Isolated Western settlements manufactured gentility through orderly, liquor-free social gatherings

Evidence

It was a most respectable dance, a fortnightly gathering got up by the neighboring settlers, most of them young married people, and there was no drinking at all. … I wrote to you for some time, while Mr. Nugent copied for himself the poems “In the Glen” and the latter half of “The River without a Bridge,” which he recited with deep feeling. It was altogether very quiet and peaceful. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 268

Categorization

• SEED: An essay on how frontier communities staged respectability — fortnightly dances for young married settlers — to answer Eastern assumptions about the rough West.