Name: ___________________________________________
Geographic Regions and
American Tall Tales
PROJECT PACKET
Assignment: Write your own American Tall Tale to explain the natural features of one NorthAmerican geographic region.
B
ackground Information:
Tall talk, or exaggerated storytelling, began in the 1800s as a way for Americans to come to terms with the vast and inhospitable lands theydcome to inhabit thick, dark forests filled with bears and panthers;treeless, arid deserts and plains; towering mountains; and unchartedseacoasts. The heroes and heroines of the tales were like the land itself gigantic, extravagant, restless, and flamboyant. Their exaggerated featsof courage and endurance helped the backwoodsman face theoverwhelming task of developing such land.Tall tale characterswere born from various combinations of historical fact, the storytelling of ordinary people, and the imagination of professional writers. Davy Crockett and Johnny Appleseed, for instance, were actual people who lived in the first half of the 1800s. Over a periodof time, as their stories were toldthe true details of their lives wereexaggerated and revised until they became folk heroes as well as historicalfigures. Other tall tale characters, such as Pecos Bill [and Paul Bunyan], were notactual men of history.these figures were for the most part the literaryinventions of professional newspaper and magazine writers
[T]he tales reveal a wide range of geographic settings and they illustrate thedifferent occupations that contributed to the development of the country. Pioneer settlers, backwoodsmen and women, sea captains, volunteer firefighters, farmers,cowboys, cowgirls, railroad workers, loggers all can be found in the American talltale.*
S
ome tall tales were written to explain the creationof some of the more dramatic natural features in theAmerican landscape. In the tradition of Greek myths, Africanfolktales, and American Indian creation legends, characters likePecos
B
ill are responsible for the existence of dramatic physicalfeatures, like the Grand Canyon. Other tall tales wrestle withAmerican mixed feelings about the transformational mechanicalinventions of the 19
th
Century, like the steam engine.*
from
American Tall Tales
by Mary Pope Osborne, p. x-xii, 1991
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