The Frontier and the Family The impact (影响) of the frontier has been traditionally assumed by historians, who have studied its effects on mountain men and cowboys, political and social institutions. Yet the impact of the frontier on the most common dimension of life--upon the family--remains largely unexamined. Although family has been especially significant in the historical process, it is a relatively new area of historical research. In terms of westward migration, family played a special role. For a people who mistrusted the church as much as the state, family was the only institution that could be entrusted with the enterprise of settling the continent. A Christian family was enough of the church a Christian family was sufficient expression of political and social order. In 1862, Congress provided for the distribution of lands to heads of households in a law, but that law merely recognized that settlement had been the business of families since the seventeenth century. Families took up the challenge of the western lands in a variety of ways. Some families moved west in loosely organized groups made up of families in similar directions. They drew up constitutions and elected leaders and generally applied the democratic process to the journey west. The government, for its part, provided little help-no maps or transportation, no tools or agricultural information, no medical services and little protection. Beyond the westward-running rivers there was no road until wagons left deep tracks on the ground so that one could see a trail--or until enough wagons became lost and doubled back to warn others against their mistakes. Nonetheless, the attraction of 'free land' was irresistible. One day or another, in a wagon train or all alone, a family packed its belongings and its livestock and set off toward the next 'empty' space. In the author's opinion, the role played by the family ______.