Under the Tonto Rim: Conflict, Culture, and Memory in a Western Region

FAIN: FT-53602-05

Daniel J. Herman
Central Washington University (Ellensburg, WA 98926-7599)

*Under the Tonto Rim* analyzes a core sample of a cultural identity that emerged in the rural West between 1880 and 1930. In Arizona's Rim Country, "settler culture" emerged from efforts to create community in the aftermath of ethnic, religious, and class conflicts of the 1880s. In the 1890s, settlers were challenged by new "immigrants": Tonto Apaches who abandoned the reservation and returned to their homeland. How Tontos participated in settler culture despite being relegated to the status of a lower caste is one of the book's central themes. Finally, I seek to understand how Zane Grey interpreted and legitimized settler culture in his fiction, and how that fiction resonated with readers concerned about shifting gender codes and ethnic tensions in the 1920s.

Associated Products

Hell on the Range: A Story of Honor, Conscience, and the American West (Book)
Title: Hell on the Range: A Story of Honor, Conscience, and the American West
Author: Daniel Justin Herman
Editor: William J, Cronon
Abstract: In this lively account of Arizona's Rim County War of the 1880's, historian Daniel J. Herman explores a web of conflict involving Mormons, Texas cowboys, New Mexican sheepherders, Jewish merchants, and mixed- blood ranchers. From political intrigues, ambushers, and lynchings, argues Herman, issued a peculiarly Western story of "good men fighting villains." By recounting the story of the war from its social origins to its enshrinement in myth, Herman casts new light on Western violence, Western identity, and American cultural history.
Year: 2010
Publisher: Yale University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780300137361
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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