Digesting the Donners: The Public’s Consumption of American History
Presentation Type
Poster
Release Option
Event
Description
The Donner-Reed Party (1846-1847) is perhaps the most well-known story of the Oregon Trail. Previous scholarship, such as Ethan Rarick's Desperate Passage, tends to focus on the event itself and determining exactly what happened, yet they ignore the numerous ways the media stretched the story and how it would grow to become one of the most infamous stories in American Western history. This paper examines these stories, in addition to the why and when various print media from newspapers to books became so infatuated with their desperate attempt at survival. Google Ngram is used to help measure the public's interest in the Donner-Reed Party’s story throughout the decades to highlight the media's fascination with cannibalism and ask the “why?” Beginning with an analysis of the initial publications on the Donner-Reed party in the 1840’s, then moving to publications from the 1880’s, and finally visiting works from the 1940’s, it examines the public’s and media's interest in the story and the different ways they are perceived over time. Overall, the paper assesses the collective impact the different publications had on society's understanding of the Donner-Reed party’s experience as emblematic of American history.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Robert Batchelor
Department of Primary Presenter's Major
Department of History
Primary Presenter's Major(s)
History
Location
Poster Session (Lobby)
Symposium Year
2022
Digesting the Donners: The Public’s Consumption of American History
Poster Session (Lobby)
