Image of U.S. commemorative stamp fir the Gadsden Purchase

Taking Slavery West in the 1850s

Before the Civil War, pro-slavery forces in the South—particularly the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis—tried to extend their power westward.
The Roman Countryside by Pietro Barucci

Ride ’em, Butteri! 

Long before spaghetti westerns, Italians were turned on to an image of the American West by Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
Buffalo Bill's wild West and congress of rough riders of the world

The Triumphalism of American Wild West Shows

From the 1880s to the 1930s, hundreds of Wild West shows encouraged white audiences to view Native American culture as a rapidly vanishing curiosity.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Progress_(John_Gast_painting).jpg

The Myth of Manifest Destiny

Not everyone in the nineteenth century was on board with expanding the territory of the US from coast to coast.
Illustration: Branding Iron by Henry Rasmusen, c. 1937

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Rasmusen,_Branding_Iron,_c._1937,_NGA_21119.jpg

A Fistful of Data: Information and the Cattle Industry

Beef barons needed cowboys less and bookkeepers more as the nineteenth century wore on.
Annie Oakley

How Annie Oakley Defined the Cinema Cowgirl

“Little Sure Shot” was famous for her precision, athleticism, and trademark femininity.
An unknown paleontologist, 1860

The Dinosaur Bone Wars

1877 was a banner year for American dinosaurs: three major finds in the West turned the region into a "paleontologist's El Dorado."
Women and men in the California Gold Rush, 1850

Yes, Women Participated in the Gold Rush

“Conventional wisdom tells us that the gold rush was a male undertaking,” writes the historian Glenda Riley. But women were there, too.
A Bunch of Bucking Broncho Busters, 1898

The Downfall of the American Cowboy

As the need for ranch workers has dwindled, the iconic status of cowboys has continued to grow.
Lon Chaney and Richard Arlen lead vigilante committee in a scene from the film 'The Town Tamer', 1965.

The Civilian Solution to Bank Robberies

The surprising story of the vigilantes who took it upon themselves to catch bank robbers in the 1920s and 30s.