With the advent of European contact, Spanish and Mexican and indigenous women lived in—and came from—all directions. I’d say it’s more a land of contradictions. As the stories continued to be passed down through the generations, the reality of what was really going on in the American West has become long forgotten.

The idea that bank robberies happened all to often back in the old west is a completely false assumption that people have today because of the stories and legends passed down from past generations. (Rodeo Drive takes its name from Rancho Rodeo.) Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress, [Cattle, horses, and people at the fair with stables in the background], Old Mission Church, Los Angeles, California, between 1880 and 1899, The Old Carreta, Pueblo of Laguna, New Mexico, 1890, A Mexican Home (ranchita), between 1880 and 1897, As Some Things Appear on the Plains and Among the Rockies in Mid-Summer. But as early as the mid-1800s, the American West was also a mythical place of wide-open plains, cowboys riding the range, and heroic battles pitting brave settlers against savage Native Americans. The myth of the cowboy is only one of many myths that have shaped our views of the West in the late 19th century. This factual evidence turns out to be very shocking to some people, and a lot would probably just deny it. But not all women could participate in these opportunities. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, what people believe Old West life was like, historic American westerners really experienced. The cowboy became the symbol for the West of the late 19th century, often depicted in popular culture as a glamorous or heroic figure. Map of the Indian and Oklahoma territories. PBS, n.d. 16 Oct. 2015. But the frontier was also home to women whose stories don’t match the standard Hollywood Western script. History Detective Eduardo Pagan provides background on Bob Nolan, a member of the Sons of the Pioneers and the writer of “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” A former member of the Sons of the Pioneers explains how the song was written and how popular it became. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. is a magazine of ideas from Arizona State University Knowledge Enterprise. ( Log Out / 

Over the years, Americans have painted a very deceiving picture of bank robberies in the American West. Formerly the chair of the department of history, she has published more than 30 articles and books on topics in history, humanities, and higher education. In fact, some historians even contend that the Wild West "was a far more civilized, more peaceful and safer place than American society today.". The Myth: One reason Americans have always been so in love with the Old West is that it's so distinctly American. Use the following episodes or lesson plans from History Detectives to support/enhance the teaching of this lesson in your classroom. The truth is that Hollywood lied to you. Web. Skip a few years forward, and there are kids sitting in the living room after dinner listening to fascinating tales of outlaws robbing banks on the family radio. That’s where the West begins; Out where the sun is a little brighter,

“10 Great Train Robberies.” Mental Floss. Yet working among Native Americans in western locations, from the Nez Perce in northern Idaho to the Cahuilla of Southern California, gave these women the opportunity to measure themselves against their indigenous counterparts—and at least some found their own civilization lacking. More than just a glimpse of the past, Old West Legends will transport you into the adventurous times of the Wild Wild West.

The buildings were normally stacked up against each other. 2013. Students may record their notes on the Escaping the Depression reproducible. What examples or evidence can you cite?

Then, ask them to write their own song that uses the ideas of the mythical Old West or to think of a current hit song and rewrite it to include those ideas. The truth is that Hollywood lied to you. She said she had only to shut her eyes to see it all, to smell the pines and the sage.” Through its association with romantic national mythologies of sublime landscape and heroic endeavor, an ordinary woman’s life on a ranch in Wyoming seemed to mean more—and to reveal more—than one on a farm in Wisconsin or Connecticut. And a man makes friends without half trying, Can the West be heard? (Last Privacy Policy Update July 2020), Byways & Historic Trails – Great Drives in America, Soldiers and Officers in American History, See our Old West Photo Print Galleries HERE, Jolly Cholly Funland, North Attleborough, Massachusetts. This is because these crimes are so hard to commit, that very few men can become famous for being successful. Room to invent new identities — Maria Raquel Casas. On the surface, this appears to be a success story. In the years after the Civil War, those women found plenty of opportunities in the West that were not available in the East: everything from the right to vote to equal pay for women teachers to more liberal divorce laws.

First, lead a discussion about the Great Depression in 1930s America. However, Chung’s economic and social rise also depended upon her manipulation of her identity, including strategically performing a projected role of foreign womanhood. The process required hard physical labor and often brought settlers into deadly conflicts with Native Americans. In fact, the most popular and practical cowboy headwear choices were the bowler and the derby because they were less likely to fly off when you were riding horses at speed. Produced by Kathy Weiser-Alexander, narrated by Dave Alexander.

