Book Review: The Western Pursuit of the American Dream: Selections from the Collection of Kenneth W. Rendell

Authors

Ron Tyler, University of Texas at Austin

Date of this Version

2006

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:3 (Summer 2006). Copyright © 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

Like many other lovers of the West, collector and dealer Kenneth Rendell was inspired by his childhood experiences in nature-in his case, his family's annual summer stay at a lakeside cabin sans utilities north of Boston. It was nurtured by his firsthand acquaintance with the original materials of history when he began his dealership in 1959, flourished in his friendship with historian Stephen Ambrose, and reaches its zenith with the stunning collection of materials he shared in a 2004-05 exhibition at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA, and published in this book.