Week 2 - 3: All 'Deep-Dive' Research into The American Frontier (Circa 07 - 17/10/2019)

Here is all the research I did during Weeks 2 to 3 of phase 1 for my first topic, the American Frontier. It was as in-depth as I could make it, for the time constraint, and some of it may have been omitted or changed for the presentation, due to some research being more relevant or developed than other bits.

Research

1. The American West/Frontier

The American Old West, ‘Wild West’ or American Frontier refers to the time in American history where settlers from the south of America mass migrated west to find undiscovered land and settle down there, in order to build a new life for themselves.

The territorial expansion lasted from the year 1607 to 1912, with its myth lasting from 1850 to 1920. However, these dates vary slightly from each American West historian.

Oxford Dictionaries typically defines ‘Wild West’ as “The western US in a time of lawlessness in its early history. The Wild West was the last of a succession of frontiers formed as settlers moved gradually further west. The frontier was officially declared closed in 1890.”

The American Frontier is arguably the defining process of American civilisation.

Basically, the idiom of ‘Wild West’ is used in general conversation to describe something that has yet to fully develop and has quite a few perceived dangers about it as a result of this underdevelopment. For example, I’ve heard some people refer to an early YouTube as the ‘Wild West’ on account of its unorganised nature, ‘lawlessness’ and unpredictability. This idiom obviously derives from the definition of the actual American Frontier, where settlers would gradually make their way west to scratch a civilisation from virtually nothing but barren land.

This journey and feat was exceptionally dangerous and had a very high death rate because almost everything could kill you. This included starvation, a whole host of diseases, the suns heat, dehydration, feral animals, criminals and bandits, poisonous plants, malnutrition and accidental gunshot wounds.

Romanticism and Misconception

Multiple media over time has used the American West as the focus for its stories, obviously the biggest culprit being the film industry, where the Western genre was once the most reliable, popular and prolific genre of them all. Other media includes television shows such as Bonanza and Gunsmoke, comic books, games such as Red Dead Redemption, Call of Juarez, GUN, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath.

However, the case with most of these (although not all) is that they portray the time through a romanticised lens. This stems from the Western films of the 1950s where characters would generally be very ‘clean’ and desirable so as to appeal more to the audience of the time. Certain realistic attributes cannot really be seen in these films, such as trail dust or mud on characters and certainly no blood since the sight of blood was considered obscene. Even extensive violence was toned down in these films to not lose audience and producer appeal. Characters, when shot, would tumble to the floor almost comedically with barely a scratch visible. This is why the Westerns The Searchers and The Wild Bunch were considered graphic for their time, depicting characters who, when shot, would writhe on the floor and scream in pain. despite not being 1950s Westerns.

These films would not generally go into depth about disease, but it would be mentioned if a character had one. Other elements were exaggerated in these films as well, such as chaos and anarchy.

Week 2: 07/10/2019 - 13/10/2019

Week 3: 14/10/2019 - 20/10/2019