The Term "West"
The frontier line--the outer line of settlement—moved steadily westward from the 1630s to the 1880s (with occasional movements north into Maine and Vermont, south into Florida, and east from California into Nevada). The "West" was always the area beyond that boundary. Most often, however, the term "American West" is used for the area west of the Mississippi River during the 19th century. Thus, the Midwest and parts of the American South, though no longer considered "western," have a frontier heritage along with the modern western states.
Read more about this topic: American Frontier
Famous quotes containing the words term and/or west:
“... feminism is a political term and it must be recognized as such: it is political in women’s terms. What are these terms? Essentially it means making connections: between personal power and economic power, between domestic oppression and labor exploitation, between plants and chemicals, feelings and theories; it means making connections between our inside worlds and the outside world.”
—Anica Vesel Mander, U.S. author and feminist, and Anne Kent Rush (b. 1945)
“The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)