From
black cowboys to the
Matador Ranch and over 23,000 entries in between, the
Handbook of Texas Online is a "a multidisciplinary
encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture sponsored by the
Texas State Historical Association."
View over 2000 images in this repository
of the work of
Edward S. Curtis. "The North American Indian by Edward S.
Curtis is one of the most significant and controversial
representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced.
Issued in a limited edition from 1907-1930, the publication continues
to exert a major influence on the image of Indians in popular
culture." The site cautions, "The captions reflect a perspective that
Indians were 'primitive' people whose traditional cultures and ways of
life were disappearing. In his representation of Indians as the
'vanishing race,' Curtis echoes the prevailing view held by
Euro-Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Contemporary readers should interpret the captions in that context." A
detailed
index lets you browse by category.
A
site devoted to Bob Nolan
(1908 -1980) founding member of the Sons of the Pioneers, author of
"Cool Water," "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," and many other Western
standards, offers a depth of features, including slide shows, video
clips, photos, and over 150 of Bob Nolan's songs. New features are
added each month, including a featured movie, photo, and song.
Fascinating photos of cowboys at
roundup, roping wolves, and more; gold seekers; deer hunters; Native
Americans; Chinese; Devil's Tower; Deadwood; "Comanche," the only
survivor of the Custer Massacre; and much more are included in the
John C.
H. Grabill Collection in the Prints & Photographs Online
Catalog at the Library of Congress. The collection is described, "The
one hundred and eighty-eight photographs sent by John C.H. Grabill to
the Library of Congress for copyright protection between 1887 and 1892
are thought to be the largest surviving collection of this gifted,
early Western photographer's work. Grabill's remarkably well-crafted,
sepia-toned images capture the forces of western settlement in South
Dakota and Wyoming and document its effects on the area's indigenous
communities." The description notes, "Some of the photographs were
taken only days after the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee near Pine
Ridge." View all of the images
here.
Image: "The Cow Boy" / J.C.H. Grabill,
photographer, Sturgis, Dakota Ter; Library of Congress, Prints &
Photographs Division, John C.H. Grabill Collection,
[LC-DIG-ppmsc-02638]
J. Frank Dobie's (1888-1964)
Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest was first
published in 1942 and the entire text, 35 chapters, is available on
line
here. Most chapters include reading lists, which grew
out of a course he taught at the University of Texas. Dobie writes
that despite the years of compiling and revising the work before
publication, "...the guide is fragmentary, incomplete, and in no sense
a bibliography. Its emphases vary according to my own indifferences
and ignorance as well as according to my own sympathies and knowledge.
It is strong on the character and ways of life of the early settlers,
on the growth of the soil, and on everything pertaining to the
range..."
A rich history and reference work, it is also full of opinion. Dobie
was an outspoken critic on many topics, including Texas government and
academia. In the chapter about
"Poetry and Drama," he comments, "Volumes of worthless verse, most
of it printed at the expense of the versifiers, hardly come to sight,
and before long they disappear from existence except for copies
religiously preserved in public libraries....It would not take one
more than an hour to read aloud all the poetry of the Southwest that
could stand rereading." Other chapters with bibliographies of
particular interest—both standards and now-obscure books—are found in
the chapters
"Range Life: Cowboys, Cattle, Sheep";
"Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads"; and
"Horses: Mustangs and Cow Ponies." Other chapters with "range
interest" include "Texas
Rangers" and
"The Bad Man Tradition."
A biography of
ranch-raised Dobie is found at the
Handbook of Texas Online. He was the author of many books,
including Vaquero of the Brush Country (1929); Coronado's
Children (1931); On the Open Range (1931); Tales of the
Mustang (1936); The Longhorns (1941); The Voice of the
Coyote (1949); Up the Trail From Texas (1955); and Cow
People (1964). He was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President
Lyndon B. Johnson, four days before his death.
Fort Worth's
Amon Carter Museum hosts the expansive online
Cowboy
Photograher: Erwin E. Smith collection.
