The Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West, 1865-1915

According to Szasz, religious clergy were as common in the American West as cowboys and miners.

He does a good job of proving it with literate clarity and impressive detail. Some methods used by many itinerant ministers to achieve their goals were innovative and amusing, but they all were driven by a conviction and vision that superseded the crudeness and dangers of life in the booming West. Szasz sometimes provides more insignificant facts than we need to know, and when he enters the 20th century, the interest in the historical aspect of the theme gets lost. It is, nevertheless, an intriguing eye-opener for considering the West from a different view.