Pettit Lectureat Tutt Library Timothy Fuller Event Space 201

Over the course of the nineteenth century, what we know as “The American West” came into being. In this talk, Pulitzer Prize finalist Megan Kate Nelson will explain how diverse communities grew and flourished in the region, while (at the same time), they were erased from a frontier myth that lionized individualism and celebrated white settlers traveling west in search of prosperity. Drawing on material from her new book, The Westerners (published by Scribner in 2026), Dr. Nelson will describe this process of erasure, which accelerated over the course of the nineteenth century. She will introduce three of the protagonists in her book, whose popular memories were manipulated in the years after their deaths: Sacajawea, not just Lewis and Clark’s guide but an explorer who forged her own path; Jim Beckwourth, a biracial fur trader whose sharp cultural insights made him famous in his time; and the defiant Ella Watson, a Canadian immigrant with dreams of becoming a cattle rancher in Wyoming. Born and raised in Colorado, Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer based in Boston, with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of five books, including The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier (Scribner 2026); Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner 2022; winner of the 2023 Spur Award for Historical Non-Fiction); and The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (Scribner 2020; 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist in History). Dr. Nelson writes about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American culture for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, Slate, and Time. She is also the co-founder of DRAFTING THE PAST, a new media platform that will publish book reviews, features, and podcasts about history nonfiction writing and publishing. The site will launch in October 2026.