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Mari Sandoz: Portrait Of A Swiss American Author, Laura Villiger

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Land of Promise, where the gold flows, where buffaloes roam in big herds attracting adventurous hunters, where Redskins are chased and defeated by cowboy heroes-these are some of the ideas people in the 19th century commonly held about the American West. Even today, the Old West is often associated with the same pictures. But we also know today that these pictures largely belonged to a myth--a myth propagated in Europe as well as in the so-called 'civilized' East of the American continent. It helped to take hold of the Western territory not only in people's minds, but also in reality.