- Speaker
- Megan Kate Nelson
- Lecture date
- April 14th, 2026
- Time
- 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
- Title
- The Westerners: Myth-Making and Belonging on the American Frontier
Born and raised in Colorado, Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer based in Boston. She is the author of four books, including Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America and The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, which was a 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist in History.
Nelson’s forthcoming book, The Westerners: Myth-Making and Belonging on the American Frontier (April 2026), tells two richly detailed and interwoven stories. The first reveals the captivating lives of women and men moving through the American West — Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Mexican Americans, and Canadian and Asian immigrants — during the nineteenth century. The second tracks the attempts of many Americans to erase these westerners from history, through a frontier myth that lionized individualism and conquest and celebrated white settlers traveling west in search of prosperity. Centering the book on seven extraordinary individuals, Nelson highlights the perseverance and ingenuity of the communities that have otherwise been forgotten or erased from history.