Jones' book examines American Frontier living
Reviewed by Robert Hartje

In her latest book, Daily Life on the 19th Century Frontier (Greenwood Press, 1998), Mary Ellen Jones, professor of English, has given those of us interested in the Western part of this nation not a new West but a deeper understanding and appreciation of the people, the land, and the history of that important American region.

Employing the tools of American Studies, which she so vigorously extends into the life of her students, Jones uses the tools of several disciplines to describe a region and not a section of the United States.

Intermingling the writings of the many different people entering the West as settlers, observers, visitors or invaders, with the observations of prominent scholars who have studied this vast region, Jones weaves a picture both exciting and informative to challenge old images with new ones and to create new myths more substantial than many that have served as our authorities past.

Misunderstanding and misrepresenting the West have been too long a part of the story of this vast region.

From the pulp writers of the late l9th century to the Hollywood presentations of our own time, the West has been most often described in terms of cowboys, outlaws, land barons, dry gulches, prostitutes and saloons, leaving it as semi-real in a nation in which it has played its vital roles with integrity.

Following a topic outline, relating heavily to the outlines of Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous l893 essay, “The Significance of Frontier in American History,” Jones quickly removes the veil of myth from the West and leaves a more elaborate and meaningful tale of what really happened in this vast frontier.

Hers is not an explanation of what the frontier means in American democracy, but what really happened in a world settled by Easterners but characterized by those who faced its challenges and left a remarkable heritage.

Writing in the fashion of the new history that seeks the language and the personal feelings of the common American, Jones tells story after story of what took place in the lives of those we too often fail to consider as we attempt to put the past into proper perspective: notes from a family living in a crude “dugout” and having to call it home, words of an Army officer’s wife from a distant frontier post, plaintiff words from a Cheyenne Indian being dispossessed of the world he knew and loved, words of journalists, explorers, military officers, and men and woman exploring and conquering a new frontier — these are the voices heard from the West in Professor Jones’ book.

One must read a few pages to become comfortable with Jones’ style of presentation, somewhat foreign to the narrative style of Parkman, H.H. Bancroft and Motley.

But as images flash across the pages, one quickly senses the excitement of the new approach, which often challenges interpretations offered by Gunsmoke, Lonesome Dove and so many other visual and written images heretofore presented.

Reflections of those who were there present a mosaic of Western life: what they ate, how they lived, the challenges they faced, how they responded, and most important what they thought of the world in which they were so crudely thrust.

In these pictures of history, women, Indians and other minorities enshrined only in history’s shadows emerge in clearer focus. From Professor Jones’ interpretations, we can know the real West. She has written this work as a labor of love in which we can joyously share.

Robert Hartje retired from Wittenberg in 1988 after 32 years of teaching. During his tenure, Hartje, professor emeritus of history, chaired the history department and served as the director of American Studies. His courses included the History of the South and Civil War History. He is the author of Bicentennial USA: Pathways to Celebration and Earl Van Dorn, The Life and Times of a Confederate General. He and his wife, Martha Feldkircher Hartje ’44, live in Saluda, N.C.