LAUSR

This article analyzes representations of the American West in The Nation magazine during the expansionist era of the 1870s. It traces an arc of growing anxiety regarding three central issues associated with western settlement and development: institutional scientific exploration, land policy, and Indian policy. Focussing primarily on the decade in which the magazine's peak circulation and, presumably, influence coincided with important developments regarding the aforementioned issues, the essay argues that The Nation’s coverage of the West, produced and circulated within a privileged and circumscribed social sphere and deeply inflected by the priorities of capital, provides counterpoint to widely shared optimism regarding the development of the region that stood as an emblem of the nation's future.