Pioneers, Cowboys, and Big Ideas

[ScoutTN]

I am thinking about creating a high school English class based on literature about the American West. So anything from frontier days through early 20th century. Mountains, deserts, horses and cowboys! Anything fiction: novels, short stories, plays, or poetry.

I have a few works in mind, but would love to know what the Hive would suggest. What do you love that fits this category?

 

Eta: @Lori D.  I'd love your take on this!!

Edited December 31, 2019 by ScoutTN

[ScoutTN]

True Grit is absolutely on my list!

[annegables]

BUd and Me!!!!! It is a book about the Abernathy brothers and is a wonderful glimpse into that time. Their dad was the last US marshall for the Oklahoma Territory and is famous (Catch'em Alive Jack). Oh, it is a low level for high school. Oops.

Around the World in 80 Days takes place in the 1870s and the second part of the novel takes place in the American West. 

 

[annegables]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Lonesome Dove. Texas Rangers, cattle, treking to Montana- it's got it all (also prostitutes, so fair warning there). I read the covers off this book all through junior high and high school. It's one of the only westerns I've ever liked, much less Loved. 

That is so funny to me. I thought the book was like this: 200 pages of nothing but talking, starving, and wandering. Then Blue Duck shows up and does something out of my nightmares. 200 more pages of nothing. Blue Duck!! Starving and wandering. More Blue Duck! The end.

I possibly got some of the details wrong. Like there might have been more wandering and less starving. Oh, and I think the wandering had a purpose, so it was just walking and not wandering. For me, it was the literary equivalent of watching a man walk a marathon with 30 sec commercial breaks for a horror movie.

Edited December 31, 2019 by annegables
more info

[Little Green Leaves]

A little off topic, but related -- I really liked "Giants in the Earth." It's about Norwegians who moved to the Dakotas in the late 19th century.

And maybe something by Louise Erdrich? the stuff I know by her is mostly set in the 20th century, so it wouldn't work for you, but she has a series of historical novels for young adults. The Birchbark House series.

[Quercus]

Louis L'Amour

https://www.amazon.com/Louis-LAmour/e/B000AQ2TE4/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Letters of A Woman Homesteader

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Homesteader-Elinore-Pruitt-Stewart/dp/1406830534

[Lori D.]

What a fun idea! My first thought: I'd be sure to try and capture the many different perspectives and voices of the west -- there's a tendency to think of stories about the West as only being about white male cowboys. 😉 The most well-known Westerns all tend to fall into that category. 

If you're wanting to capture the West over time, while I'm not sure I'd consider them at "classic lit." level, you might include Bret Harte, Zane Grey, and Louis L'Amour -- if nothing else, you can discuss how their books had a huge impact on how Americans view the West.

One thing I'd consider doing is to set the stage and discuss events how big a role things like the Civil War, Reconstruction, inventions (the telegraph, i.e.), the transcontinental railroad, etc., played in the development of the West. A lot of people drifted West who could not find a place in the East. And then of course, you'd want to look at big themes like the clash of East (civilization/rules/etc. vs. untamed nature/individualism).

Here are a few ideas -- I have read most, but not all, so some are being suggested with "no personal experience" (lol):

short stories:
- The Luck of Roaring Camp (Bret Harte) -- written/set in 1868
- The Outcasts of Poker Flats (Bret Harte) -- written/set in 1869
- Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Stephen Crane) -- written in 1898; set in late 1870s/1880s

