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I'm a born-and-bred Westerner... the Old West isn't some distant fantasy theme-park experience for me, it's part of everyday life.
Sure our "wagons" look different these days and our guns are reproductions, but we haven't forgotten how great, great grandad and grandma struck out on some of the biggest adventures in history. Now only 150 years later, their children feel just as at home out here as the Indians do.
The "Old West" is still a integral part of the "New West" and is far from forgotten!!
At points in time I have had an interest in certain topics related to the history of the American West, but I wouldn't say it's a subject that, overall, I'm really drawn to. I think part of the reason most Americans probably feel the same way about it is because of a basic inability to relate to the time period. What I mean by that is, how many of us can trace our roots in America back that far? I'd hazard a guess the answer is, not very many.
A fair majority of us living today are instead the offspring of immigrant families that first arrived in this country at the beginning of the 20th Century. Depending on our ages, we either lived through such events like the Great Depression or fought in World War II or had relatives that did. And for those of us that did not experience these events first hand, the stories we were told still made them feel more immediate, and thus, easier for us to relate to. Add to it the advent of modern film making and sound recording, you have an instance where the history of the 20th Century is truly alive. You can see and hear Hitler give a speech or watch men like our grandfathers or fathers storm the beaches at Normandy. And for those generations that have grown up in a time when you can turn on a television or go on the Internet and view images from across the globe almost instantly, a few sepia toned photos of frontier cowboys and stories about Conestoga wagons just don't have the same appeal.
The history lover in me both understands and acknowledges there is no shortage of fascinating events which took place in this country long before my great grandparents arrived here from Europe. But the realist in me cannot escape the fact that, as a product of the 20th Century, those things which happened in what I consider "my lifetime" will always hold my attention more so than anything else.
I'm a born-and-bred Westerner... the Old West isn't some distant fantasy theme-park experience for me, it's part of everyday life.
The "Old West" is still a integral part of the "New West" and is far from forgotten!!
This
I've only been here since the mid 1960's, but the fascination with the area is intense ... and I see it everyday when I'm in contact with clients in a 5-state rocky mountain region sales territory.
But it's a limited story compared to so much that is going on or took places in other places around the USA. The Hollywood-ization of the American West kinda' replayed the same tales over and over again, missing out on so much of what took (and takes place now) here, so it's not a hot topic for many folk who believe they've already heard all there is to know ....
but I'll take the consistency of what is here to the entertainments of those other places, particularly the big cities and dense population areas of the USA.
At points in time I have had an interest in certain topics related to the history of the American West, but I wouldn't say it's a subject that, overall, I'm really drawn to. I think part of the reason most Americans probably feel the same way about it is because of a basic inability to relate to the time period. What I mean by that is, how many of us can trace our roots in America back that far? I'd hazard a guess the answer is, not very many.
A fair majority of us living today are instead the offspring of immigrant families that first arrived in this country at the beginning of the 20th Century. Depending on our ages, we either lived through such events like the Great Depression or fought in World War II or had relatives that did. And for those of us that did not experience these events first hand, the stories we were told still made them feel more immediate, and thus, easier for us to relate to. Add to it the advent of modern film making and sound recording, you have an instance where the history of the 20th Century is truly alive. You can see and hear Hitler give a speech or watch men like our grandfathers or fathers storm the beaches at Normandy. And for those generations that have grown up in a time when you can turn on a television or go on the Internet and view images from across the globe almost instantly, a few sepia toned photos of frontier cowboys and stories about Conestoga wagons just don't have the same appeal.
Perhap you're right. All my ancestors who moved West of the Mississippi did so between 1807 and 1869 so I feel very much a product of it. I'm the first in my family to live East of it since then as far as I can tell.
I wonder how much of it is other factors too. Modern (Americans at least,) aren't romanticized to the lone figure living a hard solitary life represented in the Cowboy Figure anymore. In fact most people probably can't fantom what a hard life it really is. I can - but only because I grew up on a farm and spent my late teens on a horse running fences as a summer job.
Nor do we still think of Indians as a pest to be removed or killed, instead there is a certain amount of sorrow and political correctness involved over that entire affair.
Not only that, but we just don't have any Cowboy role models anymore. I find it extremely interesting that many of the most famous cowboys, lived during those days. And even more ironic, that a lot of places they did their shows were in places that had their own cowboys, cattle drives, farmers, etc. Perhaps that is part of the key - people during those days were more easily able to relate to "real" cowboys because they were themselves.
Born in 1928, Blocker wasn't too far ahead of the gas vehicle in Texas. I have a 1924 Dodge Brothers car out in my barn that was the very first gas vehicle used on my wife's Parmer County, Texas farm. My dad, born in 1909, recalled dating my mom on horseback in deep east Texas.
Dan Blocker was born in northeast Texas (near Texarkana) but moved with his parents as a baby to O'Donnell, Texas (Lynn County) directly south of Lubbock. Not much down there even now but a lot of sun and dirt.
