Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Myth
Reality
In popular culture, the cowboy is a dashing, romantic hero who chases after the women and outlaws just as much as he chases the cattle he herds. They are always there to save the day in the otherwise chaotic and wild West. However, the actual cowboy just herded cattle to the transcontinental railroad. They were paid quite well however, mostly due to the shortage of beef back in the East. The mythical cowboy is seen as a classic all-American hero, but there were plenty of Mexican cowboys doing the same job as the American ones. The era of the cowboy was a short-lived one as well: due to disputes between cowboys and farmers, the farmers fenced off their property with barbed wire, cutting off the paths to the railroad and thus the profits of the cowboys.
The great railroad connecting the East to the West is seen as a triumph of Manifest Destiny, an unstoppable project that would bring civilization to the West. While this description is accurate, it leaves several key details out. There was no one track from New York to San Francisco, as there was no bridge over the Mississippi River. The project also was entirely government-funded, so the two companies responsible for building the track delayed to earn more money. The famous golden spike was not actually the last spike driven into the railroad. The land needed for the tracks was the first of many blows to come to the land of the Native Americans. Finally, it is sometimes overlooked that the railroad was almost entirely responsible for the settlement of the West, as towns sprouted up along the tracks.
When one thinks of working the land in the West, the mind drifts to a family hard at work on the land next to their cozy little shack on the plains. The work was indeed difficult, but there was no cozy little shack due to the lack of available wood on the plains. For the first settlers, locusts were an issue, but the pests died out as their breeding grounds were trampled by settlers moving ever farther West. Farming on the Great Plains is far from an easy task, contrary to the myths that would claim otherwise. The region has turned into one of the world’s leading producers of wheat and corn, but that is more a feat of engineering than of fertile soil. Irrigation led to the budding of the farms dotting the West, not the tiny rainfall or the soil.
Myth
Reality
Myth
Reality
Myth
Reality
When the mind conjures up a picture of the great American Buffalo, a picture of a great behemoth of the Plains, as beautiful as it is deadly. It is well known that they were hunted nearly to extinction by the hunters of the West, and it is commonly thought that the U.S. government stepped in to save the buffalo, but it was the free market that was the killer and savior of the buffalo. The buffalo were hunted to the edge of extinction due to demand for the meat, which led to an extreme killing off of buffalo. However, some of the richer and more influential citizens of the country formed the American Bison Society to protect the American buffalo. With the Wild West shows giving the East their first glimpse of the buffalo, public support increased for buffalo saving. As a result, buffalo were put on private land for tourism purposes to make a profit, which led to the saving of the buffalo by the private sector.
Reality
Myth
Reality
Myth
Often, things are often not quite what they seem in life. Sometimes, a myth, based on few to no facts, can take the place of reality in the minds of some. This process has happened in the minds of some Americans in terms of the Western frontier. The stylized, almost mythological West has dashing and adventurous cowboys, gold abundant, buffalo roaming wild and free, and savage, uncivilized Native Americans. However, these images are far from the truth. The myth of the West, popularized by Western shows and novels, has evolved into an idea that is very skewed from the reality of the West.
Reality
Myth
The myth regarding Native Americans is that they are just uncivilized savages. However, the Native culture was an advanced and sophisticated one, and the term "uncivilized" depends on one's viewpoint. Always depicted as the villain of the story, they are often one-dimensional characters that are bent on theft in fictional stories. However, they were often at the short end of the stick in real life, due to settlers wanting the gold on their land. The U.S. government forced the Indians off of their land in order to get land to the settlers that want to make their fortune mining. Their culture was not "savage", it was merely seen that way by the settlers because it was different from the social norms they had grown up with and lived with for decades.
The gold rushes of the West are sometimes seen as an opportunity for the common man to strike it rich with enough effort and willpower. However, the gold was so deep that it was tough for anyone not working for a large company to dig deep enough and gold rushes were rather widespread. Gold is deposited in lodes, like a series of branches sprouting off from larger branches and eventually the tree trunk. In order to hit the thick branches and trunk, industrial mining equipment was all but required. Mining conditions were terrible: workers worked hard labor for hours on end for little pay. Chinese immigrants formed a majority of the workers, leading to racism against said workers. The discovery of gold forced Native Americans off of their land to give settlers a crack at the gold time and time again.
The great expanse of the American MidWest has been idealized as a vast, picturesque, open expanse with limitless possibility in store for those willing and able to tame the land. Since it is the nation’s breadbasket, it is also thought of to be fertile farmland. While it is a vast and open expanse, the Native Americans occupied the land, which makes it not as open as one would think. It is also not exactly ideal farmland. The plains get a pitiful 15 inches of rain yearly, earning its nickname of “The Great American Desert.” It is true that agriculture goes on in the Great Plains, however the water comes from underground reservoirs and irrigation canals. All in all, the West is not just a wide open expanse of scenic plains and beautiful rivers, but a harsh and unforgiving place to call home.
The main myth surrounding these types of shows is that they are an accurate depiction of the West. The myths about the West mainly stem from the Wild West shows and Western films and novels. They depict the cowboys as dashing, rakish heroes who are always there to save the day when they were just cattle herders. The shows also show cowboys in impractical uniforms that they would never wear to a day of work. The various media forms depict settlers constantly clashing with the antagonizing Native Americans, while battles were infrequent and the Indians generally were not the aggressors. The shows also claim that guns ran rampant in the West, but as the West became more settled, gun laws became more and more prevalent. All in all, the entertainment forms featuring the Wild West were largely inaccurate and led to untrue stereotypes about the Western frontier.
Reality
Myth
After reading all of the evidence, it is easy to see that myth has taken the place of reality in popular culture regarding the West. Cowboys were not the heroes of the story, the landscape was not just a picturesque scene for miles on end, and just surviving on the frontier was a tough task. With this in mind, the frontier becomes a completely different place, a place not as simple as the myth would make one think. Peeling back the layers of the frontier reveals the seeds of events to come for the United States after the closing of the frontier. The frontier worked to close class divisions because anyone could settle it, and with the increase of the class divisions caused by the frontier closing led to the Roaring Twenties and eventually the Great Depression.