The Golden West: Bookmark

              ORIGINS

OF

A

NATIONAL

MYTH

GOLDEN WEST
REPORT ON THE LANDS OF THE ARID REGION OF THE UNITED STATES John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) First Edition Printed for the use of the Congress, 1878 J. W. Powell was one of the first to clearly and systematically acknowledge the natural conditions that determine life in the Westmaridity, rainfall uncertainty and relentless sun. He "pierced through the misconceptions of the West to the realities. His career was an indomitable effort to substitute knowledge for the misconceptions ... He was a great man and a prophet, long ago he accomplished great things and now we are beginning to understand him ... even out West." (Bernard DeVoto in the Introduction to Beyond the Hundredth Meridian by Wallace Stenger) (In print.) THE WESTERN WRITINGS OF STEPHEN CRANE Edited and with an introduction by Frank Bergon New American Library, 1979 Stephen Crane was one of the few writers in the late nineteenth century to recognize how the myth of the West had become part of its historical reality, according to editor Bergon. Crane's classic western short stories - "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" and "The Blue Hotel" - are included in this fine anthology along with his sketches, letters, and the reports he filed with a national newspaper syndicate during an 1895 trip through Texas and Mexico. Crane's contention in much of his writing is that the end of the Old West was brought about by Westerners wooing Eastern investers and settlers, not by "civilization" encroaching upon a wild and virgin territory. (In print.)

WRITERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE: ORIGINS OF A NATIONAL MYTH brings the early Southwest to life with popular literature, films, museum artifacts, illustrations and discussions with scholars in libraries throughout the region. GOLDEN WEST programs are the second in a series of four. Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and administered by the Tucson Public Library, P.O. Box 27470, Tucson, Arizona 85726:7470 (602) 791-4391.