Modern Homesteaders

Harvard University Press has partnered with De Gruyter to make available for sale worldwide virtually all in-copyright HUP books that had become unavailable since their original publication. The 2,800 titles in the “e-ditions” program can be purchased individually as PDF eBooks or as hardcover reprint (“print-on-demand”) editions via the “Available from De Gruyter” link above. They are also available to institutions in ten separate subject-area packages that reflect the entire spectrum of the Press’s catalog. More about the E-ditions Program »

Describing the values system of a small frontier community in the American Southwest (in this case New Mexico), Evon Vogt analyzes the relationship between these values and the dramatic changes which are taking place in the community as well as the relationship between the values and the contemporary life-ways in the community.

Highlighting core American values that are manifested in the lives of homesteaders and showing the critical role these values play in the settlement and development of a frontier community, the author concludes that values set up by the founding fathers had a stimulating effect upon the early development of the community, but that these values lost their importance as historical changes began to take place. This book comes from the Values Study Project of the Laboratory of Social Relations of Harvard University.