The Smithsonian Library, 1927

Research

The American West Institute maintains an active reading list, updated regularly, that allows our diverse network of scholars to read, digest, and review a group of published, high-quality articles in the field of relevant study. This page is the hub of our reading group, where valuable articles can be perused and form the basis for lively, ongoing online discussion and debate. We welcome the public at large to enjoy these excellent works of scholarship.

  1. Warriors for a Nation: The American Indian Movement, Indigenous Men, and Nation Building at the Takeover of Wounded Knee in 1973 Matthias André Voigt, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 45:2 (2021). Examines the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee through the lens of Indigenous masculinity and nation-building within the American Indian Movement.
  2. Denial of Genocide in the California Gold Rush Era: The Case of Gary Clayton Anderson Jeffrey Ostler, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. A historiographical rebuttal to revisionist denial of genocidal violence against California Indians during the Gold Rush.
  3. The Violent Legacies of the California Missions: Mapping the Origins of Native Women's Mass Incarceration Jackie Teran, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 40:1 (2016). Traces a documented line from violence at the California missions to the contemporary mass incarceration of Native women.
  4. The Legacy of Introduced Disease: The Southern Coast Salish George M. Guilmet, Robert T. Boyd, David L. Whited, and Nile Thompson, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Charts the demographic and cultural impact of European-introduced epidemic disease on the Southern Coast Salish peoples.
  5. Border Securitization as Settler Colonialism James M. Hundley, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Argues that U.S.–Canada border enforcement operates as an ongoing instrument of settler colonialism against border-spanning nations such as the Blackfoot.
  6. “I Was Brought to Life to Save My People from Starvation and from Their Enemies”: Pahukatawa and the Pawnee Trauma of Genocide Mark van de Logt, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Reads the Pawnee narrative of the spirit-warrior Pahukatawa as a cultural response to nineteenth-century genocide and starvation.
  7. Reproductive Justice, Sovereignty, and Incarceration: Prison Abolition Politics and California Indians Stephanie Lumsden, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 40:1 (2016). Connects the history of Native incarceration in California to contemporary reproductive-justice and prison-abolition politics.
  8. Sounding the American West: Nostalgia, Patriotism, and National Identity in Rodeo's Musical Landscape Lauren Olivia Vanderlinden, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara (2022). A musicological study of how Wild West shows, cowboy bands, and early rodeo entertainment constructed American national identity.
  9. The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804–1806 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Project Gutenberg edition. The expedition's own daily journal record, from departure on the Mississippi in 1804 to their return to St. Louis in 1806.
  10. “A Peculiar Set of Men”: Nebraska Cowboys of the Open Range James E. Potter, Nebraska History. A social history that separates the working nineteenth-century ranch hand from his later mythic reputation.
  11. The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons John Wesley Powell (1875; National Park Service reprint). Powell's own account of the first expedition to run the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869.
  12. Dress Up for Big Boys: Cowboy Culture of the Urban Rodeo Jamie R. Noulty, M.A. thesis, Simon Fraser University (2020). A gender studies thesis on costume, performance, and masculinity within the contemporary urban rodeo scene.
  13. The Significance of the Frontier in American History Frederick Jackson Turner (1893). Turner's landmark address arguing that the frontier's closing was the defining force in shaping American character and democracy.
  14. Indigenous Artists, Ingenuity, and Resistance at the California Missions After 1769 Yve Barthelemy Chavez, Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA (2017). Recovers the artistic labor and creative agency of Indigenous artisans within the California mission system.
  15. From Tovaangar to the University of California, Los Angeles: The Transfer of Gabrielino-Tongva Homelands from Time Immemorial to the Present Theresa Stewart-Ambo and Kelly Leah Stewart, UCLA eScholarship. Traces the dispossession of Gabrielino-Tongva homelands from precolonial Tovaangar to the present-day UCLA campus.