Customer Reviews

Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (Harvard Paperback, HP 21)

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An excellent book on several levels. I highly recommend it for all of those interested in American History, Cultural Studies and Sociology.

The purpose of this book is to demonstrate the development of the American myth of the "Garden of the World". Smith argues (persuaively) that the idea of the American continent as a garden: fertile, lush and tamed(or tameable), deeply influenced the course of American history.

As Leo Marx said in his similarly awesome "The Machine in the Garden", the brillance of this book lies in how Smith demonstrates how ideology drives action (or, alternatively: how ideas drive behavior).

Smith divides "Virgin Land" into three parts. Part One "Passage to India" describes the initial path westward and the philosophy of the individuals who pushed for westward expansion (Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Hart Benton, Asa WHitney, William Gilpin and Walt Whitman). By way of a prologue, Smith notes that the idea of "Manifest Destiny" did not develop as soon as the settlers arrived, but rather was developed by American Philosophers and Politicans (and land speculators). In the first Part, Smith describes how the initial push westward was justified via the idea that a passage west would increase trade with the Orient. Smith notes that this idea dervied from 18th century Mercantilist economic theory and was therefore "archaic" (a favorite term of Smith's in this book) from the very beginning.

The Second part of the book ("The Sons of Leatherstocking") uses the literary character of Leatherstocking as an entry point for a discussion of the development of the western hero figure in literature.

A highlight of the book comes in Chapter Ten when Smith discusses the "Dime Novel Heroine". I found his discussion illuminating.

In the third and final part of the book, Smith lays out the characterstics of American Agarianism which would come to define westward expansion after the Civil War. Smith outlines the conflict between Southern Pastoralism and Nort/Western "Yeoman" Agarianism and notes how the Homestead Act was singularly influenced by this second conception of American settlement. He also documents how this same philosophy of agarianism prevented later reform of the Homestead Act even after it became clear to many that the Homestead Act had failed miserably in its goals.

Smith also discusses the struggle by authors to develop authentic western "characters" and relates that struggle to the emegerence of the "Garden of the World" symbol.

This really isn't the forum to tease out all the different issues presented, thoughtfully, in this classic book. I recommend it highly.

Author Henry Nash Smith has written a book which attempts to encapsulate the symbolism and mythology of the American West. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, "...traces the impact of the West...on the consciousness of Americans and follows the principal consequences of the impact in literature and social thought...." The work is based on the theory developed by historian Frederick Jackson Turner which states "...that our society has been shaped by the pull of a vacant continent drawing population westward...." Smith continues this study in Virgin Land through three sections (referred to as books): "Passage to India," "The Sons of Leatherstocking," and "The Garden of the World." Virgin Land's premise is that the American West was settled and developed due to the romanticism and heroics written about in eighteenth and nineteenth century poetry, books, and dime novels.

Although the term "Manifest Destiny" was not coined until the 1840s, American patriot Benjamin Franklin seized on this concept about eighty years before Andrew Jackson's followers. Throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century, Franklin insisted that North America would eventually become the largest jewel in the British crown of possessions. England would at once not only have the largest empire in the world, but the greatest navy, most favorable trade routes, and a towering economic base from which to rule. Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State to President George Washington and as president himself, was an early force in the exploration and development of western areas. Under the guise of scientific exploration, Jefferson commissioned several expeditions. One such event planned by Jefferson while he was ambassador to France was to send a Connecticut traveler named John Ledyard who "...was to go eastward through Siberia to the Pacific Northwest and thence overland across North America to Virginia, but the venture was frustrated by the Empress Catherine [of Russia]." History shows that Jefferson was the president who commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore much of the western portion of the continent. Spain granted the United States permission to map and chart its own territory because Jefferson assured them it was for scientific purposes for the sake of the fur trade. But Jefferson knew that "...a responsible statesman was not likely to forget that geographical knowledge was a necessary preliminary to economic penetration and eventual political domination." Later it was hoped that there would be a western passage to the far east, specifically "...India, with its associated images of fabulous wealth...." Still later in the early 1800s, when passage to India was not available through the American West, it was discovered that the rich soil was suitable for farming and would bring opportunity and wealth to those who conquered and settled the land.

