The American West and settling of the plains and prairies during the mid-to-late 19th century is a narrative fascination that still holds sway in today’s culture. Recent streaming services developed and offered the popular shows “Yellowstone,” “1883,” and “Longmire,” which together illustrate the collective impact the era of “manifest destiny” that still holds in the American imagination.
Much of this fascination in popular culture is an extension of the 1950s-60s Western film and television cycle that focused heavily on the rugged individualism of postwar America and its citizens.
However true or exaggerated this snapshot of history may be, few narratives focused on the experience of prairie life of the many immigrants and early European settlers in the West. Germans, Swedes, and newly freed slaves all fled to the plains looking for a better way of life, but the reality was tough and unforgiving….
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