young adult:
- Sing Down the Moon (Scott O'Dell) -- set in AZ/NM of mid-1860s; Native American; female protagonist
- The Great Turkey Walk (Kathleen Kerr) -- written in 2000; based on a true story, set in 1859, traveling from Missouri to Colorado; includes escaped slave character
- The Stout-Hearted Seven (Frazier) -- based on the true story of family of children orphaned on the Oregon Trail in 1848
- True Grit (Charles Portis) -- written in 1968; set in 1875 Arkansas/Oklahoma ("Indian Territory")
- Hattie Big Sky (Kirby Larsen) -- written in 2006; set in Montana 1917; 16yo orphaned girl inherits her uncle's homesteading claim
- Where the Broken Heart Still Beats: Story of Cynthia Ann Parker (Meyer) -- Native American POV; set in Texas of 1870s
- Shane (Shaefer) -- written in 1949; set in Wyoming 1889; mysterious stranger rides in and helps a homesteading family in the middle of a cattlemen/homesteader "war"

novellas:
- The Ox-bow Incident (Clark) -- morality tale about a lynching; set in 1885

novels:
- News of the World (Paulette Jiles) -- beautiful, powerful; harsh realities of southern Texas post Civil War, with a redemptive ending
- Thief of Time (Tony Hillerman) -- contemporary (late 1980s) West; mystery; setting: 4-corners area of the West; Native American
- Ceremony (Leslie Marmon Silko) -- set in 1960s/70s; Native American returning from Vietnam; NOTE: some mature content; beautiful book, with Navajo myths woven throughout
- Riders of the Purple Sage (Zane Grey) -- written in 1912; his most famous novel; involves cattle rustling, gun fights, horse thief, kidnapping, and polygamous Mormons, set in Utah 1871


This Art of Manliness website article lists just about all the traditional well-known Westerns and authors -- again, not necessarily classics, and most fall in the narrow window of the West from the western white male cowboy POV, where Native Americans are "savages" and women are either stoic keepers of the hearth and home, or prostitutes.  MANY of the titles on this list  were turned into classic Western films -- so that's another thought: maybe read one and then watch/compare/discuss the film?

Edited January 2, 2020 by Lori D.

[8filltheheart]

I might add To Build a Fire to Lori's list.

[ScoutTN]

Thanks for all the great ideas!

I am thinking not exclusively the "cowboy" west, but also possibly anything related to the settling of the land west of the Mississippi. Frontier generally. 

Definitely will include some works written from Native American perspective or about their experiences.   

 

[Rachel]

On 12/31/2019 at 1:55 PM, Little Green Leaves said:

A little off topic, but related -- I really liked "Giants in the Earth." It's about Norwegians who moved to the Dakotas in the late 19th century.

And maybe something by Louise Erdrich? the stuff I know by her is mostly set in the 20th century, so it wouldn't work for you, but she has a series of historical novels for young adults. The Birchbark House series.

Giants of the Earth is one of my all time favorite books. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Rachel

[Rachel]

I have read many books that would fit what you are looking for, but I read most before I really started tracking my reading about 9 or 10 years ago. Here is a few that I have read more recently.

Fiction:

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. O Pioneer or My Antonia are great too. Really, I enjoy most of Willa Cather’s writings. 
 

Non-Fiction:
Trials of the Earth: the True Story of a Pioneer Woman by Mary Mann Hamilton. One of the few pioneer stories that I have read that is set further south.

For a sad but true tale, The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. I read this a few years ago and only rated it 3/5 stars although I don’t remember why I gave it that rating. 
 

The Worst Hard Time: the Untold Story of Those who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan (might be a bit too recent for what you are thinking).

There are many great picture books on Native Americans that I have picked up for my kids at different museum gift shops.  One of the best bookstores I found for these types of books was at Wall Drug in South Dakota, but their inventory does not appear to be online.

Here are some links to gift shops I have visited in the last couple of years that had a good selection of books that focus on Native Americans or Pioneers.

Mesa Verde National Park

 South Dakota Art Museum

Crazy Horse Memorial

I’m sure there are many other great artists but Harvey Dunn is a South Dakota artist known for depicting pioneer settlers.

[Lori D.]

