapolis Recorder, the longest continually operated African American newspaper in Indiana.

In addition to that of Madam C.J. Walker, there are collections of roughly 100 images each related to other notable Hoosiers. The website also contains a collection of more than 1,000 items related to President Lincoln, including portraits and busts of the president, as well as documents surrounding the trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Other notable collections include one devoted to military history, several collections of images and portraits of Native Americans from the mid-19th century, and close to 200 historical maps of Indiana. All content is keyword searchable.

Wisconsin State Historical Society Online Collections

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Founded in 1846 and chartered in 1853, the Wisconsin State Historical Society is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. This website provides a host of online collections containing thousands of documents and images addressing Wisconsin's social, political, and cultural history, drawn from the Historical Society's collections.

Highlights include full-text access to 80 histories of Wisconsin counties, and 1,000 more articles, memoirs, interviews, and essays on Wisconsin history and archaeology first published between 1850 and 1920; thousands of articles from the Wisconsin Magazine of History; and hundreds of objects form the Society's Museum, including moccasins, dolls, quilts, ceramics, paintings, and children's clothing.

Other objects can be viewed at the website's Online Exhibits section, which includes objects from exhibits on Presidential elections, Wisconsin's Olympic speed skaters, the Milwaukee Braves, Jewish women, and family labor in Milwaukee after World War II.

The website also provides a vast collection of images available through Wisconsin Historical Images, including photographs, drawings, and prints relating to both regional history, as well as more national histories of 19th-century exploration, mass communications, and social action movements.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse

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On September 11, 1857, roughly 120 members of the Baker-Fancher wagon train—bound westward towards California from Arkansas—were killed in Mountain Meadows, UT, by the local Mormon militia and their Indian allies. Once known as a welcoming oasis for wagon trains, subsequent reporting in newspapers and the proceeds of an official government investigation into this event transformed Mountain Meadows into a site of shame. Debates emerged over the causes of the massacre, with some arguing that the members of the Baker-Fancher party had abused local Mormon populations, and others arguing that the killings were largely unprovoked.

This website presents an archive of primary sources surrounding this event. Currently, the website presents 40 newspaper accounts written between 1857 and 1859 from newspapers in Arkansas, Chicago, California, and Nebraska. Eventually, the archive will also include government investigation reports; early Mountain Meadows Massacre histories in Western Americana; Apostate and Anti-Mormon publications; and fiction, drama, and film. Rather than re-hash the facts surrounding the massacre, the website focuses on the creation of documentation about the massacre, presenting primary sources that allow users to explore representations of the event from multiple perspectives.

Religious Orders of Women in New France

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Question

What services did women of religious orders provide in New France?

Answer

Women of religious orders were active in New France mainly in founding schools and hospitals. Three religious orders were present almost from the time of the earliest French settlements. Jesuit Relations reports, first published in 1611, inspired many founders of these religious communities to travel to New France. Reports narrated the adventures and trials of the earliest Jesuit missionaries who accompanied French explorers and trappers. The religious orders of women that soon followed established the first schools and hospitals in the colony and were among the first women to arrive in New France. The most important of these communities were:

Ursulines

The Ursulines were the first nuns to arrive in New France, in 1639, led by Marie de l'Incarnation. She and the other Ursulines who accompanied her established a convent in Quebec, where they started the first school for girls in North America. The pupils were both Native and French girls. Ursuline communities and schools spread throughout New France, eventually reaching as far south as New Orleans, where a community was established early in the 18th century. As their communities spread west, they founded schools to educate Native American girls.

Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph

These Augustinian religious women also came to Quebec in 1639 and founded a hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu in Quebec (the first in North America north of Mexico). They staffed another, the Hôtel-Dieu, in Montreal in 1645. The Hospitalières also founded schools for girls, including nursing schools, as well as other institutions to care for the poor and the sick.

Congrégation de Notre-Dame

St. Marguerite Bourgeoys began this noncloistered religious order and, in 1658, established a girls' school in Montreal. This was the first of many boarding schools and day schools run by the order throughout New France. The first bishop of Canada, François de Montmorency Laval, highly encouraged and supported these communities of religious women.

For more information

The Virtual Museum of Canada, Seasons of New France.
Quebec City's Chapelle et Musée de Ursulines.

Ursulines of Canada.

Some from Marie de l'Incarnation to her brother.

Montreal's Musée des Hospitalières de l'Hôtel-Dieu.
Montreal's Marguerite-Bourgeoys Museum, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secour Chapel.

