The Golden Age of Westerns

The mythologizing of the American frontier was well underway by the time that she was writing. There's a central relationship in this book between Alexandra, one of our main characters and Carl, her de facto love interest. They kind of debate, not debate, but they talk about living out in this hard fought existence on this unforgiving land versus living in the big city. So I think there is some like early 20th century, what world is going away? What world am I in now?