It seems as though that over the years, Americans have created this pattern of passing down crazy stories and myths about bank robberies. Hollywood renditions of cowboys, Indians, gunfights, and outlaws paint a romanticized version of what people believe Old West life was likebecause the idea of a gritty frontiersman who maintained law and order with his peacemaker was the stuff of box office gold. By maintaining some familiar forms of work, such as farming, foraging, and needlework, women helped to mitigate new economic realities on the reservation. Under colonial Spain and newly independent Mexico, married women living in the borderlands of what is now the American Southwest had certain legal advantages not afforded their European-American peers. Whenever a train or bank robbery would take place, different groups of outlaws; like the James and Younger boys, would normally receive all pressure from the law. This lesson is written for grades 6-8, but could be adapted for use in any grade 6-12. Certainly, many people, including women, relocated to the West based on the belief that opportunity awaited them. Another slight problem for anyone that thought about robbing a bank is the way the buildings were built back then. A land of contradictions as well as opportunity — Virginia Scharff. During the post-Civil War period in the American West (1865-1910), middle-class and upper-class white women often did enjoy more flexibility and more freedom—to travel, to own land in their name, to exercise control over their children. An Era Ends As the Telegraph Passes Into History, Cemeteries – Outdoor Museums of the Forgotten Past, The Most Prolific Gunslingers of the Wild West, Outhouse Madness – Relics of Another Time, Patent Medicine & the Popular Medicine Show. Black cowboys also rode the range.

Your email address will not be published. An easy way to see all articles getting posted to social media is to look on the right hand side of most of our pages (or if you are on tablet or mobile device, look at the bottom, after the article page, for “What’s Happening”, which shows our Twitter Feed. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.9 Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources. Virginia Scharff is distinguished professor of history at the University of New Mexico. Historical Analysis and Interpretation: The student engages in historical analysis and interpretation, 4.

Let’s begin with one of those invisible, obvious facts of history: Women had been living in what became “the West” centuries before anyone arrived from “back East.” We have plenty of evidence of the ways they claimed homes and made communities, from the remnants of the Cahokia Mounds to the majestic ruins of Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon, where archaeologist Patricia Crown has found evidence of chocolate and macaws from the 12th century.

Have you thought about doing a daily featured story, maybe the most recently added, or this day in the wild west, or even a randomly chosen story that you consider of particular interest? However, those 30 seconds were enough for numerous deaths and wounds to be inflicted. On the other hand, if the proper time is taken to do some research and digging on what was really going on, then it turns out to be quite easy to find information stating that bank robberies were actually far and few in between. History Online. Vicki L. Ruiz is distinguished professor of history and Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California, Irvine. They were the ultimate outlaws of their day, when most criminals stuck with robbing trains or other things that were outside of town, these men were pulling off major heists of their day. To help your students analyze these primary sources, get a graphic organizer and guides. The chance to be a landowner — Vicki L. Ruiz. Jane Simonsen is associate professor of history and women’s and gender studies at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.

Mobility—but not necessarily upward — Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. Conversely, Spanish-Mexican women retained control of their land after marriage and held one-half interest in the community property they shared with their spouses. For example, Margaret Chung, the subject of a biography I wrote, became the first American-born Chinese female physician. In what ways do you see the ideas of the Old West represented in today’s pop culture? For some it was old western movies that showed us what the American west was like, for others it was stories passed down through their family.

Did Western women experience the same freedoms and adventures as their male counterparts?

While it’s true that life in America’s Old West was rugged and harsh, made so by the untamed terrain and lack of amenities, Hollywood’s portrayals of mass murders, daily gunfights, gallant cowboys, and raging Natives is merely an exaggerated version of what dangerous accounts historic American westerners really experienced in their daily lives on the frontier. Or ask students to brainstorm the ideas and places that are mythical now and rewrite a song to reflect these new myths. The more of … Elinore Pruitt Stewart, writing from Wyoming in 1913, placed a series of letters about her homesteading experience in the prestigious Atlantic Monthly. “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” wasn’t originally a song about the Old West. Does the romantic notion and myth persist today? If we see women’s contributions to settling the West as nothing more than dependent mates to men, we fail to see the complex woman that Victoria represents. Even though slavery had been outlawed after the Civil War, the isolation of these camps—in places like Warrens, Idaho—meant that slavery existed in fact if not in law.