A New Home

Cultivation

100

What are some of the complications faced on the Michigan frontier related to the cultivation of the land?

“Bitter complaints he said were often made of corn, potatoes, or cucumbers being spirited away in the night, and the Indians got the blame at least, but from him they took nothing” (Kirkland 30).

200

How does Mrs. Clavers portray her own commitment to cultivation?

Chapter XX of A New Home is almost exclusively devoted to Mrs. Clavers’s garden. “[The asparagus] grew so nobly the first year that the haulm was almost worth mowing… Then, what majestic palm-leaf rhubarb, and what egg-plants!” (Kirkland 81).

300

How does cultivation on the frontier illustrate status?

A class distinction is demonstrated between Mrs. Clavers and her neighbors through their responses to her flowers. “A lady to whom I offered a cutting of my noble balm geranium...declined the gift, saying, “she never know’d nobody make nothin’ by raisin’ sich things.” One might have enlightened her a little as to their moneyed value, but I held my peace and gave her some sage-seed” (Kirkland 80).

400

What behavior might Kirkland assert stands directly opposed to honest cultivation?

On land speculation, Kirkland writes: “I have since had occasion to observe that this forms a prominent and frequent theme of self-gratulation among the settlers in Michigan. […] The man who holds himself ready to accept the first advantageous offer [for his farm], which he considers merely an article of trade, and which he knows his successor will look upon in the same light” (22).

500

How do Michigan frontierspeople complicate their own happiness through their relationship to the land?

Clavers observes that area residents tend to treat the land as merely article of trade, and only make improvements such as would add value, rather than domestic comforts, which would not add to the moneyed value of a farm (Kirkland 22).

Speculation

100

How is the frontier profit economy problematic for those who emigrate west?

Many come west to cultivate land purchased on credit, risking that this land will prove insufficiently productive to support a family and satisfy the debt obligation.

200

Is there evidence to support the contention that the Clavers were, irrespective of Kirkland’s views of such persons, speculators themselves?

“and all this, although sure to cost Mr. Clavers an immense sum, [Mr. Mazard], from his experience of the country…would be able to accomplish at a very moderate cost…All these points being thus satisfactorily arranged…” (Kirkland 12).

300

Could one argue that Kirkland’s text foresees a perception of A New Home as advertising for the frontier?

Before beginning her story, Clavers takes care to assure the reader that her work is “a veracious history of actual occurrences, an unvarnished transcript of real characters, and an impartial record of every-day forms of speech” (Kirkland 3).

400

Could one consider Kirkland’s writing of A New Home a form of speculation, similar to land speculation?

Kirkland’s text takes as its subject the Michigan frontier, embellishes the fertility of the soil, and yields a profit, however small, without cultivating the land.

500

What would be Kirkland's criticism of speculation, simply put?

Speculation seeks profit without work, and suppresses the prosperous cultivation of the land. (22)

Borrowing

100

Give an instance of Kirkland incorporating literary borrowing.

Kirkland borrows numerous writings from other authors and incorporates them into the narrative. One might argue this literary borrowing challenges the authenticity of Kirkland's authorial voice.

200

What is the proper frontier etiquette for borrowing something from a neighbor?

None. "...your wheel-barrows, your shovels, your utensils of all sorts, belong, not to yourself, but to the public, who do not think it necessary even to ask for a loan, but take it for granted" (Kirkland 67).

300

Why would one such as Clavers, who is disdainful of a system of communal property, willingly participate in it?

Out of necessity. Frontier life is such that "a stray spark of fire, sudden illness, or a day's contre-temps, may throw you entirely upon the kindness of your humblest neighbour" (Kirkland 65).

400

What disadvantage does communal property and material borrowing present to the well-to-do neighbors?

The well-to-do must sacrifice valuable goods they have worked for to those who have not, and without the expectation of equitable compensation. ""Mother wants to get some butter..." And away goes your golden store, to be repaid perhaps with some cheesy, greasy stuff, brought in a dirty pail..." (Kirkland 68).

500

According to Kirkland's text, how does one find an equitable exchange on the frontier?

By working the land. In the words of Mrs. Clavers, "Nobody can deny that our soil amply repays whatever trouble we may bestow upon it" (Kirkland 81).

Work

100

Do all of Montacute’s residents display a strong, frontier work ethic?

Not exactly. “[Mr. B—‘s] land, which by cultivation would have yielded abundant supplies for his table, was suffered to lie unimproved, because he had not money to pay labourers. Even a garden was too much trouble...” (Kirkland 77).

200

How does Kirkland feel about those who avoid honest work?

“Finding themselves growing poorer and poorer, they persuade themselves that all who thrive, do so by dishonest gains...and they are teaching their children...to despise plodding industry, and to indulge in repining and feverish longings after unearned enjoyments” (Kirkland 78).

300

What are, in Kirkland’s view, the ideal qualities of a frontier woman?

"[Mrs. Doubleday] keeps her husband’s house and stockings in unexceptionable trim. Her emptin’s are the envy of the neighbourhood. Her vinegar is, as how could it fail? The ne plus ultra of sharpness; and her pickles are greener than the grass of the field" (Kirkland 70).

400

What does Mrs. Clavers mean by asserting that on the Michigan frontier, the division of labour is almost unknown?

“If in absolutely savage life, each man is of necessity “his own tailor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook...” and each woman “chamber-maid and waiter; nurse, seamstress and school ma’am” (Kirkland 72-73).

500

“This has its limits of course; and one cannot help observing that “leveling upwards” is much more congenial to “human natur’,” than leveling downwards.” To what is Mrs. Clavers referring here?

“The man who thinks you ought to spare him a piece of ground for a garden, because you have more than he thinks you need, would be far from sharing with his poorer neighbor the superior advantages of his lot. He would tell him to work for them as he had done” (Kirkland 185).

Textual Analysis

100

How does Mr. Doubleday use language to trump his wife?

He uses rhyming couplets that he refers to as "poetical justice" (Kirkland 70).

200

Contemporary to Kirkland's work, promotional literature sought to spur emigration with promises of fortunes to be had. How might A New Home function as promotional literature?

Kirkland’s claims regarding the land’s fertility sometimes strain belief. She writes, “Even on the first turning up, [the soil] furnishes you with all the humbler luxuries in the vegetable way, from the earliest pea to the most delicate cauliflower, and the golden pumpkin, larger than Cinderella’s grandmother ever saw in her dreams” (81).

300

In what way might one read A New Home as corrective with regard to contemporary promotional literature?

At times Kirkland paints a realistically unromantic picture of frontier life: “The circumstance of living all summer, in the same apartment with a cooking fire, I had never happened to see alluded to in any of the elegant sketches of western life which had fallen under my notice. It was not until I actually became the inmate of a log dwelling in the wilds, that I realized fully what “living all in one room” meant" (48).

400

Through Mr. Doubleday's wordplay, how does the text comment on the written word?

It speaks to the written word’s power and permanency.

500

In Kirkland’s time, emigrant’s guides were a way to profit off what was largely an unprofitable venture (emigration west). Within this context, how should we read A New Home, Who’ll Follow?

It is interesting to note that Kirkland’s family’s Michigan venture was a bust, and her writing was profitable. In the end, has Kirkland profited off the land without cultivation? Is this an unfair criticism of the business of authorship?