VOA标准英语2010年-Bringing the Great American Frontier t

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National Portrait Gallery
" If you look beyond the myth, you come to understand that people from many different places, different backgrounds, different fields of endeavor and ambitions converge¹ to recreate the American West." - Frank Goodyear

Hollywood has shaped our perception of the American West. Images of cowboys in saloons, American Indians in feather headdresses, and outlaws² robbing trains at gunpoint come to mind. But visitors to the "Faces of the Frontier" exhibition organized by the National Portrait Gallery here in Washington can learn more about the real personalities³ who helped shape the West.

Some faces and names are familiar, like Sitting Bull, the Dakota Indian chief whose warriors⁴ defeated and massacred George Armstrong Custer's troops at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Custer's portrait is also in the exhibit, taken 16 years before his death, when he was a cadet at West Point.

Faces of the Frontier

Other faces and names are not as well remembered. Curator Frank Goodyear included them among the portraits of 115 men and women he chose for the exhibit. "If you look beyond the myth, you come to understand that people from many different places, different backgrounds, different fields of endeavor and ambitions converge to recreate the American West," says Goodyear.

Edward Sheriff Curtis
Theodore Roosevelt (1904) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Some of those people had a huge impact, like Joseph Glidden, whose invention of barbed wire transformed the open landscape of the West into cattle ranches⁵.  And Theodore Roosevelt, who spent time ranching⁶ in North Dakota, before he became President in 1901. "When Roosevelt became president, he transformed this love of the West into concrete legislation," Goodyear says, "setting aside land for national parks and national forests and initiating⁷ a vigorous debate about conservation."

The exhibit contains portraits of other conservationists including John Muir, who founded the Sierra Club. And there are businessmen whose products are still being sold today: confectioner Domingo Ghiradelli and Levi Strauss, who made a fortune selling his 501 jeans to miners during the Gold Rush.

Western Voices

There are explorers like John Wesley Powell, the first white man to navigate⁸ the entire length of the Colorado River.  Artists like Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt, who painted sweeping⁹ landscapes and photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who used his camera to capture more authentic¹⁰ images of the West. "He was an extraordinary landscape photographer and his images, and photographs by other important landscape photographers, resonated with audiences in the East who couldn't imagine the scale and the beauty, the grandeur¹¹ of some of these landscapes."

Jack¹² London, author of Call of the Wild and other stories revolving¹³ around the Yukon Gold Rush in Alaska, gave Easterners a literary portrait of the West, as did Samuel Clemens. Using the pen name Mark Twain, Clemens was "the first individual to bring a Western voice to American literature," Goodyear says. "His short stories written in California in the 1860s and his novel Roughing It really provide a larger American public with some of the colorful characters and dramatic stories associated with the West."

John Wood
Annie Oakley (c. 1885) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired through the generosity¹⁴ of friends of the Department of Photographs

The Wild West

The West did have its share of colorful characters, both famous and infamous¹⁵; criminals like Jesse James and the Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And there were entertainers like Annie Oakley, who was known for her marksmanship, and the man she worked for, William Cody, or "Buffalo¹⁶ Bill," whose "Wild West Show" toured abroad.

There are even portraits of Hollywood's earliest stars. "In portraits of famous cowboy actors such as Tom Mix and William S. Hart and such silent film stars as Gloria Swanson and the director Cecil B. DeMille, we get a wonderful snapshot of the early silent era in California cinema," says Goodyear.

The exhibit spans a period of 80 years, from 1845, when Texas became a state, to 1924, when Native Americans were given full citizenship¹⁷. Those eight decades, Goodyear says, were a time of great change in the West and the United States as a whole  "One thinks of the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles [more than 1 million square kilometers] of land into the territory, a series of well-publicized battles between native and non-native peoples, and the birth of the modern-day environmental movement."

"Faces of the Frontier" shows the people behind those changes.
 

1 converge   

vi.会合；聚集，集中；(思想、观点等)趋近

参考例句：

• The results converge towards this truth.其结果趋近于这个真理。
• Parallel lines converge at infinity.平行线永不相交。

2 outlaws   

歹徒，亡命之徒( outlaw的名词复数 )； 逃犯

参考例句：

• During his year in the forest, Robin met many other outlaws. 在森林里的一年，罗宾遇见其他许多绿林大盗。
• I didn't have to leave the country or fight outlaws. 我不必离开自己的国家，也不必与不法分子斗争。

3 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

4 warriors   

武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I like reading the stories ofancient warriors. 我喜欢读有关古代武士的故事。
• The warriors speared the man to death. 武士们把那个男子戳死了。

5 ranches   

大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They hauled feedlot manure from the ranches to fertilize their fields. 他们从牧场的饲养场拖走肥料去肥田。
• Many abandoned ranches are purchased or leased by other poultrymen. 许多被放弃的牧场会由其他家禽监主收买或租用。

6 ranching   

adj.放牧的

参考例句：

• They cleared large tracts of forest for farming, logging and ranching. 他们清除了大片的森林以经营农耕、采伐与畜牧。
• This is a trade center in a ranching and oil-producing region. 这是一个牧场与产油区的贸易中心。

7 initiating   

v.开始( initiate的现在分词 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员

参考例句：

• He is good at initiating projects but rarely follows through with anything. 他善于创建项目，但难得坚持完成。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Only the perchlorate shows marked sensitiveness and possibly initiating properties. 只有高氯酸盐表现有显著的感度和可能具有起爆性能。 来自辞典例句

8 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

9 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

10 authentic   

a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的

参考例句：

• This is an authentic news report. We can depend on it. 这是篇可靠的新闻报道, 我们相信它。
• Autumn is also the authentic season of renewal. 秋天才是真正的除旧布新的季节。

11 grandeur   

n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华

参考例句：

• The grandeur of the Great Wall is unmatched.长城的壮观是独一无二的。
• These ruins sufficiently attest the former grandeur of the place.这些遗迹充分证明此处昔日的宏伟。

12 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

13 revolving   

adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想

参考例句：

• The theatre has a revolving stage. 剧院有一个旋转舞台。
• The company became a revolving-door workplace. 这家公司成了工作的中转站。

14 generosity   

n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为

参考例句：

• We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
• We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。

15 infamous   

adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的

参考例句：

• He was infamous for his anti-feminist attitudes.他因反对女性主义而声名狼藉。
• I was shocked by her infamous behaviour.她的无耻行径令我震惊。

16 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

17 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。