Manifest Destiny - DocumentCloud
Grade 5 Social Studies Unit: 08 Lesson: 01
Manifest Destiny Have students observe the painting American Progress by John Gast. Possible/optional questions for discussion may include: • Who is the lady? • What is she holding? • Who does she represent? • Look for forms of transportation. • How about people, what are they doing, or planning to do? • What waterways and landforms are shown? • Why is one side of the painting light, and one side dark?
–
American Progress, by John Gast, 1872
Image credit: Gast, J. (Artist). (1872). American Progress [Web Photo]. Retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_progress.JPG
©2012, TESCCC
05/02/13
page 1 of 2
Grade 5 Social Studies Unit: 08 Lesson: 01
Possible interpretation: The painting expresses a powerful historical idea about the meaning of America’s westward expansion. A figure of a woman floats westward, bathed in light. She wears the “star of an empire” on her forehead and carries in her right hand a school book of education. She is “Columbia,” a figure often used at the time to represent the United States. In her left hand, slender trails of telegraph wire promise to bring more information to the west. Behind her are the great cities of the Atlantic and the light, before her is stormy darkness and the unknown of the Pacific coast. Fleeing from all that she brings are American Indians and all the animals such as bison, bears and mustangs. They are afraid of what she is bringing. The painting illustrates the bias that Americans had their own way of doing things. At the time, American expansion took over lands, sometimes without asking. Additionally, little regard was given to the culture and traditions of those encountered. The individual Indians flee on foot preceding the tall ships, the covered wagons, the overland stage and the three railroad lines. The Pony Express and the telegraph lines are the technology of communication. The groups of human figures, read from left to right, convey much the same idea. American Indian tribes preceded explorers and prospectors, who in turn come before the farmers and settlers. The idea of progress coming from the East to the West, and the notion that the frontier would be developed by sequential waves of people was deeply rooted in American thought. Manifest Destiny: as a concept was spoken of early on by Andrew Jackson. He was from Tennessee and was famous for his brave fighting during the War of 1812 in the Battle of New Orleans. Nicknamed “Old Hickory”, he became the 7 th President in 1829. He spoke about “extending the area of freedom” which meant claiming for the United States more of the lands west toward the Pacific Ocean. His idea demonstrated Americans’ budding sense of self-identity and expansionism. Citizens were beginning to think of the United States as deserving of more land for places to help spread liberty and justice to more people. In 1845, a journalist named John O’Sullivan wrote an essay urging the United States to annex the Republic of Texas because it was “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent…for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” O’Sullivan used the term in the New York Morning News arguing that the United States had the right to claim “the whole of Oregon…by the right of our manifest destiny…which Providence has given us for the great experiment of liberty…”
©2012, TESCCC
05/02/13
page 2 of 2
Manifest Destiny Have students observe the painting American Progress by John Gast. Possible/optional questions for discussion may include: • Who is the lady? • What is she holding? • Who does she represent? • Look for forms of transportation. • How about people, what are they doing, or planning to do? • What waterways and landforms are shown? • Why is one side of the painting light, and one side dark?
–
American Progress, by John Gast, 1872
Image credit: Gast, J. (Artist). (1872). American Progress [Web Photo]. Retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_progress.JPG
©2012, TESCCC
05/02/13
page 1 of 2
Grade 5 Social Studies Unit: 08 Lesson: 01
Possible interpretation: The painting expresses a powerful historical idea about the meaning of America’s westward expansion. A figure of a woman floats westward, bathed in light. She wears the “star of an empire” on her forehead and carries in her right hand a school book of education. She is “Columbia,” a figure often used at the time to represent the United States. In her left hand, slender trails of telegraph wire promise to bring more information to the west. Behind her are the great cities of the Atlantic and the light, before her is stormy darkness and the unknown of the Pacific coast. Fleeing from all that she brings are American Indians and all the animals such as bison, bears and mustangs. They are afraid of what she is bringing. The painting illustrates the bias that Americans had their own way of doing things. At the time, American expansion took over lands, sometimes without asking. Additionally, little regard was given to the culture and traditions of those encountered. The individual Indians flee on foot preceding the tall ships, the covered wagons, the overland stage and the three railroad lines. The Pony Express and the telegraph lines are the technology of communication. The groups of human figures, read from left to right, convey much the same idea. American Indian tribes preceded explorers and prospectors, who in turn come before the farmers and settlers. The idea of progress coming from the East to the West, and the notion that the frontier would be developed by sequential waves of people was deeply rooted in American thought. Manifest Destiny: as a concept was spoken of early on by Andrew Jackson. He was from Tennessee and was famous for his brave fighting during the War of 1812 in the Battle of New Orleans. Nicknamed “Old Hickory”, he became the 7 th President in 1829. He spoke about “extending the area of freedom” which meant claiming for the United States more of the lands west toward the Pacific Ocean. His idea demonstrated Americans’ budding sense of self-identity and expansionism. Citizens were beginning to think of the United States as deserving of more land for places to help spread liberty and justice to more people. In 1845, a journalist named John O’Sullivan wrote an essay urging the United States to annex the Republic of Texas because it was “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent…for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” O’Sullivan used the term in the New York Morning News arguing that the United States had the right to claim “the whole of Oregon…by the right of our manifest destiny…which Providence has given us for the great experiment of liberty…”
©2012, TESCCC
05/02/13
page 2 of 2
