When I started researching this book on the West, the problem wasn't finding sourcesâit was finding
too many
sources. A history nerd like myself (actually I prefer to think of myself as a “story detective”) can get so excited about exploring all the amazing stories that he never actually writes a book. Or gets paid. What I'm trying to say is that I went through a lot of books. Below is a list of the books and others sources in which I found all the great stuff you read in this book (you did read it, right?). I hope it's helpful.
Books about the West
As always, I started by reading books that give an overview of all the action and major players. These books cover America's westward expansion, Indians, mountain men, miners, cowboys, pioneers, railroads, and lots more. They also introduced me to tons of great charactersâpeople I made sure to find out more about in other books.
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Barnard, Edward S.
Reader's Digest: Story of the Great American West
. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association, 1977.
Lavender, David.
The Great West
. New York: American Heritage, 1985.
Stegner, Page.
Winning the Wild West: The Epic Saga of the American Frontier, 1800â1899.
New York: Free Press, 2002.
Utley, Robert M., ed.
The Story of the West: A History of the American West and Its People.
New York: DK Pub., 2003.
Ward, Geoffrey C.
The West: An Illustrated History.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1996.
Wexler
,
Alan.
Atlas of Westward Expansion
. New York: Facts on File, 1995.
Books and articles about territorial expansion and trails west
The sources here cover a lot of ground (literally). They're all about the rapid expansion of United States, along with stories about early American traders, travelers, and settlers. Speaking of expansion of the United States, how come no one's ever made a movie (a comedy, I mean) about Livingston and Monroe in Paris, trying to figure out if they should buy half a continent from France? Hey, I'd see it.
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Ambrose, Stephen.
Undaunted Courage
:
Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Brands, H. W.
Lone Star Nation: How a Ragged Army of Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independenceâand Changed America.
New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Cerami, Charles.
Jefferson's Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon, and the Men Behind the Louisiana Purchase.
Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2003.
Christensen, Carol and Thomas.
The U.S.-Mexican War: Companion to the Public Television Series, The U.S.-Mexican War, 1846â1848
. San Francisco: Bay Books, 1998.
Corbett, Christopher.
Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express
. New York: Broadway Books, 2003.
Dary, David.
The Oregon Trail: An American Saga
. New York: Knopf, 2004.
âââ.
The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Eisenhower, John S. D.
So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846â1848
. New York: Random House, 1989.
Golay, Michael.
The Tide of Empire: America's March to the Pacific
. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003.
Hansen, Todd, ed.
The Alamo Reader: A Study in History
. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2003.
Hyslop, Stephen.
Bound for Santa Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American Conquest, 1806â1848.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
Kukla, Jon.
A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America
. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Leckie, Robert.
From Sea to Shining Sea: From the War of 1812 to the Mexican War, the Saga of America's Expansion.
New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Lyon, E. Wilson.
The Man Who Sold Louisiana: The Career of Francois Barbé-Marbois
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1942.
Matovina, Timothy, ed.
The Alamo Remembered: Tejano Accounts and Perspectives
. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
McLynn, Frank.
Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails.
London: Jonathan Cape, 2002.
Morris, Larry E.
The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers After the Expedition
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
O'Sullivan, John. “Annexation.”
United States Magazine and Democratic Review
17, no. 1 (JulyâAugust 1845): PP NOs.
Ronda, James P.
Lewis & Clark Among the Indians
. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
Schlissel, Lillian.
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey.
New York: Schocken Books, 1982.
Stewart, George R.
Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party
. New York: H. Holt and Co., 1936.
Tucker, Robert W., and William C. Henderson.
Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Utley, Robert M.
A Life Wild and Perilous
:
Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific
. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
Webb, Walter Prescott.
The Handbook of Texas
. Austin: Texas State Historical Society, 1952.
Books and sources on the gold rush and miners
If you were an American in 1849, do you think you'd have joined the gold rush? I'm betting most miners would probably have stayed home if they'd known how hard it was going to be to strike it rich. Too bad for them that they couldn't read the books belowâall about how hard it was to strike it rich. These sources also show us how different the gold rush experience was for men and women, and for people from different parts of the world.
Andrist, Ralph K.
American Heritage: The California Gold Rush
. New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1961.
Egenhoff, Elisabeth L.
The Elephant as They Saw It: A Collection of Contemporary Pictures and Statements on Gold Mining in California
. California Division of Mines, 1949.
