The transformation of the west from a rude
and boisterous frontier to a group of states, soon rivaling their
parent communities in population and wealth, was not unlike the
process through which Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and Virginia
passed as colonies, except that the inland people accepted ideals
and standards originally English, but worked out and put into shape
by their colonist fathers.
As the volume treats of the nation, and not simply of any section,
it contains three chapters (i., ii., iii.) on the social and
political life in New England, the middle region, and the south. The
next four chapters are a systematic account of the west as the
settler and the traveler saw it. between 1820 and 1830. In chapter
v., on Colonization, the settlers are traced from their old homes to
their new ones by road and river. Chapter vi., off Social and
Economic Development, is a picture of frontier life in the forest
and on the farm; chapter vii. brings into relief the need of a
market and the difficulty of reaching tide-water with western
products--a subject taken up again in the two later chapters on
internal improvements; chapter viii.
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