1. New Docent Training | Thursday, December 7, 2017 The West as Place

2. The West has been a powerful idea and a tabula rasa
Saul Steinberg, View of the World from 9th Avenue, 1976

3. Mapping Exercise

4. Frontier Line http://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/001/
Boundaries and frontiers are critical in our discussions of the west because without them we can’t “Go West.”

5. The Great Plains

6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZCvUroBpaE “Unorganized territories”
The Federal Gov’t has no control over day-to-day operations

7. The West and “New Western History”
Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (1957)
Instead of pioneers, early explorers and settlers in the West are depicted as conquerors, exploiters who raped the environment and took land away from Indians and Hispanics
Cowboys are depicted as would-be unionized laborers who actually struck for higher wages and better working conditions in the Texas Panhandle in 1883
“Frontier” had become a bad word because it traditionally denoted the line between civilization and savagery—but Indians had their own civilizations

8. Survey of Western historians
Where/what is the West?
59%
15% 3% 2%
15%
17%
29%
22%
The Unambiguous West
Survey of Western historians

9. The West?
--A place?
Of course, but in the 1970s, historians were pointing out the obvious: that the events that occurred there were not always democratic or progressive
--A process?
Frederick Jackson Turner defined the West as a process that took place as immigrants moved westward—a democratizing process that helped define the American character
University of Texas historian Walter Prescott Webb tried to apply the idea to frontiers the world over
--Our creation myth?
The westward expansion is, in many ways, the story of our country, our book of Genesis, our legend of Romulus and Remus
--Obvious conflict between “place” and “myth”

10. Google Image Search for “the Frontier”

11. American West Google Image Search

12. Excerpt from The West

13. Considering your Object…
Is it reflective of a place or an idea?

14. Considering your Object…
How does it relate to:
Movement
Conflict
Work
Opportunity

15. Considering your Object…
How can you make this object personal and relevant for the visitor?

16. Next Session: Multiple Narratives