Megan Kate Nelson has often been surprised by the misconceptions people have about the West.
Raised in Littleton, Colorado, in a family of avid road-trippers, she had visited 45 states by the time she started at the College in 1990. Nelson said classmates (who’d presumably spent less of their summers in the family car) would ask, “Did you ride your horse to school?” “I grew up in the suburbs!” she’d say. “No, I didn’t ride my horse to school.”
And those students weren’t alone. Nelson ’94 came to understand over decades of historical research how incorrect the founding myth of westward expansion was: that white men single-handedly brought American ideals to the undeveloped frontier along the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails and shaped the West.
In her new book, “The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier” (Scribner), the Pulitzer Prize-finalist historian puts forth a sprawling, interwoven saga through the stories of diverse, dynamic individuals who traveled and settled west of the Mississippi as the U.S. expanded its boundaries and influence in the 19th century.
Nelson’s story runs through seven protagonists, whose paths intersect as they criss-cross American territory, and sometimes beyond it.
