Elizabeth Krochka

Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson and the Rise of the Iconic Frontier Image in American Culture

Abstract:

Time brought with the changing placement of the frontier, changing icons of frontiersmen, each icon developing his own collection of myths that reinforced the standard characteristics of aforementioned coarseness, strength, acuteness, restlessness, and dominant individualism, these traits of frontier life. Daniel Boone (1734-1820), widely considered one of the first if not the first iconic frontiersmen, set the standard of what would become the archetype of the rugged frontiersman that developed after legend spread; this archetype would be created further through the myths and legends that came to surround Boone and the later icons of Davy Crockett (1786-1836) and Kit Carson (1809-1868), and cemented through their portrayals in literature and the works of later historians. As the placement of the frontier changed over time, so did the persons who came to stand for it; still though, the ideal reasons for conquering the frontier: space, land, freedom, and independence remained the same as did the more iconic traits of these rugged frontiersmen from Daniel Boone onwards.