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89:. He saw the fertile farmland of the west as an ideal place for people willing to work hard for the opportunity to succeed. The phrase came to symbolize the idea that agriculture could solve many of the nation's problems of poverty and unemployment characteristic of the big cities of the East. It is one of the most commonly quoted sayings from the nineteenth century and may have had some influence on the course of American history.
105:"Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles." "That," I said, "is very frank advice, but it is medicine easier given than taken. It is a wide country, but I do not know just where to go." "It is all room away from the pavements. ..."
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In 1849, Samuel
Merritt was making a name for himself as a physician in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Merritt, originally from Harpswell, Maine, completed a difficult operation on a friend of the aging statesman Daniel Webster. Webster lived in nearby Marshfield at the time. Impressed, Webster befriended
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claims that
Greeley himself denied providing that advice and " the rest of this life vigorously protesting that he had never given this advice to Grinnell or anyone else ...". Wall wrote that an account of the true source of "Go West, young man" and Greeley's disavowal of being the author of the
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the young doctor. As they spoke, Merritt admitted his fascination with the gold rush drawing people to
California. Webster advised him, “Go out there, young man; go out there and behave yourself, and, free as you are from family cares, you will never regret it.” Samuel took the advice.
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claimed in his autobiography that Horace
Greeley first addressed the advice to him in 1833, before sending him off to Illinois to report on the Illinois Agricultural State Fair. Grinnell reports the full conversation as:
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Washington is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.
155:, "Go west young man, and grow up with the country"; and that Greeley later used the quote in his own editorial in 1865. However, the phrase does not appear in the 1851 edition of the
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Wall wrote that
Indiana State Library Newspaper Librarian John L. Selch, in a letter to William Deminoff on Dec. 12 1983, confirmed that
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also suggests Soule as the source, offering an account in which the line originated from a bet between Soule and
Indiana Congressman
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concludes: "the primary-source historical record contains not a shred of evidence that Soule had anything to do with the phrase."
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Some claim it was first stated by John
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gives the full quotation as, "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country", from
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Nice Guys Finish
Seventh: False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations
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78:(1850) by Horace Greeley, but the phrase does not occur in that book.
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and published by
Delacourte Press in New York in 1968 (p. 745:2).
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Hints Toward Reforms, in lectures, addresses, and other writings
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49:. No one has yet proven who first used this phrase in print.
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440:""Go West, Young Man" Who wrote it? Greeley or Soule?"
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245:. Oxford University Press, TME. 1999. p. 351.
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354:. Ames: Iowa State University Press. p. 91.
184:The Speechwriter's Slant (blog). Archived from
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352:Grinnell College in the Nineteenth Century
159:. An analysis of this phrase in the 2007
552:1872 United States presidential election
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381:"Go West, Young Man—an Elusive Slogan"
369:. New York: HarperCollins. p. 21.
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645:History of United States expansionism
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547:1872 Democratic National Convention
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242:The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
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542:1872 Liberal Republican convention
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33:, to whom the saying is attributed
21:Go West Young Man (disambiguation)
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408:. Yale University Press. p.
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207:Spinrad, Leonard (1979).
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273:Greeley, Horace (1850).
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111:Josiah Bushnell Grinnell
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182:"Go West Young Man ..."
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326:. p.
324:D. Lothrop
322:. Boston:
167:References
578:Rehoboth
460:cite web
108:—
56:—
587:Related
450:24 June
283:24 June
258:24 June
140:Author
561:Places
514:Career
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452:2018
414:ISBN
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