Nannie Alderson's A Bride Goes West

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Student Name Primary Source History has always been the science surrounded by heated debates. The situation when one can find different interpretations of the same fact is quite ordinary. Often, historical events are passed through the prism of one’s subjective perception. So, to have a comprehensive understanding of a particular fact, one should familiarize himself or herself both with secondary and primary sources. Usually, the main objective of the prior is to provide a short outline of a particular event; while, the aim of the latter is to add some specificity encouraging one to look at the well-known occasion from a new, sometimes unexpected, angle. In chapter 16 of their book The American Nation, Garraty & Carnes (2007) review reconstruction of the South soon…show more content…
One can find more information about this stage of development of the American society from primary sources. Nannie Alderson (1942) describes the life of American women in the small towns of the West in her book A Bride Goes West. Some of the experts from the book point out to significant changes in the American people’s minds regarding the role that women played in society. In her book, Alderson also describes the reverse side of free relations and feminization. She writes, “Two-thirds of the women [engaged in prostitution] died young from sexually transmitted diseases, botched abortions, alcohol abuse, narcotics abuse, suicide, or murders.” The same shift in public mind regarding the family values is described in Galen’s Epitaph on a Tombstone. It is as follows, “Here lies the body of Mary Moore/Born a Virgin, died a whore,/For sixteen years she preserved her virginity/A dam fine record of this vicinity.

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