A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary.
West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Manifest destiny was a phrase that represented the belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). The belief was rooted in American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism, implying the inevitable spread of the Republican form of governance. It was one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism in the United States of America.
The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last few contiguous western territories as states in 1912. This era of massive migration and settlement was particularly encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, giving rise to the expansionist attitude known as "manifest destiny" and historians' "Frontier Thesis". The legends, historical events and folklore of the American frontier, known as the frontier myth, have embedded themselves into United States culture so much so that the Old West, and the Western genre of media specifically, has become one of the defining features of American national identity.
Edgar Dewdney, was a Canadian surveyor, road builder, Indian commissioner and politician born in Devonshire, England. He emigrated to British Columbia in 1859 in order to act as surveyor for the Dewdney Trail that runs through the province. In 1870, Dewdney decided to take up a role in Canadian government. In this year, he was elected to the Legislative Council of British Columbia as a representative from the Kootenay region. In 1872, he was elected as a Member of the Parliament of Canada for the Yale region representing the Conservative party. He was reelected to this position in 1874 and again in 1878. Dewdney served as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories from 1879 to 1888, and the fifth Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia from 1892 to 1897. Additionally, he served as the Indian commissioner in the North-West Territories from 1879 until 1888. In 1897, Dewdney retired from politics and began working as a financial agent until his death in 1916.
The Treaty with the Kalapuya, etc., also known as the Kalapuya Treaty or the Treaty of Dayton, was an 1855 treaty between the United States and the bands of the Kalapuya tribe, the Molala tribe, the Clackamas, and several others in the Oregon Territory. In it the tribes were forced to cede land in exchange for promised permanent reservation, annuities, supplies, educational, vocational, health services, and protection from ongoing violence from American settlers. The treaty effectively gave over the entirety of the Willamette Valley to the United States and removed indigenous groups who had resided in the area for over 10,000 years. The treaty was signed on January 22, 1855, in Dayton, Oregon, ratified on March 3, 1855, and proclaimed on April 10, 1855.
Rain follows the plow is the conventional name for a now-discredited theory of climatology that was popular throughout the American West and Australia during the late 19th century. The phrase was employed as a summation of the theory by Charles Dana Wilber:
God speed the plow. ... By this wonderful provision, which is only man's mastery over nature, the clouds are dispensing copious rains ... [the plow] is the instrument which separates civilization from savagery; and converts a desert into a farm or garden. ... To be more concise, Rain follows the plow.
Columbia, also known as Lady Columbia, Miss Columbia is a female national personification of the United States. It was also a historical name applied to the Americas and to the New World. The association has given rise to the names of many American places, objects, institutions and companies, including the District of Columbia; Columbia, South Carolina; Columbia University; "Hail, Columbia"; Columbia Rediviva; and the Columbia River. Images of the Statue of Liberty largely displaced personified Columbia as the female symbol of the United States by around 1920, and Lady Liberty was seen as both an aspect of Columbia and a rendition of the Goddess of Liberty. She is the central element of the logo of Hollywood film studio Columbia Pictures.
The discovery doctrine, or doctrine of discovery, is a disputed interpretation of international law during the Age of Discovery, introduced into United States municipal law by the US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823). In Marshall's formulation of the doctrine, discovery of territory previously unknown to Europeans gave the discovering nation title to that territory against all other European nations, and this title could be perfected by possession. A number of legal scholars have criticized Marshall's interpretation of the relevant international law. In recent decades, advocates for Indigenous rights have campaigned against the doctrine. In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the doctrine.
"Pioneers! O Pioneers!" is a poem by the American poet Walt Whitman. It was first published in Drum-Taps in 1865. The poem was written as a tribute to Whitman's fervor for the great Westward expansion in the United States that led to things like the California Gold Rush and exploration of the far west.
Expansionism refers to states obtaining greater territory through military empire-building or colonialism.
American pioneers, also known as American settlers, were European American, Asian American, and African American settlers who migrated westward from the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States of America to settle and develop areas of the nation within the continent of North America.
Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way is a 20-by-30-foot painted mural displayed behind the western staircase of the House of Representatives chamber in the United States Capitol Building. The mural was painted by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze in 1861 and symbolizes Manifest Destiny, the belief that the United States was destined for Western exploration and expansion originating from the initial colonies along the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. A study measuring 33+1⁄4 by 43+3⁄8 inches hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
The Discovery of America is a large marble sculptural group, created by Luigi Persico, which adorned the front of the east façade of the United States Capitol building from 1844 to 1958, before being put into storage.
The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820–1920 was an art exhibition organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1991, featuring a large collection of paintings, photographs, and other visual art created during the period from 1820 to 1920 which depicted images and iconography of the American frontier. The goal of the curators of The West as America was to reveal how artists during this period visually revised the conquest of the West in an effort to correspond with a prevailing national ideology that favored Western expansion. By mixing New West historiographical interpretation with Old West art, the curators sought not only to show how these frontier images have defined American ideas of the national past but also to dispel the traditional beliefs behind the images.
John Gast was a Prussian-born American painter and lithographer.
Niagara is an oil painting produced in 1857 by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church. Niagara was his most important work to date, and confirmed his reputation as the premier American landscape painter of the time. In his history of Niagara Falls, Pierre Berton writes, "Of the hundreds of paintings made of Niagara, before Church and after him, this is by common consent the greatest."
Western American Art includes artistic work which depicts the subjects related to the Western American region, and was treated as impoverished, unwanted and unworthy art before the twentieth century, during which period it achieved respectability as a rewarding region for studying. The term holds a characteristic of narration that is different from the Modern art which focuses on abstraction. For the narration, Western American art focuses on subject than style. Considering as a national art, the subjects are distinct from the European art, namely, there is no elements from other region like Europe. Cowboys and Indians are two well-known subjects and they consist the important part of artistic work of Western American art, demonstrating the daily life and activities of cowboys and American Indian in western American.
The Progress of Civilization is a marble pediment above the entrance to the Senate wing of the United States Capitol building designed by the sculptor Thomas Crawford. An allegorical personification of America stands at the center of the pediment. To her right, a white woodsman clears the wilderness inhabited by a Native American boy, father, mother, and child. The left side of the pediment depicts a soldier, a merchant, two schoolchildren, a teacher with her pupil, and a mechanic.
