Constructing "The Land of Sunshine": Charles FletcherLummis and the marketing of a post-frontier West

Abstract

This dissertation investigates Charles F. Lummis and his editorial influence, arguing that he contributed significantly to the literary and cultural construction of the American West. From 1895 to 1907, Lummis edited a Los Angeles magazine, The Land of Sunshine. Renamed Out West in 1902, the magazine served as a platform from which Lummis trumpeted his visions of the West and its literature, and helped launch various causes celebres , including restoration and preservation of Southern California's Spanish missions, establishment of a museum of the southwest, and agitation for Indian rights and education reform. I contextualize the decade of his influence within the rhetorics of realism and regional literature, both then prominent on the American literary scene, and within the emergence of mass culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. This dissertation contributes to American cultural studies because it is the first comprehensive analysis of Lummis's influence on the American literary tradition and his role in the cultural colonization of the West. Drawing upon previously unpublished material from the University of Arizona Special Collections, Colorado State University Archives, the Braun Research Library at the Southwest Museum, and the Sharlot Hall museum, it is also the first study to describe the extent of his intersections with artists, scholars, and historical figures at the turn of the twentieth century. These figures include Fred Harvey, Alex Harmer, Theodore Roosevelt, Charlotte Perkins Stetson (later Gilman), L. Maynard Dixon, Margaret Collier Graham, and many others.