SOURCE: Meldrum, Barbara. “Vardis Fisher's Antelope People: Pursuing an Elusive Dream.” In Northwest Perspectives: Essays on the Culture of the Pacific Northwest, edited by Edwin R. Bingham and Glen A. Love, pp. 152-66. Eugene: University of Oregon Press, 1979.

In the following essay, Meldrum explores Fisher's portrayal of the Western frontier experience in Toilers of the Hills, Dark Bridwell, and April.

From the earliest days of our country we have had an ambivalent attitude toward the West and what the West means. In 1782 Crèvecoeur expressed this ambivalence in his Letters from an American Farmer; the new American was a westward pilgrim best embodied in the class of freeholders, people “respectable for their industry, their happy independence, the great share of freedom they possess, the good regulation of their families, and for extending the trade and the dominion of our mother country.” Crèvecoeur's happy farmers promoted material progress...