Frontiersville
Both a historian and a cultural critic, Dorothea Allen’s work explored the mythology of the frontier and its impact on the American psyche. Her 1961 book, Frontiersville: At the Dawn of a Golden Age, focused on the brief ascendancy of a gunman named William Robertson in Portland, Oregon as an example of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Allen’s book was a critical success, garnering praise from such sources as The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Weekly and the now-defunct Western Quarterly. The New Yorker called it an “otherworldly tale of adventure and mayhem in the far West, wrapped in social analysis.”
Unfortunately, the book’s sales never matched its reception, and Frontiersville proved the pinnacle of her career. As the 1960s wore on, her work fell out of favor and then was forgotten.
Recently, footage of a lecture she gave at The New School in 1962 was restored and brought to the digital age. As work progresses on Allen’s papers, artifacts will be live-tweeted here.
Aldullah Robertson is a history student at The New School.
Frontiersville
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Frontiersville
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Civic Engagement / Luis Jaramillo
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Elizabeth Gaffney in Conversation with Jessica Sennett
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A Trip to Hibbing High / Greil Marcus
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Literature in Evolution / Lena Valencia
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Transmissions: The Literature of Aids / Josué Rivera
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Four Poems / Catherine Barnett
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Christopher Pugh: To Colorado
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Animal Farm: Timeline & Bias / John Reed
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She Hath Writ Diligently Her Own Mind: Elizabeth Childers / Bean Haskell
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Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace / Robert Polito
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Ari Spool: Bricks
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Revisiting the Final Years of Béla Bartók / Liben Eabisa
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Conrad Hamanaka Yama / Zoe Rivka Panagopoulos & Ricky Tucker
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Community
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Class Stories
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No Scripts / Bean Haskell
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Spring’s Last Words: Riggio Student Reading / Ashawnta Jackson
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GPS / Patricia Carlin
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Midway / Laura Cronk
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A Certain Rainy Day / Zia Jaffrey
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The Story Prize
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The Next Flight / Jefferey Renard Allen
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The Inquisitive Eater Blog First Year Anniversary: March 18, 2013 / Jessica Sennett
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Riggio Forum: Sean Howe / Natassja Schiel & Jessica Sennett
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Down the Manhole / Elizabeth Gaffney
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He Saw Me / Ricky Tucker
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Nonfiction Forum: Tom Lutz / Ashawnta Jackson & Nico Rosario
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Homage to Bill McKibben / Suzannah Lessard
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The Unsolved Mystery of “Epitaph to a Love” by Mildred Green, 1948 / Jessica Sennett
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Dancing About Writing