Frontier House

by Simon Shaw; Linda Peavy; Ursula Smith

• ISBN13: 9780743442701
• ISBN10: 0743442709
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-04-30
• Publisher: Atria

Summary

Go west with PBS in this behind-the-scenes look at the television series that sent modern-day Americans "back in time" to the harsh frontier of 1880s Montana.

Frontier House

America's period of westward expansion has long captured the imagination of history buffs and adventurous spirits; the era seems to embody the very daring enterprise that made America what it is today. As a result, frontier life has often been romanticized in television and film. But all of that changed with PBS's Frontier House.

Bringing the trials and triumphs of nineteenth-century homesteaders to life in a way we might never have imagined, Frontier House re-creates life in the wilderness for three households of spirited twenty-first-century Americans and documents their six-month experience for television.

Roughing it on their allotted plots of land while all of America watches, these brave souls relinquish grocery stores, microwaves, and plumbing in favor of raising chickens, churning butter, and outhouses. Gone are all the modern amenities they're accustomed to. In their place: just the will to do whatever it takes to survive.

Covering the inception of the show, the historical basis for the lifestyle re-created, the selection of the participants, the logistical challenges of production, and the impact of this experiment on the participants -- along with profiles of actual nineteenth-century homesteaders -- Frontier House is a first-rate companion to one of the most innovative and fascinating reality shows of our time.

Author Biography

Simon Shaw is the series producer of Frontier House. He has spent more than twenty years as a television and radio producer for such prestigious organizations as the BBC. In 1999 Shaw joined Wall To Wall, under the leadership of Managing Director Alex Graham, one of the United Kingdom's leading independent producers of quality factual programming and drama. There Shaw had a unique opportunity to immerse himself in a lifelong fascination: trying to understand the everyday experiences of life in the past. First up was the award-winning television series 1900 House, in which a British family spent three months enduring the ups and downs of life in a Victorian home. After taking on World War II in The 1940s House, Shaw was thrilled to explore the settlement of the American West for public television. The experience left him with a deeper love of beautiful scenery but an even greater appreciation of modern life's luxuries.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vi
The American Dream	1	(14)
A ``Most Beneficent'' Piece of Legislation---The Homestead Act of 1862	4	(5)
``There Is No Country Like . . . Crow Country''---The Story of the Boulder Valley	9	(6)
Time Travelers	15	(14)
``We Will All Be Poor Here Together''---Homesteader Dreams and Realities	17	(12)
Countdown	29	(24)
``To Start Anew in the Race of Life''---Historical Parallels for the Families of Frontier House	42	(7)
``Buy Two of the Largest Trunks You Can Find''---Preparations for the Journey West	49	(4)
The Promised Land	53	(18)
``This Is the Awfles Mess I Ever Was In''---The Darker Side of Wagon Journeys West	62	(6)
``This Was Not the West as I Had Dreamed of It''---The Homesteader Faces Reality	68	(3)
Home Sweet Home	71	(20)
``Some Kind of Home of Our Own''---Big Dreams and Humble Beginnings	76	(15)
Meltdown	91	(14)
``People Are Ill-Natured and Look Only to Their Own Advantage''---Community Spirit Is Tested on the Frontier	96	(9)
A Bride Comes West	105	(24)
``I Don't Know How She Did It but She Did''---The Lives of Women on the Homestead	110	(12)
``Absolutely Indescribable''---Weddings on the Far Frontier	122	(7)
Do or Die	129	(24)
``The Big Outside World''---The General Store and the U.S. Mail	133	(7)
``The Man Became a Landowner, and . . . the Landowner Became a Man''---Men's Work on the Homestead	140	(13)
All Work and No Play	153	(24)
``Just Like . . . [a] Tumbleweed''---The Magical, Tragical World of Childhood on the Frontier	158	(9)
``A Teacher Must Expect Hardship''---Winifred Shipman and Her Chicken-House School	167	(10)
Downhill to Winter	177	(16)
``A Helluva Big Gamble''---Montana Moonshine	180	(9)
``Just What Is Needed in This Country''---The Completion of the Northern Pacific Rail Route	189	(4)
The Final Reckoning	193	(22)
``Step Right Up, Folks!''---Frontier Fairs and Festivals	200	(4)
``Regardless of What I Did the Cold Crept In''---Life in the Crucible of Winter	204	(11)
New Frontiers	215	(11)
Producers' Acknowledgments	226	(1)
Resource List	227	(1)
Photography Credits	227	(1)
Source Notes	228	(2)
Bibliography	230