In "The Sons of Leatherstocking," the second section or book within Virgin Land, Smith introduces the reader to Daniel Boone. Although Boone was the subject of folklore both during and after his life, Smith addresses Boone's life thus: "Which was the real Boone - the standard-bearer of civilization and refinement, or the child of nature who fled into the wilderness before the advance of settlement?" Boone's life is explored, albeit on a superficial level, in an attempt to dispel myths that followed him and to support the factual history of his life. James Fenimore Cooper's series of novels, collectively entitled "The Leatherstocking Tales," featured the character Natty Bumppo, who was also known as Leatherstocking, Pathfinder, Deerslayer and Hawkeye. Through descriptions of Cooper's novels, Smith uses this character to discuss the development of the western hero in literature. Kit Carson, Deadwood Dick and Buffalo Bill also fit the western hero mold, as did the "Dime Novel Heroine" like Calamity Jane.

Smith concludes Virgin Land with "The Garden of the World," focusing on the agricultural significance of the American interior. As American settlers progressed westward, a "...new society...was coming into being under the influence of an abundance of land awaiting settlement." Much of this new influence centered on the "Yeoman" farmer who generally worked his own fields along with paid workers. This contrasts the gentleman farmers who did not work the fields on their own but merely oversaw the farm business. Free land on which to farm became more abundant after the Homestead Act was passed which granted one-hundred-and-sixty acres to a person who would live on the land for at least five years. Such a proposal had been in development since the early 1840s but was constantly shut down in Congress by Southerners who feared a threat to plantation slavery. Prior to the Civil War, Congress was split along geographic lines regarding passage of the Act; after the Southern states seceded it passed in 1862. For many reasons, the Homestead Act was a failure, primarily due to land speculation and the railroads selling better quality land that had been previously granted to them. That, coupled with the industrialization of farming, erased the benefit of a country full of small, family-owned farms.

Throughout Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, Smith explores the reasons why Americans living in the Eastern Unites States should move west and settle the rest of the country in order to fulfill its "Manifest Destiny." Through authors like James Fenimore Cooper and his character Natty Bumppo, poetry by Walt Whitman, and dime novels, Americans were supposed to latch onto the idea that the West was filled with action and adventure and thus should drive to the Pacific. Smith does not identify the market these fictitious heroes were meant to target. Did the average American of the nineteenth century have access to printed material or possess the ability to read and understand it? Moreover, he does not satisfy the reader regarding the failures of the Homestead Act. Although Smith refers to works of literature throughout the final section, he fails to explain how such works could have influenced readers to settle the western lands. His work would have had more scholarly impact if he identified the reasons why the works lacked the impact their authors sought.

Smith is clearly an academian yet tackles some rather fun topics like Wild Bill Cody and the prototype American spaghetti western plot. Alongside in this book he recounts the many historical perspectives flawed in their historical accounts by the most famous writers of their time through the period of manifest destiny. Lastly, he takes on the romatic images of the homesteaders in a re-worked story of their evolution as pioneers showing the earliest prejudices from the east.

Our stories have consequences. Such is the claim put forward by Henry Nash Smith in VIRGIN LAND: THE WEST AS SYMBOL AND MYTH. Smith's work attempts to synthesize literary criticism with historical narrative, and in the process created a classic study in American intellectual thought that serves as one of the foundational works of American Studies. Despite the importance of the ideas presented in the book, it is not one I would recommend to the casual reader. The author's ideas are not worth the time it takes to get through Smith's difficult prose and organization unless one has a special interest in the culture of 19th century America.

VIRGIN LAND is based upon an assumption that pervades the work of many twentieth century scholars of American history: the Westward expansion of the republic was the defining aspect of America's development and history. While Smith begins with an idea common to many contemporaries, he approaches the Westward expansion in a fashion remarkably different than the Turnerians of his age. Smith's focus is on symbols and myths, the "units of intellectual construction that fuse concept and emotion into an image" - in this case, the image of the American West (1). Unlike the work of historians prior, VIRGIN LAND maintains that it was not the physical frontier itself that served as the driving force of American democracy and expansion, but the *symbol* of the great unsettled expanse that held such power. The way 18th century Americans thought about the West is more important an aspect of American history than the material features of the land itself. As Smith tells it, the victory of sentiment over fact is the story of American history.

