"Go West, Young Man, Go West"

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"GO WEST, YOUNG MAN, GO WEST"

"GO WEST, YOUNG MAN, GO WEST" was an expression first used by John Babsone Lane Soule in the Terre Haute Express in 1851. It appealed to Horace Greeley, who rephrased it slightly in an editorial in the New York Tribune on 13 July 1865: "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." When the phrase gained popularity, Greeley printed Soule's article to show the source of his inspiration. The phrase captured the imaginations of clerks, mechanics, and soldiers returning from the Civil War, many of whom moved west to take up a homestead.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cross, Coy F. Go West, Young Man!: Horace Greeley's Vision for America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.

J. W.Ellison/c. w.

See alsoHomestead Movement ; West, American ; Westward Migration .

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