Like a Cowboy: Imagery in Politics, Prose and Reality - Virtual Exhibit images

Like a Cowboy: Imagery in Politics, Prose and Reality

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Historical, journalists, description

Political

Poetry, literature

	"When Samuel Maverick, a Texan rancher of long years ago," wrote Philip Ashton Rollins in his book, The Cowboy, "refused to brand his cattle and continually bedeviled his neighbors with questions as to the whereabouts of his straying animals, he little knew that he thereby was forcing his name into the English lexicon. Such is the kindlier of the two traditions as to how his name crept into the dictionary. His detractors insist that he arrived in Texas with no assets except a branding-iron, a morality which was blind in one eye, a far-sightedness for unbranded animals, and a tireless perseverance."
Stereograph Cowboys - Branding the calves. A Busy Day on the Paloduro Ranch, Paloduro, Texas Keystone View Company, Meadville, Pennsylvania, 1934 [ca. 1890] 2003.167 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

In Dee Strickland Johnson's Arizona Herstory, several poems concern the "Them Hash Knife Cowboys," the Aztec Land and Cattle Company that went from Texas to Arizona in 1885. The poem of that name tells how some of the Arizona cattlemen changed from their Spanish (California) methods and took on Texas ways: They looked at our long tapaderos That flip-flapped and flopped as we rode; Called us "chaps, taps and latigo straps" And it wasn't too long till we'd stowed Our seventy-foot long reatas Away with the rest of our gear. We just gave up takin' our dallies, All tied hard and fast in a year.
Tapaderos ("taps" or "toe fenders") protected a rider's boots from being scratched by mesquite or heavy brush. They kept his feet warmer and prevented his feet from turning in the stirrups. According to Russel H. Beatie in his 1981 book Saddles, "The rider could also slap a tapadero against the horse's neck to get him to turn when the rider's hands were otherwise occupied in training."	Tintype Mounted cowboy with large frond-like tapaderos Unknown photographer, ca. 1890 2003.191 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	According to Susan Karina Dickey in Paul H. Carlson's The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History and Culture, between 1880 and 1910 men of all classes wore a vest. "Vest pockets typically held matches, cigarette papers, and a tobacco pouch...On horseback, pant pockets were not accessible, so the vest pockets carried close at hand anything the rider wanted. A few vest had shawl or notched collars, but most had a plain V neck and five buttons."
Tintype Studio portrait of a unidentified cigarette-smoking cowboy Unknown photographer, ca. 1890 2003.215 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center	Professor Hal Bridges, in the New York Times Book Review wrote: "The cowboy seems to be rapidly becoming our chief symbol of Americanism. He stands for a region never alienated from the rest of the nation by Civil War, a region comparatively remote from the European civilization that so strongly influences the East. He is, it appears to me, beginning to eclipse Uncle Sam."

From the poem, "D-2 Horse Wrangler" in the Stock Growers' Journal, 1894: We started for the ranch next day, Brown talked to me most all the way, He said cowpunching was only fun, It was no work at all; That all I had to do was ride, Geemany crimany, how he lied; He surely had his gall. He put me in charge of a cavard [remuda] And told me not to work too hard, That all I had to do was guard The horses from getting away. I had one hundred and sixty head, And oft times wished that I was dead, When one got away Brown he turned red. Now this is the truth, I say. Sometimes a horse would make a break Across the prairie he would take As though he were running for a stake, For him it was only play. Sometimes I couldn't head him at all, And again my saddle horse would fall And I'd speed on like a cannon ball Till the earth came in my way.
	Tintype Two unidentified cowboys (possibly brothers) wearing palm-woven hats Unknown photographer, ca. 1880 2003.222 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	The April 11, 1885 issue of Cheyenne, Wyoming's Democratic Leader has an article called "We Are Here" which reads in part: "Two fantastically attired 'cowboys' alighted from the eastern train last evening. They wore broad-brimmed white hats, worth, in the east, about six bits. Their 'chaps' were of the regulation style, with fringe down the sides, but were brand new and seemed very uncomfortable. And their boots! That's where they 'gave themselves away.' They wore new boots, broad-soled, broad-heeled affairs, made for hunting purposes, or designed to see life in the humble sphere of the corn field...The two tenderfeet promenaded the depot platform and seemed to expect some cattlemen would rush upon the scene, greet them with dime novel western cordiality, and employ them on the spot."
Tintype Two unidentified cowboys (possibly brothers) in studio Unknown photographer, ca. 1890 2003.226.1 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center	The cowboy on the left wears an undershirt, a buttoned vest, and a top-buttoned jacket. In the nineteenth century, pants were often called overalls and made in medium- to heavyweight woolens. Cotton duck and denim were available toward the end of the century. The cowboy on the right wears a striped, pullover overshirt with a turn-down collar, an unbuttoned vest, and what appears to be an unattached suspender.