Holliday, J. S.
Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
âââ.
The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.
Johnson, Susan Lee.
Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush
. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000.
Ketchum, Liza.
The Gold Rush
. Boston: Little, Brown, 1996.
Lapp, Rudolph M.
Blacks in Gold Rush California
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
Lavender, David.
The Rockies
. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Levy, Jo Ann.
They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
Perl, Lila.
To the Golden Mountain
. Tarrytown, N.Y.: Benchmark Books, 2003.
Ridge, John Rollin.
The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955.
Walker, Dale L.
Eldorado: The California Gold Rush
. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2003.
Wallace, Robert.
The Old West: The Miners
. New York: Time Life Books, 1976.
Yung, Judy, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai, eds.
Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
Books about railroad building
Way back when I started this project, my idea was to make the whole book about the building of the transcontinental railroad. So, maybe it wasn't a great idea. But you have to admit, the railroad race was exciting stuff, and actually getting the thing built was one of the great engineering feats of all time. These books tell all about the people who pulled it off.
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Bain, David Howard.
Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad
. New York: Viking, 1999.
Blumberg, Rhoda.
Full Steam Ahead: The Race to Build a Transcontinental Railroad
. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1996.
Brown, Dee.
Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow: Railroads in the West
. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977.
Coolidge, Susan. “A few hints on the California Journey.”
Scribner's,
vol. 6, May 1873.
Earl, Phillip.
This Was Nevada
. Reno: Nevada Historical Society, 1986.
Grenville, Dodge.
How We Built the Union Pacific Railway.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910.
Jenson, Oliver Ormerod.
The American Heritage History of Railroads in America
. New York: Random House, 1994.
Klein, Maury.
Union Pacific: Volume I, 1862â1893
. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Mayer, Lynne Rhodes, and Ken Vose.
Makin' Tracks: The Saga of the Transcontinental Railroad
. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1975.
Seymour, Silas.
Incidents of a Trip Through the Great Platte Valley.
New York: D. Van Norstrant, 1867.
Williams, John Hoyt.
A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad
. New York: Times Books, 1988.
Books and articles about pioneers and cowboys
What do you think was harder, being a cowboy or a homesteader? Both seem pretty tiring. Maybe women pioneers had it the toughest. Anyway, the books below give thousands of incredible details about just how challenging life was for cowboys and pioneersâway more good stuff than I could cram into one book.
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Conrad, Pam
. Prairie Visions: The Life and Times of Solomon Butcher
. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Dick, Everett.
The Sod-House Frontier: 1854â1890
. Lincoln, Neb.: Johnsen Publishing Co., 1954.
Forbis, William H.
The Old West: The Cowboys
. New York: Time Life Books, 1973.
Horn, Hurston.
The Old West: The Pioneers
. New York: Time-Life Books, 1974.
Katz, William Loren.
The Black West
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
McNeal, Thomas Allen.
When Kansas Was Young
. New York: Macmillan Co., 1922.
Miller, Nyle H. “An English Runnymede in Kansas.”
Kansas Historical Quarterly
41 (1975): PP. Nos.
Nebraska Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences
. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1916.
Painter, Nell Irving.
Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction
. New York: Knopf, 1977.
Stratton, Joanna L.
Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.
Books about Native Americans and the Indian wars
These books tell some of the most interesting, excitingâand depressingâstories in American history. What's great about these sources is that they include the Indian point of view of key events, as well as direct quotes, memories, and stories from Native American participants.
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Andrist, Ralph K.
The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indians
. N.Y.: Collier Books, 1964.
Brown, Dee.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
Coutant, C. G.
The History of Wyoming,
vol. 1. Laramie, Wyo.: Chaplin, Spafford & Mathison, 1899.
Fort Laramie Treaty, 1868. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
Goodrich, Thomas.
Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865â1879.
Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2002.
Grinnell, George Bird.
The Fighting Cheyennes
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956.
Hoig, Stan.
The Sand Creek Massacre
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.
Hyde, George E.
Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968.
Nerburn, Kent.
Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce
. San Francisco: Harper-SanFrancisco, 2005.
Olson, James C.
Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem
. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965.
“Red Cloud, Sioux Chief, Dead.”
New York Times,
December 11, 1909.
Stefoff, Rebecca.
American Voices from the Wild West
. Tarrytown, N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish, 2006.