Pioneer & Frontier Life

In American history, a pioneer is any of the people who migrated west to join in settling and developing new areas, especially those who settled any territory previously unsettled or undeveloped by European or American society. Though most of us think of pioneers strictly in terms of those who came to the "West", the earliest pioneers settled areas now considered the "East".

The first westward migrations occurred as representatives of the Thirteen Colonies sought to open up new lands for their respective colonies westward. Those whose original royal charters did not specify a western limit simply extended their lands directly and indefinitely westward. After the United States was formed upon the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, federal coordination and legislation began to give settlement a more unified approach.

As western settlement grew, common details emerged. Most pioneers traveled in wagon trains, groups of wagons containing settlers and their families. They banded together for common defense and to combine their efforts. Pioneers in the East often had to clear the land, owing to lush forests there. In the Midwest, the task was to bring agricultural fertility to the Great Plains.

The figure of the pioneer has played a large role in American culture and literature. While much cultural note is also given to other figures of a more transient nature, such as cowboys, trappers prospectors, miners, etc., the pioneer alone represents those who went into unexplored territory in search of a new life, looking to establish permanent settlement.

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Buffalo Coat
by Carol Ryrie Brink
for 9th-Adult
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
Early Days in Old Oregon
by Katharine B. Judson
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
English Family in the American Wilderness
by Rebecca Burlend
from Western Conservatory of the Arts & Sciences
for 8th-Adult
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
Four Wagons West
by Robert Frye Watt
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
Freighters and Pilgrims
Knowledge Keepers Home Library Series 1865
by Charles E. Young and Sarah Raymond Herndon
from Knowledge Keepers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Frontier in American History
by Frederick Jackson Turner
from Franklin Library
for 10th-Adult
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
Great and Minor Moments in Oregon History
by Dick Pintarich
1st edition from New Oregon Publishers
for 9th-Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
Hannah Fowler
Kentucky trilogy #2
by Janice Holt Giles
Book Club Edition from Houghton Mifflin
for Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Last of the Old West
by George Mecklenburg
from The Capital Book Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Laura
by Donald Zochert
from Avon Books
for 7th grade-adult
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Little House Coloring Book
Clr Csm from HarperCollins
for 4th-Adult
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$18.99
My Antonia
Signet Classics
by Willa Cather
from Signet Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
O Pioneers!
Signet Classics
by Willa Cather
from Signet Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Oregon Trail
Penguin Classics
by Francis Parkman Jr.
from Penguin Classics
Historical Non-fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.00
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Frederic Remington
1993 printing from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Maynard Dixon
from Heritage Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Oregon Trail
by Leonard Everett Fisher
from Holiday House
for 5th-Adult
in Oregon Trail (Location: HISA-19OR)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Oregon Trail
Famous Books for Young Americans
by Francis Parkman
from A. L. Burt Company
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman Jr., illustrated by Thomas Hart Benton
from Garden City Books
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman Jr., illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
from Little, Brown & Company
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman Jr., illustrated by James Daugherty
from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Oregon Trail
by Rinker Buck
from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$19.99
Oregon Trail Cookbook
by Leslie J. Whipple
from Maverick Books
for Adult
in American Cooking (Location: COOK-US)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
Oregon Trail Diary of James Atkin, Jr. in 1852
by James Akin
for 9th-Adult
in Oregon Trail (Location: HISA-19OR)
Oregon Trail Diary of Rev. Edward Evans Parrish in 1844
by Rev. Edward Evans Parrish
for 8th-Adult
in Oregon Trail (Location: HISA-19OR)
Outlaws of the Pacific Northwest
by Bill Gulick
from Caxton Press
for 7th-Adult
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
Pioneer Children on the Journey West
by Emmy E. Werner
from Westview Press
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Prairie Traveler
by Randolph Barnes Marcy
from Applewood Books
for 8th-Adult
in Pioneer & Frontier Life (Location: HISA-19PIO)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Saddles East
by John W. Beard
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Oregon Trail (Location: HISA-19OR)
The Trees
Awakening Land #1
by Conrad Richter
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
This was Mining in the West
by David W. Pearson
Second Edition; First Printing from Schiffer
for 6th-Adult
in Western Expansion (1800-1898) (Location: HISA-19WES)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
True Stories of Nebraska Pioneers
Knowledge Keepers Home Library Series 1844
by Nebraska Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution
from Knowledge Keepers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
We Claimed This Land
by Eugene E. Snyder
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
Wild West
from Amon Carter Museum of Western Art
for 5th-Adult
in Western Expansion (1800-1898) (Location: HISA-19WES)