John Baumann in his "On a Western Ranch" article in the April 1, 1887 issue of the Fortnightly Review wrote in part, "The cowboy has at the present day become a personage; nay, more, he is rapidly becoming a mythical one. Distance is doing for him what lapse of time did for the heroes of antiquity. His admirers are investing him with all manner of romantic qualities; they descant upon his manifold virtues and his pardonable weaknesses as if he were a demi-god...Every member of his class is pictured as a kind of Buffalo Bill, as a long-haired ruffian who, decked out in gaudy colors and tawdry ornaments, booted like a cavalier, and chivalrous as a Paladin, his belt stuck full of knives and pistols, make the world to resound with bluster and braggadocio."
	Tintype Portrait of a young cowboy Unknown photographer, ca. 1890 2003.226.2 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	On a big spread, cowboys often had a "remuda" or a band, which was the herd of all the horses not being used at the time. The remuda usually consisted of geldings and one "belled mare," so named for the bell she wore to warn the wrangler if the remuda spooked. The "wrangler" was often a young boy or an older man no longer able to endure the long hours in a saddle.
Cabinet photograph Cattle round-up camp scene with large remuda Unknown photographer, ca. 1900 2003.241 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center	In a July 7, 2003 article entitled, "Bring it on, Mr. President," published on gopusa.com, Doug Patton, in discussing President Bush's use of the phrase "Bring 'em on!" wrote, "Of course, the term 'cowboy' is again being heard across the land. Well, cowboys are quintessentially American, and like most Americans, I love it when my president talks like that. It gives me confidence that he is not playing games with those who would do harm to my country. We know exactly where he stands, and so do our enemies, just as they did with Reagan."

In his book, The Cowboy, Philip Ashton Rollins writes, "The act of placing a brand on an animal was termed 'running the brand on' it. The ranchmen's word 'run' often puzzled a tenderfoot, because, in addition to the phrase given above and to 'run' in the sense of stampede and to 'running' in the sense of speeding, there were 'running cattle' or horses on a range (maintaining them there), 'running a brand on a range' (maintaining there live stock bearing the particular markings which the speaker had specified), 'running on' or 'onto' animals (unexpectedly finding them), and 'running off' animals (either stealing them or shooing them away). As John H. Dewing once remarked: 'Ranch lingo is perfectly easy to understand. All you've got to do is know in advance what the other fellow means, and then pay no attention to what he says."
	Photographic postcard Six cowboys branding calves Unknown photographer, ca. 1920 2003.246 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

	Excerpts from Allen McCandless' "The Cowboy Soliloquy" All day o'er the prairie alone I ride, Not even a dog to run by my side; My fire I kindle with chips gathered round, And boil my coffee without being ground. Bread lacking leaven' I bake in a pot, And sleep on the ground for want of a cot; I wash in a puddle, and wipe on a sack, And carry my wardrobe all on my back. My ceiling the sky, my carpet the grass, My music the lowing of herds as they pass; My books are the brooks, my sermons the stones, My parson's a wolf on a pulpit of bones. But then if my cooking ain't very complete, Hygienists can't blame me for living to eat; And where is the man who sleeps more profound Than the cowboy who stretches himself on the ground.
Photographic postcard They are all cooks on the round-up A. J. Osborn, Dickinson, North Dakota, 1915 2003.250.1 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

Christopher Hitchens in his article "Fighting Words 'Cowboy': Bush challenged by bovines" for slate.msn.com posted on January 27, 2003 writes, "On its own, the word 'cowboy' is not particularly opprobrious. It means a ranch hand or cattle driver, almost by definition a mounted one, herding the steers in the general direction of Cheyenne and thus providing protein on the hoof. The job calls for toughness and has little appeal to the sentimental. A typical cowboy would be laconic, patient, somewhat fatalistic, and prone to spend his wages on brawling and loose gallantry. His first duty is to cattle, and he has to have an eye for weather. Unpolished, but in his way invaluable. A rough job but someone's got to do it. And so forth...In England, 'cowboy' is often used dismissively to describe a fly-by-night business or a shady or gamey entrepreneur, as well as anybody who, while making more noise and more claims than are good for him, is flaky when it comes to delivering the goods."
	Postcard Cutting out Barkalow Brothers, Denver, Colorado, ca. 1920 2003.252 Purchase by Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center