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The prairie frontier provided an opportunity for settlers to create an entirely new society, far from any old world influences. However, regardless of this opportunity for a new utopian community, [...]

Discourses of entrepreneurship and research on women entrepreneurs have proliferated in the last two decades. This study argues that a particular conception of an entrepreneurial self underlies much literature on women entrepreneurs and their empowerment, and identifies several key assumptions of this entrepreneurial self. The study then assesses the motivations and experiences of several white women entrepreneurs in a northwestern state in the United States, finding that aspects of the entrepreneurial self are most evident in the reasons that women provide about why they became entrepreneurs. However, the experiences the women narrate reveal a more constraints-centered discourse, which features a particular interpretation of the frontier myth of the American West, and bears traces of an emergent, collective notion of empowerment. The authors explain such empowerment from critical and feminist perspectives, offering the concept of bounded empowerment as a lens through which to examine entrepreneurship and gender, and discussing its practical implications. Keywords: Discourse; Empowerment; Entrepreneurial Self; Entrepreneurship; Frontier Myth; Feminism; Gender; Intersectionality; Whiteness

My interest in western women's history and the history of gender developed from my graduate study in California Indian history in the 1970s. In those days there was simply no [...]

The evolution of frontier landscapes in the American Great Basin and in southeastern Australia was dictated by the particular world views of their European settlers. In the Great Basin, the Mormon religion was at the core of the landscape that emerged, with Mormon settlers making decisions according to the church concerns and goals. Cooperation, community and the need for progress thus underscored their occupation of the region. In the Murray Valley in southeastern Australia, meanwhile, religion played a marginal role, owing to the lack of religious commitment among majority of the convicts and immigrants.

New ethno-cultural interpretations of the Wild West myths re-examine the concept of 'Vanishing American' and bring into focus the enormity of the historical events. The American ploy of pitting Indians against each other in frontier combats won them the West, while the Indians gradually annihilated themselves in inter-tribal conflicts. The primacy accorded to business interests in the frontier territories precluded Americans of involvement in invasions and conquests. However, the worst is now history as the remaining Indians are a growing population, able to compete in the national quest for power, money, and status.

The feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s inspired many women historians to write about women and their role in frontier development in America. Although, the main activity of these women was domestic, during later stages of frontier development, many were involved in commercial activity including prostitution. These recovered histories provide places for white, African American and Chinese women who played important roles in frontier development. Traditionally, women have been either ignored by frontier history or described in male-defined ways, a pattern established by Frederick Jackson Turner.

It is estimated that over 375,000 people left the Commonwealth of Virginia between 1830 and 1840. Many left to seek economic opportunities in the expanding West and South, some left because they had depleted the soil they used to farm and others left because they were sold as slaves to support the South's growing agricultural economy. As Virginians spread over these frontiers they carried many aspects of the material and social culture with them. Photographs and paintings from the era show some of the material culture they introduced to other parts of the US.

A Civil War of Incorporation took place in the American West between 1850 and 1920. This Civil War pitted the proponents of capitalistic consolidation against Indians, farmers, small ranchers and others who resisted incorporation. About 42 violent clashes were fought between incorporation gunfighters, who tended to be Republican and from the North, and resister gunfighters, who tended to be Democratic and from the South or Texas. Both sets of gunfighters espoused a code of honor that discouraged walking away from a fight and both groups became important in western mythology.

Individuals settling new areas have had to rely on a variety of resources, including the social structures inherent in their culture. This study focuses upon the elements of family, kinship and origin in part of nineteenth-century Ontario. It approaches them from the perspectives of interaction over distance and of sociological institution, the particular institution being that of land conveyancing. Data drawn from the surviving parts of the personal and agricultural schedules of the Census of Canada for 1851/52 were searched for the propinquity of individuals to one another. Social interaction seems to have occurred within two miles for most people. Random samples and a series of t-tests suggest that there were no differences in proximity for the members of the different cultural groups but that there were differnces between immigrant and established groups with respect to the desires of kin for proximity to one another. These differences were paralleled by differences in the structure of the family. Kinship was also important in determining to whom land was sold; most sales occurred within the particular community. That this was so suggests, according to the model of Steeves, that the level of integration in mid-century Essex was simply embryonic.

The borderland culture of Northern Mexico and Southwestern United States has resulted from the free exchange and intermingling of Spanish, Indians, Mexicans and Americans values and ideas. A general history of the US-Mexican borderland region is presented. Contributions in this area by historians, such as Charles Gibson, Hubert Hugh Bancroft and David Weber are discussed. The development of medical practices in the region is also described.

The economic and labor mobilities, wealth accumulation, and other economic aspects of frontier areas of America during the 19th century, with reference to various essays on the United States ecomomic history, are discussed.