Sunday, September 13, 2009

The West of Romance and Reality

 
 George Armstrong Custer and his wife Elizabeth Clift Bacon not long after their 1864 marriage.


George Armstrong Custer and a hunting expedition in 1874. He was as big of a celebrity as was known in America at the time. (National Archives)
The 7th Cavalry on the Dakota Plains in 1874, two years before Custer's company of troopers met its fate at Little Big Horn. (National Archives

Frederic Remington, The Herd Boy (1905) Museum of Fine Art, Houston. 
Few shows were as popular in late nineteenth-century America than Buffalo Bill's Wild West. (In fact, it once played in what is now Lee Circle!) At the same time, the western "dime novel" became very popular, only to be later replaced by the detective story. Both Buffalo Bill and the "western" genre of literature and film have done much to shape both the self-image and projected image of Americans.

A map depicting the scheme by which private railroad companies acquired land in checkerboard fashion. Shaded squares reflect railroad land. Those shaded red have been sold. Unshaded land was sold by the federal government. (Library of Congress)
 
Apache prisoners ready to board an eastbound train toward captivity. Does this picture suggest any irony? (Library of Congress)
Although it would not embed, this image of Virginia City, Nevada, adjacent to the Comstock Lode, is worth a look.

No comments:

Post a Comment