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.
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.
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.
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.
A Fistful of Data: Information and the Cattle Industry
Beef barons needed cowboys less and bookkeepers more as the nineteenth century wore on.
How Annie Oakley Defined the Cinema Cowgirl
“Little Sure Shot” was famous for her precision, athleticism, and trademark femininity.
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."
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.
The Downfall of the American Cowboy
As the need for ranch workers has dwindled, the iconic status of cowboys has continued to grow.
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.