‘Wild and Ungovernable Passions’: Emotional Scripts and the Fate of U.S. Expansion in the Vigilante Rocky Mountain West, 1864–1866
ZoomLecture by Abby Gibson, Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of Southern California. Recipient of the 2024–25 Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship 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...