Description
Book SynopsisThe first American frontier lay just beyond the Appalachian Mountains and along the Gulf Coast. Here, successive groups of pioneers built new societies and developed new institutions to cope with life in the wilderness. This book tells the dramatic story of these men and women from the first Kentucky settlements to the closing of the frontier.
Trade Review. . . a library would not be complete without this work.
-- Ginette Aley * Alabama Review *
. . .[a] classic that has significantly affected how American frontiers are conceived and how frontiers west of the Appalachian Mountains have been interpreted.July 2009
-- Warren R. Hofstra * Shenanadoah University *
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
A Note on Citations, Quotations, Maps, and Place Names
Introduction
Part I. Across the Mountains
1. The Struggle for Security
2. The Search for Stability
3. Security and Stability in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio
Part II. The Widening Frontier, 1795–1815
4. The Reach of Government and the Authority of Law Spread across the Western Country
5. Diverse Economies Moving toward Commercial Ends
6. Many Varied Societies Emerge across the Western Country
Part III. The First Great Migration, 1815–1830
7. Across the Old Northwest and into Missouri
8. The Flowering of the Cotton Frontier
Part IV. The Enduring Frontiers
9. Michigan: The Great Lakes Frontier
10. Florida: A Sectional Frontier
11. Arkansas: A Frontier More West than South
Part V. The Second Great Migration, 1830–1850
12. The New Counties of Alabama and Mississippi: A Frontier More South than West
13. The Last Frontier of the Old Northwest: Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin
Part VI. The Trans-Appalachian West and the Nation
14. Villages, Towns, and Cities Spread across the Western Country
15. Changing Political Patterns across Three Generations
16. The Trans-Appalachian West and the Nation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
