History Free Write

     The image of a heroic cowboy and the realities of a cowboy from the west are almost complete opposites. A cowboy celebrated in popular culture was seen as a hero, brave, courageous, and free with a horse and a pistol. A real cowboy in the west would most likely not be able to afford a horse or a pistol and really were just poor people. Cowboys were always depicted as always doing something "cool" in movies and in books which wasn't really the case. Cowboys also were always depicted to be loved by many women and always with a beautiful women while in reality it was most likely very difficult to find a women because they were so poor.

     Many historical realities of western life were distorted by the focus on cowboys as the dominant character in western history. Most guys wanted to go and be in the west and be like a cowboy because the cowboys made it seem so great by looking rugged but still able to prosper. Cowboys also were seen in bars a lot and having fun even though they were in an old western town which influenced people to think of the west as not such an old dusty boring place.

     Films and books contributed the most to the idealization of the American cowboy. Movies showed that the cowboy was always the tough guy with the beautiful woman standing up to a bad man. Books like the Virginian also contributed a lot to the idealization because people would read that book and it talked about how cool it was to be a cowboy and live in the west. Neither the films or the books ever mentioned how poor and lonely cowboys really were.

Ryan Scoggins