Go West: U.S. Westward Expansion

John Soule, an editor for the Terre Haute Express, coined the “Go west, young man” phrase which remains part of America’s vocabulary.

Ten years later, while much of today’s Western United States was still a “foreign area,” Horace Greeley also urged his New York Tribune readers:

If you have no family or friends to aid you...Turn your face to the Great West and there build up your home and fortune.

Greeley reprinted Soule’s editorial in the New York Tribune and, forever after, people have wrongly given the future American presidential candidate credit (scroll down 50%) for the famous line.

Many young men and women took Soule’s advice. Using primary sources (mostly from U.S. archives), this story depicts the dangers and rewards of their great westward trek.

Author: Carole D. Bos, J.D.