Overview of the West
In addition to Dr. White’s survey history of
the West (listed in “General Resources”),
you may want to read these two more specialized studies:
White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires,
and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
White, Richard and John M. Findl, eds. Power and
Place in the North American West. Seattle: Center
for the Study of the Pacific Northwest in association
with University of Washington Press, 1999.
White, Richard. “Western History” in The
New American History. Edited for the American Historical
Association by Eric Foner. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1997.
Richard Overton wrote extensively on the Burlington
Railroad:
Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines.
New York, Knopf, 1965.
Perkins Budd, Railway Statesmen of the Burlington.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982.
Virginia Scharff discusses women in the West in this
issue. These recent books on various ethnic groups in
the region may be helpful:
Millington, Monroe Lee, and Roger D. Hardaway, eds.
African Americans on the Western Frontier.
Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1998.
De León, Arnoldo. Racial Frontiers: Africans,
Chinese, and Mexicans in Western America, 1848-1890.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.
McWilliams, Carey. North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking
People of the United States. New York: Greenwood
Press, 1990.
Nugent, Walter T. K. Into The West: The Story of
Its People. New York: Alfred A. Knopf: 1999. A
good survey of the process by which the area was populated.
For the desolation of Western agriculture in the first
third of the 20th century, see:
Hurt, R. Douglas. The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural
And Social History. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981.
Lookingbill, Brad D. Dust Bowl, USA: Depression
America and the Ecological Imagination, 1929-1941.
Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001.
For the effects of the Depression and World War II on
urban areas in the West, see:
Lotchin, Roger W. The Bad City In The Good War:
San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Diego.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Mullins, William H. The Depression and the Urban
West Coast, 1929-1933: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle,
and Portland. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1991.
Starr, Kevin. Embattled Dreams: California in War
And Peace, 1940-1950. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002.
Lotchin, Roger W., ed. The Way We Really Were:
The Golden State in the Second Great War. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2000.
The fascinating story of the development of hydroelectric
power in the West is well told in:
Brigham, Jay L. Empowering the West: Electrical
Politics Before FDR. Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 1998.
and
Roe, David. Dynamos and Virgins. New York:
Random House, 1984.
This collection of essays explores African-Americans
on the Pacific Coast:
de Graaf , Lawrence B., Kevin Mulroy, and Quintard
Taylor, eds. Seeking El Dorado: African Americans
in California. Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western
Heritage, 2001.
For basic introduction to issues and impact of Japanese-American
internment, start with:
Ng, Wendy L. Japanese American Internment During
World War II: A History and Reference Guide. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.
The best study of the development of defense and aerospace
industries in the West is probably:
Lotchin, Roger W. Fortress California, 1910-1961:
From Warfare to Welfare. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992.
Internet Resources
While the Pacific Coast defense industries are better
known, almost every Western state’s industrial
economy and social fabric felt the impact of World War
II. For example, look at Roger D. Launius’s excellent
essay on Utah’s defense factories and Japanese
internment camps in the State’s fine Utah
History Encyclopedia at the “History to Go”
website
http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/
There’s much to choose on the Web for studying
the Chinese-experience in the West. These are just samples:
The “Chinese Immigration to the United States”
element of American Memory:
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/feature/timeline/riseind/chinimms/
“Chinese Experience” segment of PBS’s
“Becoming American” series has a good page
providing links to materials on history of this group
of our society:
http://www.pbs.org/becomingamerican/ce_resources.html#general2
Harpweek serves us again with a free segment on these
immigrants, offering articles and graphics from Harper’s
Weekly on Chinese Americans, introduced by William
Wei’s able “The Chinese-American Experience:
An Introduction”
http://immigrants.harpweek.com/chineseamericans/1Introduction/
Be sure to look at the “index by content”
section which will take you to images of Harper’s
Weekly articles and graphics – just great.
At the moment, the Internet doesn’t serve the
history of 19th and early 20th century Japanese immigrants
quite as well, but the Japanese American National Museum
in Los Angeles is just getting started with a Web presence.
Keep an eye on their site:
http://www.janm.org/visit/
and do take a look at “100 Titles” –
basic reading on Japanese American experience:
http://www.janm.org/nrc/100_titles.php
And finally, check out this excellent website on the
Dust Bowl:
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/depwwii/dustbowl/
