actions, including the Free Speech movement and the anti-Vietnam war protests. He retired from UCB in 1974, and was classified as President Emeritus. Smith taught at the University of Minnesota, at the University of Texas, at Southern Methodist University, and, from 1953 to 1960, at the University of California, Berkeley, later becoming professor emeritus. His Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, published in (1950) gave its name to the Myth and Symbol School, and in academia was the basis of the paradigm of American Studies until the 1980s. Since it was based on his Ph.D. thesis and was the basis of a History of American Civilization course at Harvard University, its publication has been seen as the birth of that field. The book's topic was the collective perception of the 19th-century American West. Smith used sources such as dime novels and other items of popular culture. He was associated with Leo Marx and John William Ward. In his 1957 essay "Can American Studies Develop a Method?" (American Quarterly), frequently anthologized, Smith advocated influential objectives and methodological views for the Myth and Symbol School. Smith married Elinor Lucas in 1956. They had three children: Harriet Elinor Smith, Janet Carol Smith, and Mayne Smith. Smith died at the age of 79 on June 6, 1986, following an automobile accident on May 30, 1986, near Elko, Nevada. Awards and honors 1981 elected member of the American Philosophical Society 1974 Guggenheim Fellowship - Awarded to individuals who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.] 1961 elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1951 Bancroft Prize 1950 John H. Dunning prize - Prize established in 1929 by the American Historical Association for the best book in history related to the United States. Smith was the 12th author to receive this biennial award. Works Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, 1950 (reprint Vintage Books, 1957; Harvard University Press, 1970, ) Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 1957 Mark Twain: The Development of a Writer, Belknap Press, 1962 Mark Twain's Fable of Progress: Political and Economic Ideas in A Connecticut Yankee, Rutgers University Press, 1964 Popular Culture and Industrialism, 1865-1890, 1967 Democracy and the Novel, 1978 Notes Additional reading John William Ward 1955. Andrew Jackson, Symbol for an Age. New York: Oxford University Press. John William Ward. 1969 Red, White, and