The study of history often intersects with the study of myth. Write an essay about the American West and about how the history differs from some of the narratives constructed about it. As part of your response, discuss American Progress, this 1872 painting by John Gast as one representation of the American West in the nineteenth century. How does this West, as it was painted, compare to the historical West as it was lived? How might ideas of manifest destiny structure later U.S. expansion at the end of the century, beyond the continental borders and across seas?