Americans Recaptured: Progressive Era Memory of Frontier Captivity by Molly K. Varley (review)

Americans living at the close of the nineteenth century had a great deal about which to feel anxious. In less than half a century, a nation fractured by civil war underwent startling economic, demographic, and territorial transformations that radically altered the nature of American society, recast its place in the world, and brought with it litany of social, political, and moral crises: industrial misery and urban squalor; the uncertainties of internal and external colonization; worries over immigration and race relations; a political powerlessness and corruption; and economic depressions labor unrest, to name but a few. Each and together, a half-century of transformations, changes, and disruptions fostered in the minds of many the belief that the promise of the American experiment, much like the frontier, was fast disappearing. Trepidation, we well know, soon turned to action; and as Richard Hofstadter argued so long ago, Americans, under the banner of Progressivism, soon set out to “remedy the accumulated evils and negligences,” albeit, with varying degrees of success.

Progressivism—whether a movement, a style, or a moment—was a big tent in which was contained a staggering variety of ideas, actors, and responses; though, as Molly K. Varley aptly reveals, many of the era’s memorable and not-so-memorable leaders were animated by a shared belief that something had been lost in the country’s transition from agricultural republic to industrial nation: its soul. Whether it was Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick Jackson Turner, or William Letchworth, figures of national and regional note all in one manner or another strove to recapture and revive those characteristics that not only made America and Americans unique, but also those features that had made a nation and its citizens successful. And, as the author posits, it was the historical frontier, and especially narratives of captivity and survival on it, to which so many would turn when they sought solutions to modern problems. More than simply a renewed interest in eighteenth-century captivity, the twentieth-century emphasis on the captivity narrative—through ideas and values they imparted and commemorations they engendered—represented the very soul of the Progressive Era. Indeed, by “looking backward through Indian captivity,” Americans were able to locate important moral and cultural lessons with which they could tackle twentieth-century crises and redeem the nation (5).

Varley develops her analysis across four thoughtful chapters. The first two chapters consider the rural roots of the renewed interest in the captivity narrative. Focusing the development of small-town memorials and the creation of Letchworth State Park—the chapters consider the ways in which necessity and nationalism fueled efforts to recapture the past. At one level, rural Americans saw in the stories of captives like Frances Slocum and Mary Jemison the opportunity to reaffirm and “justify” country life (38–39). Faced with the closure of the frontier and “overwhelming urbanization,” the countryside, many feared, did not matter anymore. Through the reissue of classic texts, the construction of commemorative statues, and the preservation of historic sites, rural Americans were able reaffirm their relevancy and gain national recognition. Yet there was more to it than simple survival or relevancy. As Varley makes clear, rural citizens were responding to intrusive urban reformers with their own brand of progressivism, built on the “values . . . developed during the settlement of their small towns and villages” (41). By remembering the colonial captive, rural Americans could provide their urban(e) counterparts critical and proven tools for navigating the changes wrought by modernity (50–51, 73).

Chapters 3 and 4 explore the ways in which Indian captivity narratives informed Progressive Era thought and action by providing meaningful answers to national questions. Chapter 3 considers the role that the captivity played in transforming indigenous and immigrant men and women into Americans and, along the way, reveals the ways in which the captivity narrative provided important commentary on thorny issues of race and assimilation. In the captivity narrative...