re: #200 HappyWarrior

The Transcontinental railroad too. I don’t doubt that the people who settled the West worked hard but they were not the rugged individualists that folklore makes them out to be. Kind of reminds me of how Texans have an over-inflated opinion about their role in history oto.

Even the Mountain Men, supposedly the ruggedest individualists of them all, depended on society for their ability to do their work and survive, from transport such as steamboats that took them West in the first place, to town general stores that supplied them with staples, to the very guns that were their prize possessions, and were also the product of hundreds of years of technological effort and cooperation in cities from China to Europe and in the industrial American East. Worst of all, their entire income, which came from trapping fur-bearing animals such as beaver, depended entirely on what was in fashion in Paris, London, and New York, and when these furs went out of vogue, the Mountain Men were out of business.