The New West, redefined by Caroline Lockhart
At one point in my research into Caroline Lockhart, I considered centering The Cowboy Girl on the “New West.”
For 15 years I’ve heard people talking about the New West, often with vague or changing ideas of what the phrase means. Because Lockhart loved the Old West but arrived in the region in 1904, after the frontier had “closed,” she struck me as an interesting lens through which to offer some radical perspectives on the alleged newness of the New West. (It helped that “Old West - And New” was the title of one of her novels -- published in 1933.)
In the end I rejected that approach for the book. I thought Lockhart’s story had a lot to say on its own terms, and did not need to be filtered through a contemporary New West discussion.
But I’m very pleased to be able to present some of my Lockhart/New West arguments in an article, “When Cowboys Became Capitalists and the West Became New” (link is a pdf), published in the current issue of Drumlummon Views.
I’m also delighted to be part of Drumlummon Views, the Montana-based online-only literary magazine. Browsing through this issue is like catching up with friends old and new in the Montana cultural scene. There are contributions from Russell Rowland, Rick Newby, and Ken Egan, and I was particularly drawn to Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs’ piece on Bert Hansen, whom I had written about before.
I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com
For 15 years I’ve heard people talking about the New West, often with vague or changing ideas of what the phrase means. Because Lockhart loved the Old West but arrived in the region in 1904, after the frontier had “closed,” she struck me as an interesting lens through which to offer some radical perspectives on the alleged newness of the New West. (It helped that “Old West - And New” was the title of one of her novels -- published in 1933.)
In the end I rejected that approach for the book. I thought Lockhart’s story had a lot to say on its own terms, and did not need to be filtered through a contemporary New West discussion.
But I’m very pleased to be able to present some of my Lockhart/New West arguments in an article, “When Cowboys Became Capitalists and the West Became New” (link is a pdf), published in the current issue of Drumlummon Views.
I’m also delighted to be part of Drumlummon Views, the Montana-based online-only literary magazine. Browsing through this issue is like catching up with friends old and new in the Montana cultural scene. There are contributions from Russell Rowland, Rick Newby, and Ken Egan, and I was particularly drawn to Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs’ piece on Bert Hansen, whom I had written about before.
I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com
