Research Catalog
In the work of their hands is their prayer : cultural narrative and redemption on the American frontiers, 1830-1930
- Title
- In the work of their hands is their prayer : cultural narrative and redemption on the American frontiers, 1830-1930 / Joel Daehnke.
- Author
- Daehnke, Joel, 1959-
- Publication
- Athens : Ohio University Press, c2003.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Not available - Please for assistance. | Text | Use in library | PS169.F7 D34 2003 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- 299 p. cm. : ill.; 24 cm.
- Summary
- "In the Work of Their Hands Is Their Prayer examines a hundred years of writing about the frontier experience. Paying particular attention to attitudes about human activity and the transformative power of the American landscape, Joel Daehnke asserts that Manifest Destiny embodied a tense, often contradictory union of Christian and secular views of social progress." "Enlisting works by Mark Twain and Willa Cather, as well as noncanonical sources, such as private journals, Daehnke examines the manner in which the imagery of the human figure at work and play in the frontier landscape participated in the nationalist, "civilizing" project of westward expansion. While acknowledging the growing secularization of American life, Daehnke surveys the continuing claims of the Christian redemptive scheme as a powerful symbolic domain for these writers' reflections on social progress and the potential for human perfectibility in the landscapes of the West."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subjects
- Redemption in literature
- Progress in literature
- Christianity and literature > West (U.S.)
- American literature > West (U.S.) > History and criticism
- American literature > 20th century > History and criticism
- American literature > 19th century > History and criticism
- Literature and history > West (U.S.)
- West (U.S.) > In literature
- Frontier and pioneer life in literature
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-290) and index.
- Contents
- In the Work of Their Hands Is Their Prayer: Desire, History, and the Drama of the American Frontiers -- 1. "Necessary Nothings" and "Minor Deprivations": Cultivating the Frontier Marketplace in Caroline Kirkland's: A New Home, Who'll Follow? -- 2. Marvelous Possessions: Reaffirming the Sacred, Redeeming the Profane in Yellowstone National Park -- 3. Bonanzas and Borascas, Accounts and "No Accounts": Dan De Quille, Mark Twain, and the Fortunate Landscape of Nevada's Comstock Lode -- 4. "Our Life Exempt from Public Haunt": National Manhood, the Fraternity of Anglers, and the Blessings of American Leisure -- 5. "At Our Meanest Tasks": Redemption and the Domestic Economy in Willa Cather's: Death Comes for the Archbishop -- Afterword: "Having Done with Calendared Time": The Corpus of Mission and the Enigmatic Ends of History.
- ISBN
- 0821415026 (alk. paper)
- 0821415034 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- LCCN
- 2003051078
- OCLC
- ocm52348893
- SCSB-4865874
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries