| Western ranch schools reflected the intersection of twentieth-century constructs of masculinity, the myth of the West, and social thought regarding the needs of elite youth. In philosophy and aims, they were remarkably similar to the more established Eastern private schools. Ranch schools used the West as both idea and region to meet these aims making them unique and worthy of study. Their popularity created and reinforced an image of the West as moral, masculine, and healthful.; This dissertation demonstrates how ranch school owners, headmasters, and promoters used the West as physical and conceptual place to build educational institutions that promised children would develop ethical character, boys would be made into masculine men, students would be taught a college preparatory curriculum, and all would improve their health within a homelike environment. Ranch schools claimed the West could reinstill American individualism and other morally beneficially character traits that had been lost in the urbanized East. The “strenuous life” and Western ranching, promoted by Theodore Roosevelt, proved highly beneficial to transforming aristocratic, urban effeminate youths, like himself, Owen Wister, and Frederick Remington, into masculine self-made men.; In order to market their ability to provide this experience, ranch schools had to prove their “Westerness.” As the result, Arizona ranch school owners and investors used the local geography and American ideal of the West to create this experience. The myth of the West, essential to meeting the aims of private school life, was an important marketing tool, as evidenced in by text and photographs included in promotional brochures. Owners established these schools to lure Easterners and their money to Arizona, much like those businessmen who founded Western dude ranches. Many wealthy Easterners, provided with an alternative to the traditional preparatory school, responded enthusiastically by sending their children across the country to reap the benefits of Western life. As the result, ranch schools came to play a significant role in the development of Arizona's tourism industry in the twentieth century. |