The site tells that Erwin E. Smith (1886–1947) worked on Southwest
ranches as a teenager, "using his camera to document the cowboy way of
life that was fading away before his eyes...some of the most important
photographs of cowboy life on record."
Over 750 images cover "the varied jobs of all the players involved in
managing cattle, from the range boss to the wrangler, the bronco
buster to the line rider, the cook to the cutting horse. He wanted his
photographs to capture both the rugged realities and the romance of
life on the open range."
The site also includes teaching resources, which include a glossary
and bibliography.
New Perspectives on the
West is a comprehensive site from the Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS) filled with detailed content relating to The
West, an eight-part documentary series which premiered on
PBS stations in 1996.
The site is described, "This multimedia guided tour proceeds
chapter-by-chapter through each episode in the series, offering
selected documentary materials, archival images and commentary, as
well as links to background information and other resources... the
site assembles many of the documentary materials that went into the
making of this landmark series and highlights the new perspectives
it affords on this much-surveyed part of our past."
A section of biographical profiles includes pieces on people as
varied as Buffalo Bill Cody, Chief Joseph, Theodore Roosevelt, and
Brigham Young. Another section offers archival maps of states and of
trails and territories. A timeline from 1500 through 1917 offers an
expansive historical context. There are resources with additional
links and references, including "...many of the journals, memoirs,
autobiographies, reports and letters quoted in The West, as
well as many of the rare photographs featured in the series." The
site includes lesson plans designed for middle and high school
students, but of interest to all. The lesson plans include video
excerpts from the original series. Start with the site's excellent
introduction
for an overview of all that's available.
The
Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, a part of
the "Northern Plains 1880-1920" collection from the Institute
for Regional Studies, North Dakota State University (Fargo) and
hosted by the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress,
includes over 500 images documenting the settlement of the
northern Great Plains. Of
particular interest are special presentations on the topics of
"Schooling," "Women," "Immigrants," and "Sod Homes." The "Sod Homes"
section is further organized by sections of photos of sod buildings,
sod houses, sod barns, sod schools, sod post offices, and lean-tos.
From the introduction, "Throughout his
life, Fred Hultstrand exhibited the good sense to take note of the
ways in which life went on about him and to record his impressions
by means of a camera. He spent over sixty years photographing the
people and events of his region.
"The subject content of the collection is very diverse, ranging
from early sod homes, to farming scenes, to small town life, to
social events, and to education on the prairie. Subject strengths
include: sod buildings, farming, one-room schools, women,
children, and stores & shops in small town America. There are
images of plowing, threshing, steam engines, and horses. Weather,
always a major concern, includes blizzards, snow, and winter.
Other images contain scenes of eating & drinking, hunting,
celebrations, and women's organizations. The ethnic diversity of
the region is evident with the numerous images of Norwegian
Americans, Icelandic Americans, Canadian Americans, British
Americans, and others. Through this collection you will witness
the transformation of a part of the American frontier in the short
span of forty years, from the early 1880s to the 1920s."
Buckaroos in Paradise;
Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982
The Library of Congress
American Memory
Project presents a deep and rich collection, "Buckaroos in
Paradise," which "presents documentation of a Nevada
cattle-ranching community, with a focus on the family-run Ninety-Six
Ranch.... This collection presents 41 motion pictures and 28 sound
recordings that tell the story of life and work on the Ninety-Six
Ranch and of its cowboys, known in the region as buckaroos. Motion
pictures produced from 1945 to 1965 by Leslie Stewart, owner of the
Ninety-Six Ranch, are also included. An archive of 2,400 still
photographs portrays the people, sites, and traditions on other
ranches and in the larger community of Paradise Valley, home to
persons of Anglo-American, Italian, German, Basque, Swiss, Northern
Paiute Indian, and Chinese heritage....Background texts provide
historical and cultural context for this distinctive Northern Nevada
ranching community." Be prepared to stay for a long, fascinating
visit.
A 96-page book catalogue
(pictured) was published when some of the materials were exhibited in
1980 at the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of History and Technology. Copies are often available
from used book sources.