Canada's First Hospital, Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec City.

The Augustinian Sisters and Quebec City's Hôtel-Dieu.

Also very useful for understanding the role of nuns and sisters in New France:
Robert Choquette, "French Catholicism Comes to the Americas," 131- 242, in Charles H. Lippy et al. Christianity Comes to the Americas 1492-1776. New York: Paragon House, 1992.
W. J. Eccles. "The Role of the Church in New France," 26-37 in Eccles, Essays on New France. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1987.
W. J. Eccles. The Canadian Frontier 1534-1760. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.
Thérèse Germain. Autrefois, les Ursulines de Trois-Rivières: une école, un hôpital, un cloître. Sillery, Quebec: A. Sigier, 1997.
Colleen Gray. The Congrégation de Notre-Dame, Superiors, and the Paradox of Power, 1693-1796. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007.
Dom Claude Martin. La Vie de la Vénérable Mère Marie de l'Incarnation, première supérieure des Ursulines de la Nouvelle France. Paris: L. Billaine, 1677.
Peter N. Moogk. La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada: A Cultural History. Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000.
Marcel Trudel. Les Écolières des Ursulines de Québec, 1639-1686: Amérindiennes et Canadiennes. Montreal: Hurtubise-HMH, 1999.

Bibliography

Library of Congress, France in America, collection of textual sources.
This includes links to the full text of the following:
Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix. History and General Description of New France, 6 vols. New York: Francis P. Harper, 1900.
Chrestien Le Clercq. First Establishment of the Faith in New France, 2 vols. New York: John G. Shea, 1881.
John Gilmary Shea. Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley. Clinton Hall, NY: Redfield, 1852. Vol. 4 of Benjamin Franklin French, ed., Historical Collections of Louisiana.

The Library and Archives of Canada, full text of the 40 volumes of the Jesuit Relations.

An anthology of selections from the Relations:
Allan Greer. The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth-Century North America. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. Bedford Series in History and Culture.

Images:
Detail of illustration of Marie de l'Incarnation, from Claude Martin, Marie de l'Incarnation, Ursuline de Tours: Fondatrice des Ursulines de la Nouvelle-France.

Marguerite Bourgeoys, Musée Virtuel Canada, "Des saisons en Nouvelle-France."

U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994

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[SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED] This vast archive includes many documents and reports produced by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and published between 1817 and 1980, for a total of more than 355,000 items. These items include 48,000 maps, 9,000 illustrations, thousands of reports, and numerous records of committee hearings and floor proceedings. All items are full-text searchable and can be browsed by subject, such as education, economics, food and agriculture, health, Indian affairs, armed forces and conflicts, environment and natural resources, and social issues. Within each of these broad categories, there are hundreds of subject headings, such as "animal welfare" (83 items), "alien labor" (306 items), and "ordnance testing" (353 items). The "Indian Affairs" category, for example, presents thousands of items on agencies and organizations relating to Indian affairs, Indian reservations, treaties, names of Indian tribes, as well as documents relating to hundreds of laws and supreme court cases. There is also a bill number search, an alphabetical list of names of all acts of Congress, and a listing of all documents by U.S. Congress session. All documents can be downloaded in PDF format. In addition, a separate browse feature entitled "Serial Set Maps" facilitates access to thousands of maps from counties and cities across the country. Many of these date to the Civil War-era or later and include images of forts and depictions of field operations. Readex plans to expand coverage through 1994.

National Museum of the American Indian

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According to the National Museum of the American Indian's website, the museum strives to advance, "knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, past, present, and future, through partnership with Native people and others. The museum works to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life."

There are two sections of the NMAI website which are optimal for educational use. First, is the museum's collection of print resources, designed with educators in mind. These include study guides, posters for your classroom, museum guides, and lesson plans. The other must-see section consists of the museum's more than 30 online exhibits, ranging from horses in Native American culture to how native traditions fared after European contact.

If you're specifically interested in planning for the holidays, be sure to check out the museum's study guide, selections of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, poster, and list of activities on Native American perspectives concerning Thanksgiving.

The museum also offers several audio resources. See how something we view as so definite—time—is actually cultural, by exploring Native American chronological perspectives. You can also use the site's list of radio and film networks to help you research available Native American media.

Visit Indigenous Geography for a wide variety of Native American perspectives on the environment. The site also offers introductory lessons in multiculturalism and curriculum guides for each community presented.

