Essay about The Myth of the Old West

What Turner wants to point out here is that the American West is the most important feature of American history, and of the development of its society. He refers several times to a process of “Americanization” and we will see that the definition he gives of it is a very peculiar one. He gives a definition of the frontier: “it lies at the hither edge of free land”, meaning that he considers the Indian territory to be free land. According to him the frontier is the “meeting point between savagery and civilization”, “the most rapid and effective Americanization”. The process of Americanization he refers to is in fact a double

The cattle kingdom out west had hit its peak in the 1880 's. A steer could be purchased in Texas for eight dollars. They could be sold in the east for up to sixty dollars. In the 1880 's the open range is coming to an end. The farmers are fed up with the cattle tromping through his crops. The sheepherders also took away from the cattle kingdom. The sheep killed the grass when they ate it, unlike cows. The farmer and cowboy hated each other, and they were

Faragher, John Mack. Re-reading Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough

The Frontier Thesis may play a heavy part in U.S. history, but there are implications for truly understanding the outlines of this thesis. Fredrick Jackson Tuner during a great meeting of American Historical Association on July 12th, 1893 in Chicago, a paper named “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” This paper introduced an innovative way of astonishment to understanding the construction of America. Turner envisioned that the history of America was not focused one the prominence of the Frontier and the America established many trades and accomplishments from this voyage. Such as Tuner laid out the foundation of his thesis, he also didn’t account for the flaws that were overlooked from his discernment of the Frontier. (Tuner, pg. 1-9)

Emmons, D., & Udall, S. L. (2003). Part II: Settlement in the Old West: Correcting the Record. In Forgotten Founders: Rethinking the History of the Old West. [http://site.ebrary.com/lib/westerngovernors/docDetail.action?docID=10081834&page=154]. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/westerngovernors/docDetail.action?docID=10081834&page=154

Drovers, people who herd large groups of cattle, heading up the Chisholm Trail toward the railroads the final stop for any last-minute supplies was Fort Worth, Texas. Beyond that you’d cross the Red River and into Indian Territory. During the years of 1866 and 1890, drovers herded over four million head of cattle through Fort Worth. The city soon became known as “Cowtown.” As the railroad arrived in 1876, Fort Worth developed into a shipping port for livestock, so the city built up the Union Stockyards. Despite the Union Stockyards lacking the essential funding to buy enough cattle to attract local ranchers, President Mike C. Hurley welcomed wealth Boston capitalist Greenleif Simpson into Fort Worth hoping he would find interest and invest

Describe the origins, purposes, and practices of the "long drive" and the "open range" cattle industry. What ended this brief but colorful boom? What was the long-run nature of the cattle business?

In 1893, at the 400th anniversary of the appearance of Columbus in the Americas celebrated in Chicago , Frederick Jackson Turner presented an academic paper entitled, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” In this essay, Turner proposes that, “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development.” The group dynamic that Turner champions is the farmer. More directly it is white, male farmers. While the expansion of the west by white male farmers was a factor in the development of America, it is not the only explanation for this progression. Turner fails to incorporate all of the demographics present during this expansion which were essential to the evolution of America.

Mexican-Americans lost their land through confiscation and fraud. Rancheros, or small ranchers, had to deal with land displacement from Anglo cattle drivers. One of the main professions in Texas was cattle driving. Many Mexican-Americans tried to pursue this profession, but failed for numerous reasons. Probably the most obvious reason was the cost of cattle driving. As a result of the high costs, wealthy Anglo-Americans purchased the herds and did the cattle driving north themselves. Another barrier to successful cattle drives for the Tejanos were language barriers. Many Tejanos had language handicaps and as a result were more likely to experience considerable amounts of prejudice from other cattle drivers. The result of these prejudices resulted in Mexican-American cattle drivers working for Anglo ranchers and Anglo trail bosses. This is a great example of how the “food chain” of Texas citizens was created and

Western, a genre of short stories that are set in the American west, primarily in the late of the 19th century (“Western” 598), and still being told until today by films, televisions, radio, and other art works. The major of moving to the west was because of the Homestead Act, 1862 (“U.S. Statues at Large” 392) which would give lands to people who stayed there for five years. This lead to a huge wave of immigrants moved to the West, and they had to face to many hardships and conflicts such as Indian attacks, tornadoes, blizzards, and illnesses.

The Taylor Grazing Act was passed in 1934, signed by President Roosevelt, it was created to stop overuse of certain public lands from grazing livestock (BLM, 2011). These lands were obtained by the US from other nations and Indian tribes (Sneed, 2014). The Taylor Grazing Act was combined with the General land office under the new heading of the Bureau of Land Management or BLM, in 1946. The Taylor Grazing Act was pre-empted by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act or FLPM, in 1976. 155 million acres are available for livestock grazing in the West, including California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, which includes the area claimed by the Bundy’s (Sneed). The FLPMA was put in place to manage the BLM administered lands. With the implementation came changes regarding how leases/permits were managed. The FLPMA implemented a selective management policy and thhe BLM’s objective is to ensure the health and productivity of the public lands.

Predecessors of the cowboy date back to colonial times. In western Massachusetts, in the uplands of the Carolinas, in Florida, and across the northern, red clay hills of Georgia and Alabama, cattle-raising societies existed long before the Great Plains had been cleared of buffalo. It was in Florida that much of the protocol involving branding evolved. Yet the cattle industry of the Southeast never attracted national attention. The herders never became heroes. They remained little known and were recognized for what they were—illiterate, unmounted trespassers on the public domain, drifting from grazing ground to grazing ground, trailing their beasts to markets at Ohio River towns or to Savannah or

The emergence of western history as an important field of scholarship started with Frederick Jackson Turner’s (1861-1932) famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American history.”[1] This thesis shaped both popular and scholarly views of the West for the next two generations. In his thesis, Turner argued that the West had to be taken seriously. He felt that up to his time there had not been enough research of what he in his essay call “the fundamental, dominating fact in the U.S. history”: the territorial expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. The frontier past was, according to Turner, the best way to describe the distinctive American history and character.

In an Open Range cattle were allowed to roam freely with only forests and rivers as barriers. The cattle owners did not have to pay a fee for the use of public grazing land. Lands, however, were often over crowded and over grazed. Another disadvantage was that "mavericking" occurred. Mavericking is assuming ownership of calves that are not one's own to claim. Indian thievery and predators also cause a loss of cattle.