Jay Gitlin

Histories tend to emphasize conquest by Anglo-Americans as the driving force behind the development of the American West. In this fresh interpretation, Jay Gitlin argues that the activities of the French are crucial to understanding the phenomenon of westward expansion. The Seven Years War brought an end to the French colonial enterprise in North America, but the French in towns such as New Orleans, St. Louis, and Detroit survived the transition to American rule. French traders from Mid-America such as the Chouteaus and Robidouxs of St. Louis then became agents of change in the West, perfecting a strategy of “middle grounding” by pursuing alliances within Indian and Mexican communities in advance of American settlement and re-investing fur trade profits in land, town sites, banks, and transportation. The Bourgeois Frontier provides the missing French connection between the urban Midwest and western expansion.

French Towns, French Traders, and American Expansion

The Bourgeois Frontier

In 1938, the first year of its publication, Connecticut Circle magazine covered the opening of the Merritt Parkway in June, a devastating hurricane in September, and a transformative election in November that saw Raymond Baldwin replace Governor Wilbur Cross on the brink of WWII. Covering the news, recreation, literary figures, and politicians, and above all—the achievements and products of the state, Connecticut Circle entertained, promoted, and projected the image of a bustling state with more than its share of creative citizens and renowned institutions of higher learning. Its readership included not only proud Nutmeggers, but potential tourists, and more than a few Mr. and Mrs. Blandings contemplating—the state's board of realtors hoped—a potential move from New York City to an ancient colonial homestead made newly accessible via the Merritt Parkway or the New Haven Railroad. The magazine was saturated with ads and articles that presaged the state's residential (and suburban) future, and people and events of this dramatic time come alive in this large collection of articles from Connecticut Circle magazine, as Connecticut defines itself for the modern era. With an illuminating introduction and context-setting headnotes for its thirteen sections, this volume provides a wealth of fascinating articles for anyone seeking to reminisce, and understand the values that pushed Connecticut into the postwar world.

Connecticut Circle Magazine Reimagines the Nutmeg State, 1938–1952

Country Acres and Cul-de-Sacs

Robert Michael Morrissey

Peter J. Kastor

A gateway to the West and an outpost for eastern capital and culture, St. Louis straddled not only geographical and political divides but also cultural, racial, and sectional ones. At the same time, it connected a vast region as a gathering place of peoples, cultures, and goods. The essays in this collection contextualize St. Louis, exploring French-Native relations, the agency of empire in the Illinois Country, the role of women in “mapping” the French colonial world, fashion and identity, and commodities and exchange in St. Louis as part of a broader politics of consumption in colonial America. The collection also provides a comparative perspective on America’s two great Creole cities, St. Louis and New Orleans. Lastly, it looks at the Frenchness of St. Louis in the nineteenth century and the present. French St. Louis recasts the history of St. Louis and reimagines regional development in the early American republic, shedding light on its francophone history.

Landscape, Contexts, and Legacy

French St. Louis

William Cronon

George A. Miles

Essays examine the significance of the frontier in American history, the bases of a western identity, and the themes that connect the twentieth-century West to its more distant past

Jay Gitlin

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