A Lantern in Her Hand

In A Lantern in Her Hand, the pioneer spirit is an important theme that celebrates the American Dream and the establishment of America as it is known today.

Pioneer refers to people who explore and establish a community in unchartered territories. The expansion of America into the West relied on the sacrifices of pioneers who were willing to make their own communities, societies, and states from the ground up. Abbie and Will become pioneers when they leave their community in Iowa and establish themselves in Nebraska. They are the first white Americans to settle in a stretch of Nebraska that becomes Cedartown, and the novel celebrates the experience of white American pioneers, who, by the novel’s logic, are entitled to claim the land on which they settle because of their hard work, regardless of its previous ownership. Pioneers faced many threats: battles with Indigenous nations over the right to own land, the elements of unforgiving weather, the unreliability of crops, and the isolation of pioneer communities. The novel celebrates the sacrifices pioneers made and the challenges they faced by making a hero out of Abbie.

A major component of pioneer life is the importance of community. Pioneer values include the idea that “[s]ervice finds its greatest opportunity and its least begrudged hours of labor among neighbors” (123). The pioneer community is idyllic in that there are no class boundaries, no rich versus poor—only equality in hardship. This is a rare format for society and honors the best in human nature that brings people together to survive and even thrive.

Another major component of pioneer life is the importance of constant and back-breaking work. In pioneer communities, “There was always so much to be done. One never could satisfy the demands of Work, that taskmaster which drove every one in the new country before the lash” (94). Work becomes like a religion, a strict way of living that requires that every individual do their part. This emphasizes the equality inherent in pioneer life: All men, women, and children work hard and work together. This is a stark juxtaposition to the life that Abbie could have lived had she married Ed Matthews instead of Will Deal. In choosing love over wealth, Abbie signs on for a life of never-ending labor, but that labor has meaning. The result is the establishment of a new territory, an accomplishment that she would not have achieved had she married Ed.

The pioneer journey is woven into the American identity. It is because of pioneers like Abbie that entire states and institutions were created, growing America in both land mass and population. The victory of society over nature is a part of this work as “[m]an’s system had improved upon the sinuously winding vagaries of the old buffalo, and the road, although still grass-grown, ran straight west past the house. The development of the road is the evolution of the various stages of civilization” (133). In the novel’s Western value system, the road and the house are examples of infrastructure that enhance civilization and mark the progress of humankind.

Pioneers are instrumental in this process, and they are courageous because they make the impossible possible. Abbie and her original band of pioneers create Cedartown from the ground up. Decades after they move out to Nebraska, Cedartown becomes a thriving setting for business, education, and life. The goal of the pioneers is to make life more manageable and livable for others.