Cultural Filters: The Significance of Perception in the History of the American West

Abstract

rT he geographic region of the American West has done much to shape the culture and character of the United States. Conversely, the culture and character of the United States has reshaped much of the western landscape. Frederick Jackson Turner told us as much in 1893. He argued that the West molded American culture because it was a frontier, a meeting ground between savagery and civilization. Because frontier, for Turner, did not mean a specific place, the geographic realities of the Far West played no important role in his thinking. I argue instead that the West has shaping power because of its unique geography and not necessarily because it was or is a frontier. Its significance comes from the fact that in a certain part of the American continent, particularly the lands west of the 100th meridian, Americans came up against a series of landscapes that defied their notions about utility and beauty. The region's strange appearance combined with national expectations about its uses created a volatile mixture of geography and culture. Distinctive and unfamiliar landscapes presented explorers, travelers, and settlers with perceptual challenges. What was the West? What did it look like? How could it be first understood, then lived upon, made profitable, or consumed? Meeting this challenge with new methods of interpretation forced Americans to make sense of their surroundings and, at times, distort the landscape. These shifting perceptions reflected the ways in which American culture defined itself-and this is the significance of perception in the history of the American West. Other historians have made observations along these lines. Walter Prescott Webb devoted a career to the distinctive characteristics of the