Manifest Destiny Research Paper

Words: 2244
Pages: 9

Gabby Paterson Colloquium II CA3 Draft Essay Trailblazing and Colonizing: Exploring Gender Roles and Manifest Destiny The American West is a place full of history of exploration and development. A place where the wild of the West was tamed by courageous men who were called to conquer the new land. Through conquering this land, Americans displaced many of the Indigenous people in the area. Many Americans at the time believed that it was their destiny, given to them by God, to claim the land and civilize the savage Indigenous people. This phenomenon is commonly known as Manifest Destiny. Although there were many drawbacks to this discriminatory doctrine, settlement in the west provided new opportunities for women to gain independence and break …show more content…
Gender and identity are deeply intertwined, and this paper will investigate how Manifest Destiny indirectly provided women the chance to change their narrative in society. In this paper, a painting from the Hudson River school encouraging manifest destiny will be linked to a letter by Isabella Bird to display how manifest destiny opened a door for women to gain a new purpose through settlement and exploration. Emerging around 1825, the Hudson River School was America’s first artistic fraternity and was composed of a variety of different landscape painters from New York City. The school was founded by landscape painter and English émigré, Thomas Cole. Although Cole played no significant role in the fostering of the school, his work was an inspiration that motivated others to follow his trail. Before his death in 1848, Thomas Cole was the teacher of Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt (Avery). This paper will highlight one of Bierstadt's paintings titled The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak (Appendix 1). This particular work was painted when Bierstadt returned from his travels in the west in