History of the American Frontier

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History

For many years, a single volume covering the "History of the West" did not exist. Paxson’s masterwork rectifies this problem – offering an essential, sweeping account of the American West and westward expansion from 1763-1893.

The American pioneer is followed to every frontier for nearly 150 years across fifty-nine chapters. Full of world-class insight, Paxson masterfully paints a picture of how the land mass of the United States was settled – starting with English settlers in New England to the wayward expansion across the continent and ending with the sunny shores of California.

Paxson’s literary genius does not shine in quotations from secondary and source material; he has made his material a part of himself. Indeed, rather than conforming to a social history, Paxson takes a historical, geographic, and pragmatic view of Westward expansion. He masterfully covers American history from the War for Independence to the Louisiana Purchase, conflicts with Native Americans and Civil War, Presidential edicts from Washington to Roosevelt, and even offers keen insight into the little-studied intricacies of frontier finance and the inside workings of canal and railroad corporations.

“Future historians will gratefully remember Mr. Paxson for essaying a task which others had either shirked or felt themselves incompetent to perform.”

This is a must-read for any student of American history.

About the Author: Frederic Logan Paxson was an American historian, President of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, and possessed undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a master's from Harvard University. As a historian, he was an authority on the American frontier and won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for this work.

Chapters of this work Include:
The American Frontier of 1763
The Forks of the Ohio
The Shenandoah Country and the Tennessee
The Rear of the Revolution
The Land Problem
Creation of the Public Domain
The National Land System
The Old Northwest
The Western Boundaries
The First New States
Political Theories of the Frontier
Jeffersonian Democracy
The Frontier of 1800
Ohio: The Clash of Principles
The Purchase of Louisiana
Problems of the Southwest Border
The Bonds of Unity
The Wabash Frontier: Tecumseh, 1811
The Western War of 1812
Stabilizing the Frontier
The Great Migration
Statehood on the Ohio: Indiana and Illinois
The Cotton Kingdom: Mississippi and Alabama
Missouri: The New Sectionalism
Public Land Reform
Frontier Finance
The American System
Jacksonian Democracy
The East, and the Western Markets
The Western Internal Improvements
The Permanent Indian Frontier, 1825-1841
The Mississippi Valley Boom
The Border States: Michigan and Arkansas
The Independent State of Texas
1837: The Prostrate West
The Trail to Santa Fe
The Settlement of Oregon
The “State” of Deseret *
The War with Mexico
The Conquest of California
Far West and Politics
Preemption
The Frontier of the Forties
The Railroad Age
Land Grants and the Western Roads
Kansas-Nebraska and the Indian Country
“Pike’s Peak or Bust!”
The Frontier of the Mineral Empire
The Overland Route
The Public Lands: Wide Open
The Plains in the Civil War
The Union Pacific Railroad
The Disruption of the Tribes
The Panic of 1873
Frontier Panaceas
The Cow Country
The Closed Frontier
The Admission of the “Omnibus” States
The Disappearance of the Frontier