Westward Expansion: Image vs. Reality

The story of westward expansion is central to 19th-century U.S. history, but the way it is told has varied. Newspaper reports, pamphlets, and images published in the eastern U.S. during the mid-19th century often emphasized the bountiful resources, tranquility, and comfort of the West, obscuring the harsh conditions that settlers often faced. In addition, eastern U.S. stereotypes of American Indians as "savages" doomed by the advance of "civilization" often worked to justify expansion and obscure the complexity of American Indian lives and livelihoods.

Examine the sources and decide whether they were created in the eastern or the western U.S.