Luckily, for teachers who are interested in visiting the museum in person, there are two locations—DC and New York City, with the archives at yet another site, Suitland, MD. School visits are welcome. If you are considering visiting the New York museum, consider arranging a cultural interpreter, to give a tour from a Native American perspective, or take a look at the upcoming student and teacher workshops.

Early American Newspapers: Series 1, 1690-1876

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[SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED] This archive provides full-text access to more than 350,000 issues of more than 700 newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia. The majority of the collection focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries, and sheds light onto a wide range of political, social, cultural, and economic issues in both cities and smaller communities. The New York collection, for example, boasts 157 titles. While 80 of these were published in New York City, the collection also includes newspapers published in Troy, Utica, Catskill, and Ithaca. Massachusetts (137 titles), Pennsylvania (84 titles), Connecticut (47 titles), and Vermont (41 titles) are also well represented, followed by New Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Rhode Island. Keyword searching capabilities combined with extensive browsing options allow both experienced researchers and those largely unfamiliar with early American history to make good use of the resources available here. Browsing options include dates and eras, article types (including news; poetry/songs; advertisements; birth, death, and marriage notices; cartoons and illustrations; maps; letters; and election returns), languages, places of publication, and newspaper titles. Newspapers are displayed as full-page scans, enabled with detailed zoom capabilities, and can be downloaded in .pdf format.

Daily Objects, 19th-century America

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Image Credits

Video One

  • Erastus Salisbury Field, American, 1805-1900, Joseph Moore and His Family, c. 1839, oil on canvas, 109.23 x 237.17 cm (82 3/8 x 93 3/8 in.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815-1865, 58.25, Term of use: Life of project, Photograph copyright 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  • Lambert Hitchcock (American, 1795-1852), Side Chair, 1826-1829, Mixed hardwoods, paint, and rush, 33 x 17 3/4 x 20 in. (83.8 x 45.1 x 50.8 cm), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Bequest of Lucy D. Hale, 1990.28.2.

Video Two

  • Erastus Salisbury Field, American, 1805-1900, Joseph Moore and His Family, about 1839, oil on canvas, 109.23 x 237.17 cm (82 3/8 x 93 3/8 in.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815-1865, 58.25, Term of use: Life of project, Photograph copyright 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  • Looking glass, American, about 1830-40, Object Place: Connecticut Valley, United States, Mahogany, gilt; glass, H: 37 5/8 in., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Maxim Karolik, RES.58.3, Term of use: Life of project, Photograph copyright 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  • Tie pin, about 1830-40, Object Place: New England, United States, Gold and black enamel, hair, Overall: 2.2 cm (7/8 in.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Maxim Karolik, RES.58.5, Term of use: Life of project, Photograph copyright 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  • Buckle, about 1830-1840, Object Place: Massachusetts, United States, Mother-of-pearl, Overall: 8.3 cm (3 1/4 in.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Maxim Karolik, RES.58.7, Term of use: Life of project, Photograph copyright 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
  • Brooch, about 1830-50, Object Place: New England, United States, Gold, stone, Overall: 1.9 cm (3/4 in.), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Maxim Karolik, RES.58.6, Term of use: Life of project, Photograph copyright 2009 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Video Three

  • "Across the Continent: Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way"; lithograph; hand colored; Currier and Ives (publisher); Ives, J.M. (lithographer); Palmer, F. (Fanny), 1812-1876 (artist), BANC PIC 1963.002: 1530-D. Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
  • The Parley, 1903 (oil on canvas), Remington, Frederic (1861-1909) / Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA / Hogg Brothers Collection, Gift of Miss Ima Hogg / The Bridgeman Art Library International.
  • Cottone Auctions
  • Country Home
  • Federalist Antiques
  • Hitchcock Chair Company
  • Larry Miller, Flickr
  • Library of Congress
  • Minneapolis Institute of Arts
  • National Archives and Records Administration
  • New Jersey State Museum
  • Producer's Blog: Currier & Ives
  • Project Gutenberg
  • Style in the Heartland
  • University of Virginia
Video Overview

Historian David Jaffee analyzes three 19th-century objects (a Hitchcock chair, a family portrait, and a lithograph of the West), discussing how they were made, how they were used, and what they can tell us about the past. Jaffee models several historical thinking skills, including:

