“American Progress” is depicted as a light-haired woman, classically dressed, who is leading the Americans west. She guides and protects miners, farmers, covered wagons, railroads, and even a stage coach, displacing Indian families and the buffalo of the Great Plains. She is stringing the transcontinental telegraph cable wire with one hand and holds a book in the other. The concept of Manifest Destiny—the idea that American conquest of the west was a sign of progress, taking civilization and prosperity to unenlightened peoples—provided a rationalization to Americans who displaced the Indians and other people of color who had long lived in California and other parts of the country west of the Mississippi River.