I agree that some of the Bonanza series addressed some significant historical events in America. Even the cook Hop Sing was a constant reminder of the significant place Chinese immigrant laborers played in the development of the American West.
There's also an episode where a Chinese family comes to work on the Ponderosa. There's trouble in town with the racists, and of course the Cartwrights save the day, and in the it turns out the Chinese were moving on further west, just worked to save enough money to buy their own land.
maybe we should deal with the reality and quit playing guilt games and appreciate the richness of OUR past
Quote:
Originally Posted by hamellr
I wonder how much of it is other factors too. Modern (Americans at least,) aren't romanticized to the lone figure living a hard solitary life represented in the Cowboy Figure anymore. In fact most people probably can't fantom what a hard life it really is. I can - but only because I grew up on a farm and spent my late teens on a horse running fences as a summer job.
Nor do we still think of Indians as a pest to be removed or killed, instead there is a certain amount of sorrow and political correctness involved over that entire affair.
Not only that, but we just don't have any Cowboy role models anymore. I find it extremely interesting that many of the most famous cowboys, lived during those days. And even more ironic, that a lot of places they did their shows were in places that had their own cowboys, cattle drives, farmers, etc. Perhaps that is part of the key - people during those days were more easily able to relate to "real" cowboys because they were themselves.
I think this is a part of it which is rarely allowed to surface, and its too bad because neither are the real people who lived then.
Today we tend to romantise everything. Natives know its a made up story, but the idea that all these different tribes were peace loving nature lovers is enshrined in the new pc mythos. This is very far from the truth, and while they were a different overall culture they were no 'nicer' or 'kinder' than the anglo culture they confronted, and just as varied. If we could deal with this then we could look past the rest, I think.
And it doesn't make it the current generation's *personal* responsibility that when cultures clashed someone lost. Consider that the plains tribes were in the plains since they'd been the losers in power struggles further east with other native tribes with better arms and orginanzation. And they had constant wars between themselves, the echoes of which linger. A friend of mine has a mother who is Crow and father Sioux. They moved from the reservation for a better life and because his entire family would never let him forget that he'd married beneath himself.
Lets look at the west as it REALLY was, not making the natives evil murderers OR peace loving idealists. Lets look at them as they were, and their cultures not just as 'indians' but seperate societys which didn't much like each other. We can do that with European history. Why not our own.
And lets, along the way, not villify the pioneers either. Lets look at the hardness of life and the past of migration to something better which had brought them there. Rich, privilidged people didn't migrate west. Poor, barely making it people did. Just as the native tribes did some very horrible things to each other they did the same to new arrivals. They reacted in kind, and we need to figure that in, but not *judge* it, but need to realistically deal with the taking of the west. They didn't set government policy. They moved on as they'd moved on before.
Maybe dealing with the mess left today would be a better payoff than trying to crawl into the heads of those who live 200 years ago. They're dead. The survivors children's children and so on are not.
Lets look at everyone as people in their own time with their own mindset. Let's not impose our own as a judgement. Lets look at the whole picture. It's often looked at as if there was some masterplan but there wasn't. And lets honor courage where its found, weather its the courage to fight until you can't to save your way of life, or face each hard day followed and preceeded by other hard days as a hardscrabble pioneer settler, at mercy of weather and disastor, when you could put it all back in the wagon and give up.
But that dream will never go away, of myth or reality, that to have a place to go, to get away from the society which wouldn't give you a chance, where all that mattered was you... that is the most powerful drive the west had. People didn't come to subvert anyone, but to escape. Just as we still, some of us at least, hold that as a dream. That's why the lone cowboy holds a power that all the scholerly volumes on the life of a cowboy can't change, since it lets us see past the days troubles to something more. The reason that farmer who was barely making it on the prarie didn't give up was it was better than fading away where they'd come from.
Something that turns a lot of people off is the gun fights. Not so much the violence but its get old and tired. It hard to tell a story with out a gun fight. A Cowboy historian once said those guns were not very accurate and it was more common for cowboys to die trying to cross a river on a horse than in a gun fight.
Something that turns a lot of people off is the gun fights. Not so much the violence but its get old and tired. It hard to tell a story with out a gun fight. A Cowboy historian once said those guns were not very accurate and it was more common for cowboys to die trying to cross a river on a horse than in a gun fight.
The reality is that Hollywood glorified the "gun fights" into something that never was, and a lot of writers have made hay out of this aspect ...
There's many more real stories of the West that tell of the survival and hardships, but they don't have the glamour and excitement that gunplay brings into a story line for the masses.
Location: Finally escaped The People's Republic of California
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The "Old West" is my favorite period in history, I remember watching all the romanticized movies when I was a kid, loved them then, and still do...DVR Gunsmoke and Rawhide everyday to watch after work, like the old stuff much more than any Dancing with an American Idol type stuff...
Drive from Sacramento to Salt Lake City, then imagine doing that in a wagon pulled by oxen....Those were some tough people back then.....
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maybe we should deal with the reality and quit playing guilt games and appreciate the richness of OUR past