  • (1) Close reading of the portrait and the lithograph, paying attention to symbols, objects, and other visual clues to understand the images.
  • (2) Attention to key source information, such as the date and artist of the lithograph to highlight the significance of its portrayal of the west through the eyes of easterners.
  • (3) Contrasting the Hitchcock chair as a manufactured object with its use in the portrait as a carefully selected symbol of the family’s wealth and possessions.
  • (4) Examining the larger context of all three objects to connect them with economic, cultural, and social change.
Video Clip Name
David1.mov
David2.mov
David3.mov
Video Clip Title
Hitchcock Chair
Moore Family Portrait
Across the Continent Lithograph
Video Clip Duration
4:14
3:49
5:18
Transcript Text

This is a side chair, meaning it's not an armchair. Doesn't have arms. Much more interestingly, it's a Hitchcock chair. Now, Hitchcock chairs are both known as chairs that were made by the Hitchcock Company or Lambert Hitchcock initially, the entrepreneur in Connecticut. But more significantly they're a certain genre of chair. So lots of different painted chairs of the first half of the 19th century, sort of festooned with lots of cornucopia and sort of gold stenciling, cane seats, were known as Hitchcock chairs. So it's got a larger sort of import because of that.

But it's extremely popular. You can still find lots of these in antique shops.

What I find really interesting about it first of all, is the decoration. And I think that's what it was meant to say. It's a decorated chair, not just a plain, black chair.

What I know from my own prior knowledge of course, is that often painted decoration stands in for sort of other kinds of decoration. In earlier chairs, one would have used rich carving, which takes a lot of experience by the artisan. So here, instead of having rich depth in the carving, we have two things which stand in for that three-dimensionality. We have turnings. This is done on a lathe. These are done—also mass-produced, so that these parts are relatively interchangeable.

So at the same time as these Hitchcock chairs were being mass produced, $1.50 a piece, usually sold in sets, someone like Eli Terry in the Connecticut clock industry is also making cheap shelf clocks by relatively interchangeable parts, so that the gears in the clocks are made all at once and they can be fit into a variety of different clocks. So that obviously is going to cut down on cost.

And also on the skill level for the chair workers assembling the chair. So, much of the work is really done by semi-skilled workers rather than an older style where one person made one chair at a time.

In some chair industries they would have made some parts at the sawmill. They would have then made other parts or assembled them in a shop. And then third, they would have had women and children seating the chairs by hand in homes. And then collected everything together.

So, in the case of Hitchcock's innovation, sort of like the Lowell Mills, is that he did everything together in a factory, which really allowed him great advances in terms of scale—savings by scale.

When you look at the back, on the back of the seat it will say, "Hitchcock warranted." And so it's got a stencil on the back—this is the first entrepreneur to do this—so that they're sort of warranted that if, you know, there's a problem with this, you can sort of return them.

So again it's this assumption, and this is a new stage, that these will be distributed throughout the United States. There will not be a face-to-face encounter between maker and consumer, so that you would need to have this sort of publicized warranty in a way that if you actually knew the craftsman 20 years earlier you wouldn't need that sort of published, stamped warranty.

So what Hitchcock's great idea was to take a bit of this and a bit of that, put it together, push it forward with division of labor, and also extensive marketing, and really produce something that's a prototype of a sort of mass-produced object that bespeaks gentility to a wide section of the American public from top to bottom, and do it at a really low price. And that really is what accounts for the popularity of the chair at the time, and I think also its significance for us to sort of look at and talk about.

It's much easier to talk about the making of these than it is the use of them. So we move from something that's available in antique stores or lots of museums, to a painting which is a singular thing. This one, Erastus Salisbury Field’s Joseph Moore and His Family, about 1839 it was done by Field, is that we can see the Hitchcock chairs in the painting.

So paintings are a good iconographic source of, okay, there are these things made, they now sit in museum collections or private collections. But did anyone care? Did anyone use them? And then second, how did they use them? What kinds of rooms did they appear in? Did they appear in porches, as porch furniture? Did they appear as kitchen seats? Or in this case, did they appear in the parlor, the fanciest room of a house?

So, here we have interestingly enough, there's a family of four children, two adults. Everyone is in black, white and black. The father and the mother are sitting in these Hitchcock chairs. They're very brightly—we can see the cornucopia on Joseph's chair along with the striping on the legs that peers out, so this gives you a sense of the vibrancy when these were new.

There's stenciling on the stand right behind the family. In that case, the stenciling is used along with the mirror that's above them to give the imitation of mahogany, of richer wood. So stenciling can be used also as a means of imitation. So there's lots of this faux décor going on.

Because, again, these middling people are looking on one hand to establish a connection to sort of what was once previously luxurious goods, and so they are using, just like the portrait itself, something that used to be beyond the reach of a middling family.

This is a family dressed in their best. This is not an ordinary experience. This was an exceptional experience.

