Emotional Scripts and the Fate of U.S. Expansion in the Vigilante Mountain West, 1864 to 1866
Tue 2/25/2025 • 12PM - 1PM PST
The Montana Vigilantes, as they have become known within the popular nostalgia of the Wild West, were almost immediately and are still often hailed as heroes of the frontier in their brave efforts to fill in for the American justice system in the wild days before statehood. In 1866, English schoolteacher and recent arrival to Montana Territory, Thomas J. Dimsdale, published a passionate defense of the events of January and February 1864–The Montana Vigilantes!–which is held in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library’s vast collection of Montana memorabilia. Dimsdale’s book is among the most cited firsthand accounts of the Montana Vigilantes, but this presentation brings to the fore his extensive commentary on the disorderly emotional climate of Montana Territory that made the extremism of the vigilante violence possible. With this affective lens trained on Dimsdale’s account, Abby Gibson will discuss not only an implicit ambivalence in his descriptions of the Vigilantes, but consider the larger story of emotional containment and U.S. expansion in the Rocky Mountain West contained within this work.