Description
The environmental, political, and cultural impact of the United States’ westward expansion can be understood through focusing on the 1871 John Gast painting, American Progress. Participants have the opportunity to analyze the painting and discuss the experiences of Exodusters, Mormons, Mexican Americans, and Indigenous Peoples.
María Montoya is a Global Network Associate Professor of History at New York University and former Dean of Arts and Sciences at NYU Shanghai. She earned her BA, MA, and PhD degrees at Yale University. Her research explores how workers and families in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used natural resources to make their homes in the American West. Montoya is the author of numerous works on the American West, environmental labor, and Latina/o history.