For poetry... Well, there is a whole genre of Cowboy Poetry, but the bit of it that I've looked at strikes me as formulaic and maudlin. Perhaps look at a few of the best-known Cowboy ballad songs that are more widely known?? Things like: 

possibly "The Streets of Laredo"
or "El Paso"
or even "Rawhide"
or "Ghost Riders"
or  possibly "Clementine" -- the Western mining ballad

 Again, none are "classics", but worth having familiarity with them. And to discuss the cultural/historical aspects.

I would probably just do a few accessible contemporary poets/poems who are from the West. Some ideas (all contemporary, living poets writing in free verse):

Joy Harjo (OK) -- Muscogee Nation poet; she frequently includes Native myths, imagery, and ideas in her poems
Luci Tapahonso (NM) -- Navajo Nation poet laurete; she first writes in her native language, then translates to English, which gives her works a unique rhythm
Alberto Rios (AZ) -- Latino American; he grew up on the Mexico/Arizona border, so many of his poems carry Latino images and cultural ideas, and the theme of border crossing; some of his poems are lighter, or have a sense of humor to them

Side note: I actually got to attend one of Alberto Rios' live readings, and he is a great natural teacher. After his reading, he spoke about poetry and writing, and he was talking about how the grammatical structure of Spanish is different than English, and as a result, your focus and the way you think about things is incredibly different. He gave the example of dropping his water bottle on the floor, and then said, "In English, I would say, 'I dropped the bottle'. In Spanish I would say, 'The bottle dropped." In English, that sentence structure echoes a mindset that has "me" as the focus, and the action as secondary; that also leads to having a mindset that is naturally focused on direct personal involvement and responsibility in the event of the bottle hitting the floor. In Spanish, the sentence structure echoes the mindset of the "other" being the focus, and that it is an observed event, and less to do with personal responsibility and more to do with awareness of the things/environment around you.

But I digress... 😉 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Lori D.

[ScoutTN]

High school course, so no children's lit will be included.

[blue plaid]

I will echo the recommendation for Giants in the Earth by Rolvaag.  

[Random]

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls is a great read!  It's an accurate account of ranching life in Arizona in the early 1900s.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is very good, not fiction though.  But a good counterpoint to the "manifest destiny" type stuff.  

Dragon's Teeth by Michael Creighton is a great read, very much a page-turner, about the hunt for fossil bones in the old west.  Very well researched historically, though certain parts and pieces of the actual Cope/Marsh rivalry are patched together from multiple years to make them appear as a narrative over the course of one year or so.  

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Also a note on Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee- the chapters are arranged basically by tribe and conflict, and you may be able to use just excerpts that correspond to another book being read.  Not being a "history person", I will struggle to show a decent example, but I'm guessing the time when Laura Ingalls sees the Indians being forced out of the Prairie (and wants Pa to steal the Indian baby for her) would correspond to a chapter in the book.  The book would read just fine in a piecemeal manner like this and probably better than just reading from beginning to end as it is long and somewhat dry.  I'm reading it now, actually, and enjoying it, but I won't have my kids read it until we go through US history a second time at a more adult level, and I'll probably take the piecemeal approach.  I'm sure the table of contents is available on amazon preview.      

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Another one:  Desperate Passage, about the Donner Party.   Relatively gripping historical narrative.  

[ScoutTN]

17 minutes ago, Spudater said:

Patrick McManus is a humor writer, so not really literature, but if you want a very authentic “voice” for early 1900s mountain west, I don’t think you can beat him. The way he tells stories is exactly the same as my grandpa.  Actually his stories from his childhood are the the only American writer that feels truly local *to me* (I just can’t feel any affinity for Twain or Hawthorne, for example, even though technically they’re my fellow Americans).  Plus he’s hilarious. 

We love his writing!

[daijobu]

If you are including non-fiction, I just finished:

Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West by Christopher Knowlton.

The best part is about the Johnson County Massacre, but there's a lot of interesting history of Scottish and British investment in cattle operations, stockyards and railroads, etc.  Barbed wire and Teddy Roosevelt play a role here.