Save Whom from Destruction? Alaska Natives, Frontier Mythology, and the Regeneration of the White Conscience in Hudson Stuck\u27s The Ascent of Denali

A literary criticism of the book The Ascent of Denali (1914) by Hudson Stuck is presented. It explores the impact of the closing of the frontier and the industrial modernization of the U.S. wherein frontier mythology became important to the well-being of the males of the progressive era. It notes that Stuck has undermined and destabilizes frontier ideologies by sympathizing with the Natives of Alaska

The U.S. Mint, the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, and the Perpetuation of the Frontier Myth

The article analyzes coins, mostly nickels, created by the U.S. Mint that aim to celebrate the Lewis and Clark expedition and the role of Native Americans in it, focusing specifically on how the U.S. Mint has obscured historical reality by ignoring the imperialist aspects of the expedition. The author first explains the importance of coins to a sense of national identity in the U.S. The Euro-American tradition of describing Native Americans as either ignoble or noble savages is examined by the author. The author describes these depictions of Native Americans as part of a white American national myth that justifies Native displacement. Specific emphasis is given to the portrayal of Sacagawea on a golden dollar

Larry Watson\u27s Montana 1948 and Euroamerican Representation of Native/Euroamerican History

Like other recent films and texts, Larry Watson\u27s Montana 1948 is preoccupied with the legacy of the U.S. conquest of Native America and the ongoing colonial relationship between the U.S. and Natives. But Montana 1948 also self-consciously calls attention to the problems endemic to Euroamerican efforts to revision Euroamerican/Native history. Watson suggests that at best most Euroamericans engage in shallow, self-congratulatory pieties to relieve themselves of guilt in regard to Native America, and that when it comes to telling stories about Euroamerican interaction with Indians, these stories are mired in tired Indian representations that mystify material history and the ongoing colonial status of Natives in the United States. Through his flawed narrator, Watson underscores that Euroamericans must be more rigorously self-critical as they engage questions of representation and their own deeply held colonial desires when telling history

Exploration and Adventure in the 19th Century American West: Introduction

This section introduces several articles on the writings about U.S. history