Wyoming Memory, A
Digital Archive of Wyoming History, maintained by the University
of Wyoming, includes the
Charles Belden Collection of nearly 500 photos, "Images from
the 1920s and 1930s of Belden’s Pitchfork Ranch near Meeteetse,
Wyoming. The images include depictions of everyday life on the ranch,
raising antelope, dude ranching, and Belden’s family members."
The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming
comments, " Located at the base of the Absaroka Mountains, the 250,000
acre ranch proved fertile ground for Belden's photography. By
photographing cowboys and cattle against the spectacular backdrop of
the Rocky Mountains, he created some of the classic images of the
American West...Belden used his photographs to publicize the Pitchfork
Dude Ranch, to illustrate his articles about cowboy life, and for
marketing himself and his photography..."
The Kansas
Collection states, "The voices of the past are heard again in KanColl, through nearly-lost books, letters, diaries, photographs, and
other materials."
The large repository has varied collections
in categories such as galleries called "On the Trail," "The Way it
Was," "Heroes and Villains," and "Bleeding Kansas"; histories of the
Orphan Trains; excerpts from the Kansas Historical Quarterlies;
complete books; maps; and more. Type "cowboy" or "ranching" into the
search engine and become happily lost in the thousands of returns.
Voices
from the Dust Bowl from the American Folklife Center at
the Library of Congress includes audio recordings (including "cowboy
tunes,") photos, and more from information collected in California in
the early 1940s. From the collection's description:
Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert
Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection is an online presentation of a
multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday
life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work
camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection
consists of audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials,
publications, and ephemera generated during two separate
documentation trips supported by the Archive of American Folk Song
(now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center).
Todd and Sonkin, both of the City College of New York (currently
the City College of the City University of New York), took disc
recording equipment supplied by the Archive of American Folk Song to
Arvin, Bakersfield, El Rio, Firebaugh, Porterville, Shafter,
Thornton, Visalia, Westley, and Yuba City, California. In these
locales, they documented dance tunes, cowboy songs, traditional
ballads, square dance and play party calls, camp council meetings,
camp court proceedings, conversations, storytelling sessions, and
personal experience narratives of the Dust Bowl refugees who
inhabited the camps.
Start with
"The Migrant
Experience" for the story and context for the links.
The McCracken Research Library Digital Collection at Cody, Wyoming's
Buffalo Bill
Historical Center contains the
Buffalo
Bill Online Archive, a selection of photographs, letters, and
more surrounding the life of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. They
describe the collection, "Buffalo Bill Online Archive is a digital
collection which brings together material from many different
collections to provide a glimpse into the professional and personal
life of William F. Cody. The online collection consists of letters,
correspondence, published material, ephemera, objects and photographs
from the later 19th century thru the early 20th century..."
The archive also offers extensive biographical information about
Buffalo Bill and his associates. The biographical section includes
many links to explore, ranging from "Annie Oakley" to "Dude Ranching
in America."
The Western History and Genealogy
department of the
Denver
Public Library holds over 600,000 images that document
the history of Colorado and the American West, and over 120,000
of the images in the collection have been digitized to date and
are available for viewing online in their
Digital Image Catalog. The collection is described:
The collection chronicles the people, events and places
that shaped the settlement and growth of the Western
frontier. The works of many outstanding photographers
are represented...The complete undigitized collection
(materials that have not yet been scanned for viewing
online) consists of more than 600,000 prints, negatives,
glass negatives, cartes-de-visite, tintypes, photograph
albums and stereocards, the majority dating from the
19th century. The undigitized images are available for
study at the Denver Public Library
The
Online Image Galleries include categories such as
"Western Life," "People," "Mining," "Saloons and Their Patrons,"
"On the Trail and Covered Wagon," and "Wild West Shows."
Montana's
Miles
City on the Web is a community site with a wide range of
information, including a gallery of historical photographs by
L.A.
Huffman (1854-1931) Miles City's famous frontier
photographer. Images include cowboys, ranchers, sheepherders,
soldiers, Native Americans, and historical portraits. At age 25,
in 1879, Huffman became the Fort Keogh post photographer. He
photographed frontier life in the Montana and Dakota Territories
for the next four decades.