Smith presents the myth of the West as two dueling narratives: "There is on the one hand the notion of empire as command of the sea, and on the other hand the notions of empire as a populous future society occupying the interior of the American continent" (13). While the first narrative seems at odds with western imperialism, Smith posits that the ideal of maritime commercial power was inseparable from continental expansion. The connection between command of the sea and command of the West is forged by the mythical "passage to India" - the hope that if America could reach the Pacific, she could destroy her dependence on Europe by trading with Asian peoples, thus allowing "the most despotic and free of nations [to] become friends united in opposition to a Europe which was determined to dominate them both" (28). Smith traces this line of thought through history, starting with its beginnings with Thomas Jefferson's desire to find a Northwest Passage, moving to the claims of Antebellum statesmen such as Thomas Hart Benson and William Gilpin that a Western trade route would make international commerce "more democratic" (27), and concluding with Walt Whitman, whose poetry described an America who shall "chant the world on my Western sea" (45).

While the first section of the book is devoted to exploring this theme, the third section of VIRGIN LAND is devoted to the second symbol of the American West, which Smith terms "The Myth of the Garden". According to this myth, the West is a new Eden, a land in which the forests of North America are destined to be an agrarian paradise for the yeomen farmer of the young republic. Surprisingly, this view also has its antecedents with Jefferson, whose vision of a republic led by independent farmers forms the basis of the myth. Smith sketches the myth's enlargement with time, documenting its manifestation in the literature of antebellum America, Republican Party convention planks, and the frontier thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner.

This section is by far Virgin Land's finest. In the public's eye, the vision of America as the world's garden seemed to have beaten out that of America as a maritime empire. The result is that Smith only has musings and poems to fill the first section of the book; the closing section, in contrast, details the tangible effects of the myth presented. The Republican free-soil laws are a fair case in point. They never would have been endorsed or conceived had not America's "untranscated destiny" been to "subdue the continent" and transform it into a farming paradise (38). The symbol of the West as a garden also transformed American foreign policy. From the myth can be found the roots America's longstanding isolationist strain: "Since evil could not conceivably originate within the walls of the garden, it must by logical necessity come from without, and the normal strategy of defense was to build the walls higher and stop the cracks in them" (186).

Yet the myth did not always fit so closely to reality. The prime example is the doctrine of the "safety valve", the idea that the West could release the pressures of industrialization and mass immigration by tapping excess workers and allowing them to start an independent life on the plains. With a few rare exceptions, this never happened - the frontier was the realm of middle class farmers, not the urban poor. Thus the frontier served as "an imaginative construction which masked poverty and industrial strife with the pleasing suggestion that a beneficent nature stronger than any human agency, the ancient resource of Americans, the power that made them rich and great, would solve the problems of industrialization" (240). Americans perceived the platonic ideal to be reality. For them, truth and symbol had become one and the same.

For no one was this truer than Frederick Jackson Turner. Virgin Land concludes with an essay on the famous historian's frontier thesis; Turner - and his thesis - comes out the worse for it. For Smith, Turner's work is not a representation of reality, but of dreams, visions, and desires. Turner did not explain the true forces propelling American history forward: he articulated the explanation given to him by one hundred years worth of mythologizing. Turner serves as the prophet for the Myth of the Garden, the greatest champion of a symbol not aligned with reality.

VIRGIN LAND `s criticism of the Turnian narrative of Westward expansion was ground-breaking for its time. This does not mean, however, that VIRGIN LAND was without fault. Most damaging to Smith's thesis is the assumption that the collection of high literature, senatorial pontifications, and academic theorizing showcased throughout VIRGIN LAND is representative of the actual opinions held by the American populace. While it is unreasonable to expect a historian to have a perfect knowledge of the public's pulse in an age without Pew opinion polls, a historian should be able to explain why certain pieces of literature or punditry can be considered representative of the period. In VIRGIN LAND, the question simply is not considered.

The book is further inhibited by the author's poor organization and writing style. Sandwiched in between the two sections of the "Myth of the West" are chapter length vignettes of frontiersmen like Daniel Boone and Kit Carson and literary essays on the dime store novels and the Leatherstocking tales. While interesting in their own right, these chapters are entirely unrelated to the author's thesis and are not woven into the book with any discernible narrative. They read as a collection of random essays thrown into the middle of book on a slightly related theme - and that they are. A quick look at the footnotes reveals that most of the chapters had previously been published, without change, in various historical and literary journals before the book's publication.

This failure in organization is only half the reason it remains a hostile work to the non-specialist: Smith's utterly wretched diction makes this short book a long read.

These are the only shortcomings in an otherwise well argued book. Indeed, when viewed as the intellectual history of the elite that it really is, VIRGIN LAND shines. Both thought provoking and meticulously researched, VIRGIN LAND is a necessary book for the library of serious scholars of America's 19th century culture and expansion. However, if you are not one of these scholars, give this one a pass.