So we often need to look at, what are the moments in a family's lifecycle when a portrait might be made? Marriage. Death. Addition to the family. So again, these are exceptional moments, and we can sort of trace out the lifecycle.

So, this is in some ways like an inventory. It's an inventory of all the nice things that they've acquired, and actually some of these objects that Elmira's holding in her hand, some of the furniture, these two chairs, are actually passed down from the family with the portrait and exist in the same collection at the Museum of Fine Arts. So, we always sort of wonder about that. Are these things sort of like that the portraitist brought in and gave to the family so they could look fancier? Or actually are they their real possessions? Are they their real clothes? So, here we have I think, the jewelry that she's wearing, has passed along in the family collection, so we know that these adornments are theirs.

And then, I think with students it's really fun to work from, what do you see? What are the different things you see? And I think students can do a good job with that to, what do you think they're used for?

What does it mean? What did this portrait mean to the family that commissioned it? What did it mean to the family that displayed it?

This thing is almost six feet wide. It fills a whole wall at the Museum of Fine Arts. You wouldn't know that from this. It could easily be a miniatu&8212;you know, small. So, that's something you really want to sort of make sure that's in there because something that's six feet would take a lot more time, a lot more money.

Now, what's of course most interesting about this one is its title, "Across the Continent, Westward Course of Empire Takes Its Way." It has all the elements, all the stereotypical elements, of the sort of westward movement. We actually know the engraver, Frances Flora Bond Palmer, she’s a—Fanny Palmer as she was called. She's the most famous Currier & Ives employee, and also was a painter in her own right, as a British immigrant.

When I look at it, I see most—first of all a diagonal. It cuts across the image. And what cuts it across is the railroad. The railroad moves from east to west, from one corner to the other corner, as far as the eye can see, the rails go to this sort of featureless line that is the future.

On one side of the diagonal I see a natural scene. It's a heavily constructed natural scene, but nonetheless it is nature. It has a beautiful series of lakes or waterways that move up to a set of Rockies or whatever. Trees as far as one can see along with more of a prairie landscape.

But, right next to the railroad on the immediate foreground are two Native Americans on horses. They are part of the natural world, which again is a stereotype. Sitting on their horses with their spears pointed, or lances, sort of looking somewhat forlorn. In fact, the plumes of smoke from the railway go in their direction, pretty much sort of cover them. So there is a certain element of disrespect going on, that they are being left in the traces of the railway, left behind.

So that is the past. On the other side of the diagonal is a very different scene. This is civilization. This is a cluster of log cabins in the foreground. One in the foremost—closest to us, is a log cabin with a sign emblazoned on it, "Public School." What is more typical, stands in for civilization for these pioneers, is the public school. The engine of progress. The engine of civilization. Whatever community wanted to set up to proclaim that they were connected, you know, to their past and to their future.

So, the railway sort of cuts across. There are people watching, well dressed, sort of watching the railway. There are men all the way on the left that are hacking out, cutting down, trees. So again, it has this 19th-century—the emblem of progress is stripping away the forest, cutting down the trees. The more stumps, the better. This is not an ecological consciousness; this is a progressive consciousness.

And the fact that it's so stereotypical makes it wonderful to use, because it lays out the formulas. It's expansive in its meaning, and thousands of these were made, and thousands of these went up in people's homes on their walls, framed. So it really has the element of sort of mass produced, mass marketed, even though it's made by hand in many of its elements, and distributed widely, and really speaks for these tropes of American memory. What the past is, but more importantly, what the future might be.

The trick I think, with the Fanny Palmer, is of course to teach this as a heavily symbolic image made by an Eastern establishment, rather than a representation of pioneer activity. Almost all the images we have of the West, and this goes through the 19th-century Frederick Remington or others, are made by Easterners. And that's a question itself. So, was this something that—you know, why would someone have wanted to own this? Even better yet, what would someone think about going west if they saw this? Would this make it attractive? Probably, yes, actually, because the Indians are off on one side, civilization's on the other. There are public schools. This looks like, you know, real progress is going on. It's a fairly safe environment.

Now, when we read women's letters at the same time, from the Illinois prairie or from the Oregon or whatever, we often get much more discordant notes about isolation. So, instead of the social thickness of ties here that are easily reproducible and make it attractive for men and women, these women write about the fact that they've lost their friends. Nearest settlement is—nearest farmhouse is three miles away. And maybe only on Sundays, or the men go into town to do business, but they stay home with their ever-increasing family.