Two other interesting sites include
biographical information, images, and more:
www.lahuffman.com and
www.coffrinsoldwestgallery.com.
With categories such as New Mexico's "Bean Day Rodeo," Montana ranch
and farm photos, Texas homesteads, Nebraska farmsteads, and South
Dakota's Custer State Park, the
America from
the Great Depression to World War II, Black-and-White Photographs from
the FSA-OWI offers a rich look at pre-war, rural America.
From the site's description:
The black-and-white photographs of the Farm Security
Administration-Office of War Information Collection are a landmark
in the history of documentary photography. The images show Americans
at home, at work, and at play, with an emphasis on rural and
small-town life and the adverse effects of the Great Depression, the
Dust Bowl, and increasing farm mechanization. Some of the most
famous images portray people who were displaced from farms and
migrated West or to industrial cities in search of work... The
collection includes about 164,000 black-and-white negatives...
See
Photographers on Assignment for the work of some well-known
photographers of the era, including Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.
For browsing the larger collection, you can choose the
Subject Guide, and then the Gallery View within each subject for
thumbnail images that give an overview of each collection.
It's the twentieth anniversary of the Lonesome Dove
television miniseries, and fans of the film and Larry McMurtry's novel
will find plenty of interest at the
Wittliff Collections at the Albert B. Alekek Library at Texas
State University (San Marcos), where the complete production archives
are a part of the Southwestern Writers Collection.
Divided into categories of "Story and Script," "Production,"
"Art," "Wardrobe," and "Photographs from the Set," images include
everything from photographs of Lorena's wardrobe to "Gus's body" and
additional content includes, for example, background information about
taking the novel to the screen and script examples.
(The February-March, 2009 issue of
American Cowboy
magazine has an excellent article about the anniversary of the film,
written by managing editor Tom Wilmes, with photography by Bill
Wittliff, who was the writer and executive producer of the film.)
The Wittliff Collections web site also includes "Lone
Star Sleuths," a bibliography of Texas-based mystery and
detective fiction, organized by Texas region.
See the compelling "Spirit
of Place" video, which gives an overview of the Southwestern
Writers Collection (much of it is set to the Lonesome Dove
soundtrack). There are photos and commentary about and from a wide
range of writers, musicians, and artists, as varied as J. Frank Dobie,
Willie Nelson, and Georgia O'Keefe.
Daily
Yonder is a "daily multi-media source of news, commentary,
research, and features." They comment at the site, "55 million people
live in the rural U.S. Maybe you're one of them, or used to be, or
want to be. As mainstream TV and newspapers retreat from small towns,
the Daily Yonder is coming on strong."
The site welcomes submissions, and has a free
email newsletter and "breaking news, commentary, reports from our
rural correspondents, updates from the best rural bloggers, and
eye-opening photography from across the rural U.S."
Categories include everything from "Ag and Trade" through "Wildlife."
Visit the web site
here.
The
Western Folklife Center's
Deep West Video
project presents short films—most made by those with no prior
filmmaking experience—offer
up-close glimpses into the rural and ranch life of the West.
Inaugurated in 2000 by the Western Folklife Center's Taki Telonidis
and Founding Director Hal Cannon, the subjects of the films cover a
wide spectrum. The honest views are often remarkable in both their
messages and their presentation. Every film—each in its unique
way—speaks to the fragile existence of ranching in the West and each
is an important piece of cultural preservation.
Read more and view these and past
years' films at the
Western
Folklife Center web site area for the
Deep West Video
project.
Taking Stock of
Indian Ranching The
Taking Stock of Indian Ranching web site "emerged from
historical research done on the participation of Native Californians
in the cattle industry, conducted with the support of the American
Indian Studies program at University of California Riverside and the
Soboba band of Luiseño Indians." Topics include "Cowboys and Indians,"
"California Indians and Ranching," "Reminisces of the Range," "Indian
Cowboys and Ranchers: Recent History," and others, including a
glossary and bibliography. Photos, images, and cattle brands add to
the well-researched and presented material.
More to come...
We welcome your site suggestions.
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