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Article: Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West.
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- October 22, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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RELATIONS OF RESCUE: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West
Western history is not what it used to be. Gone is the saga of the taming of the West (an ethnocentric concept if ever there was one), and with it the horse operas of cowboys and Indians, redolent of sagebrush and exuding optimism. The myths of the American West are, one by one, being picked off by a group of young historians who judge them to be as full of bunk as the moonlight-and-magnolias rendition of the Old South. Even Frederick Jackson Turner, who argued for the unique legacy of America's frontier, has fallen out of vogue. "We don't use the 'F' word anymore," jokes Patricia ...