People embarked on the grueling quest for many reasons, not just to get rich. Always to make a new life, yes, but most fundamentally, the desire to get out from under the establishment back home. This was the place they thought they could shake off the encumbrances and dead ends of a clotted old order. They pulled up stakes and drove themselves relentlessly, piling all their belongings into a covered wagon that sailed the great prairie like a ship, their families walking alongside the oxen, heading into a dream they called West.

That opportunity simply didn't exist in the Old World. One wonders: at what level did it ever truly exist in the New? We change our location, we try to leave our identity behind, sometimes our names even. But when we finally get where we're going, we find it's still just life. We humans are still ourselves, self-organizing into ever-shifting establishments. We scan the horizon, imagining the unburdened life just beyond the next ridge. Trying to get in. Trying to get out.

But there is always an establishment trying to establish itself at the most personal, most local level, as well as society-wide. What does the dream of freedom look like, that it calls us to make the difficult journey? We pile everything we have, everything we are, into our vehicles for chasing horizons that keep disappearing when they're reached. And we're surprised to find the wagon is still carrying the same cargo.

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Special thanks to Ellen Swain for suggesting the covered wagon.

Links:

• Classic essay: “The Prairie Schooner Got Them There” - George R. Stewart, American Heritage, February 1962

  
  

• Unexpectedly interesting wagon maker's discussion of 1840s and 1850s prairie schooners

  
  

• Wagons on the Emigrant Trails - National Park Service

  
  

• Covered wagons and the American frontier – National Museum of American History

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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