American Progress

This painting by John Gast in 1872 is an "allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west," (Martha A. Sandweiss). The woman (a personified United States) leads America west bringing light from the east into the darker west, which you can see is uncivilized and old-fashioned. At the time there were different stages of economic and technological growth affecting how able Americans were to expanding and taking new territory.