“Wild” West Workshop – Wed 1/30
by Dr. H - January 30th, 2013
Use these links to navigate to the resource you picked up on the assignment sheet and use today’s class time to study the resource online. If you chose a book, there’s a stack in the front of the room you can select from. Remember to leave about 5-10 minutes at the end to compose a comment to this post sharing your findings and insights from this workshop with the rest of the class. Your submitted comment is my record of your attendance and participation in today’s workshop.
(These are in alphabetical order)
Buffalo Bill Historical Center
Chinese in California, 1850-1925 (Library of Congress American Memory)
Chronicling America Historical Newspapers
Colorado Historical Newspapers Collection
Custer Battlefield Museum
Daniel Freeman’s Homestead Application, 1862
Denver Public Library photographs (Library of Congress American Memory)
Digital Archives of Sioux County Nebraska
Edward Curtis’s North American Indian (Library of Congress American Memory)
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
Little Bighorn National Monument
“Mythbusters” from students in HI 207 American West Course, Fall 2009
“No Renters Here” – Homesteading a Sod House
Plains Indian Ledger Art
Rawhide
Stagecoach (directed by John Ford, 1939)
Texas Border Photographs (Library of Congress American Memory)
Texas Ranch House
Texas State Historical Association – Handbook of Texas Online
Utah and Western Migration (Library of Congress American Memory)
Worcester State Library – Articles and Databases
Wyoming Newspaper Project
My assignment, as part of our exploration of life from 1865 to the 1900s was to explore through the Digital Archives of the Sioux City, Nebraska newspaper. This website appears to be credible because the information is presented in the original newspaper format. This newspaper writes its articles based on first accounts of events. At one point within the newspaper they talk about the purpose of the newspaper, “our readers will expect to be kept posted in regard to matters of local interest, hence we shall expect our friends to make known to us any incident, accident or idea which will help make our paper that what it is intended to be a live newspaper.†This shows that like current newspapers the Sioux City newspaper uses citizen’s accounts to write a broad spectrum of articles. This source is of a great deal of historical importance because it supports the information we read in our textbooks with actual accounts from the time period. The article I read from September 30, 1886 is about the effects of droughts on Western citizens. This article made me realize the tragedies and suffering caused by the droughts. The suffering spread from the farmers to the cattle owners, even to the mechanics. The lack of crops affected the farmer’s ability to earn a living. The cattle owners couldn’t afford to by the little available grain to feed their cattle. These factors greatly contributed to the economic downfall in the west. Families were suffering and some could barely make ends meet. The article made clear my previous conceptions about the American West. The American West was a place of great struggle, all of the dreams of opportunity and new beginnings quickly turned in to disappointment
I was assigned Utah and Western Migration (Library of Congress and American Memory). On this site I stubbled upon the dairies of James Lovett Bunting. He was a missionary for the Mormon church for over 10 years. He traveled from Florence, Nebraska to southern Utah. He worked closely with the second leader of the mormon church, Brigham Young. I find the mormon religion in general very interesting. I enjoyed reading about a man who devoted his life to his beliefs. This source is significant because Bunting was second to Brigham Young. I believe these sources are reliable and trustworthy because they are first hand written accounts of his journey.
First Peoples is a collection of documentations about the Native Americans and the tribes that were settled in the western area of the Northern American continent. Containing all of the history of Native Americans from their “discovery” by Europe, and the today’s remainder of the population, this book was written by Colin Calloway, who had chosen Apache chief James A. Garfield. This picture conveys to the audience the powerful definition of the Native American of the late 1800’s, where there is present traditional face paint on the subject’s face, but also a variation of European and NA clothing on him. Garfield also wears a medallion of president James A. Garfield, which is pretty interesting.
According to me, the picture is pretty important piece of history, as it contains the original America in it, but also bits of the “Europeanized” one.
My assignment was to research the Wild West so I read the book on myths and mysteries of the Old West. It was fascinating to learn what really happened and what is false. It listed many famous names of the time like General Custer, Billy the Kid, General Grant, Wild Bill, and more. It was interesting to learn why the west really earned its nick name of Wild West. Many massacres occurred here including Mountain Meadows Massacre which scared me to my core. It occurred on September 11, 1857 on a blue sky, warm, and sunny day. 120 men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood. It almost reminded me of September 11th, 2001 since the description of the weather, how the people were killed in cold blood, and the date it occurred on. It also went into telling the reader one of the popular stereotypes of the day towards Native Americans, that they had no soul and were not even human. It even goes into Battle of Little Big Horn which happened during June of 1876. It was General Custer and his men vs the Sioux Nation of Native Americans. The Sioux Nation included the Sioux, Cheyenne, Hunkpapa, BlackFoot, Brule, Two Kettles, Oglala, Minneconjou, and Sons Arc Tribes. Sitting Bull was the leader of the Sioux Nation. General Custer murdered so many innocent men, women, and children before being killed himself. The Wild West was full of cowboys, cattle, gun fights, saloons, Ghost Towns, settlers, farms, and miles of open land. Life in the west was very hard and the government gave ”great ” deals to get people to move there to grow their own plot of land. This take over of land hurt the natives and one day the life of the cowboy himself. This book and its stories are written from a fair look into both sides of the story including the Native Americans.
The reading on this website focused on cattle training and Texas’ role in the Civil War. It stated how cattle training was the principal method of getting cattle to the market in the late 19th century. Also, it achieved mythological stature as an aspect of the American Frontier. In 1846, the first cattle drive took place as Edward Pipher herded over 1,000. By war’s end, Texas possessed between 3 and 6 million heard of cattle. During the Civil War, some Texans drove cattle to New Orleans.
I researched an article from the Wyoming Newspaper project, more specifically on the Danish Purchase that took place in late January of 1869. The wild west’s main form of news was from articles in local newspapers. This way of receiving news only gave the towns people a generalization of what was going on during that specific time. The article focusses on the general opinion of how the press feels about the ratification of the St. Thomes treaty. The press throughout the country was mainly against the confirmation of the St. Thomes treaty. The objections included that no foreign government should be led to believe that the security of the states of the U.S, has authority to make purchases of foreign possessions without consulting legal rights of the people first. The Danish Minister in Washington was planning to press the terms of the treaty in order to accomplish a successful termination.