Faragher Essay, Research Paper

Faragher: Beyond the Western Frontier

After reading Faragher s and Dippie s essays, I found a lot of simularities and differences in their writing and their comments. They both seem to agree on the view of Turner s comments and it seemed people agreed with these views but his views were never challenged. Once people like Faragher and Dippie challenged Turner s views, people went from agreeing with Turner s views to opposing these views. It seems that today in this century, people are questioning the works of people and organizations. They are questioning the theories and opinions of this countries past and present icons. The most recent thing is the controversy at the University if Wisconsin. In the past few weeks the university is facing a problem with their brochure that they sent out to incoming freshmen. The pamphlet features a picture at a Wisconsin football game and which a young black college student is pictured between crowds of white college students. The controversy starts when a former Wisconsin student looked over the pamphlet and saw that the African-American man was a friend of hers. It seems that this African-American student hated football and especially hated Wisconsin football. The fact is that the University of Wisconsin inserted this man in the picture of the white crowd. The university is now facing a possible lawsuit because they tried to portray and show that the university had a diverse student body. It just shows that how our society might consider a view as a fact but unless this possible fact is investigated, society may never know the real truth.

On the aspect of Faragher, he seems to react the same way as people today. Turner s views on the west are based on a broad basis. They basically only contained the adventures of white males and no women or African-Americans were even mentioned in his article. Turner s view as basing Native Americans as savages also showed the time this article was written. In today s society we look at women and African-Americans as being people not possessions. Everybody looks and communicates differently on what is history, and what the importance is. Everybody has different views on the west , and sees it in a farsighted view. Unless you were present in that time, the only views you get are the essays that were written one hundred years ago.

The thing that I got out of the articles that dealt with the west is that people see history and frontiers differently. I myself see things differently, and I think the point of us reading these boring articles is to show that people see things differently, even our nation s history. These readings brought an awakening to what I see as being the truth. And that I should investigate things in which I think might be controversial.