Learn the truth behind the famous characters of the Wild West—and how the legends got it wrong—in this lively history that separates fact from fiction. The historic figures of the Western frontier have fascinated us for generations. But in many cases, the stories we know about them are little more than inventions. Popular legend won’t tell you, for instance, that David Crockett was a congressman, or that Daniel Boone was a Virginia legislator. Thanks to penny dreadfuls, Wild West shows, sensationalist newspaper stories, and tall tales told by the explorers themselves, what we know of these men and women is often more fiction than fact. The Real Dirt on America's Frontier Legends separates fact from fiction, showing the legends and the evidence side-by-side to give readers the real story of the old West. Here you’ll discover the fascinating truth about Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone, “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Calamity Jane, Kit Carson, Davy Crocket, and many others.

Learn the real stories behind the infamous renegades of the West with “Motavalli’s entertaining treatment of this bunch of baddies” (HistoryNet.com). The rebels and bandits of the American West—like Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—have always made for thrilling tales of gunfights, heists, and outlaws. From the beginning, penny dreadfuls, Wild West shows, dime novels, and urban legends romanticized and magnified these renegades and their wild American spirits. These tales, however, don’t capture the truth of the West’s outlaws—nor do we hear about other lawless individuals, such as Pearl Hart, Belle Starr, or the Bloody Espinosas. Jim Motavalli returns with The Real Dirt on America’s Frontier Outlaws to give a real and more inclusive look at the old West and the dangerous figures that immortalized it.

In The Story of Oklahoma, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves appears as the "most feared U.S. marshal in the Indian country." That Reeves was also an African American who had spent his early life enslaved in Arkansas and Texas made his accomplishments all the more remarkable. Black Gun, Silver Star sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late nineteenth-century America--and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Bucking the odds ("I'm sorry, we didn't keep Black people's history," a clerk at one of Oklahoma's local historical societies answered one query), Art T. Burton traces Reeves from his days of slavery to his Civil War soldiering to his career as a deputy U.S. marshal out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, when he worked under "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker. Fluent in Creek and other regional Native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas. In this new edition Burton traces Reeves's presence in the national media of his day as well as his growing modern presence in popular media such as television, movies, comics, and video games.

This hugely influential work marked a turning point in US history and culture, arguing that the nation’s expansion into the Great West was directly linked to its unique spirit: a rugged individualism forged at the juncture between civilization and wilderness, which – for better or worse – lies at the heart of American identity today. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

The fascinating—and troubling—story of powerful rumors that circulated and influential legends that arose in early America. Why did Elizabethan adventurers believe that the interior of America hid vast caches of gold? Who started the rumor that British officers purchased revolutionary white women’s scalps, packed them by the bale, and shipped them to their superiors? And why are people today still convinced that white settlers—hardly immune as a group to the disease—routinely distributed smallpox-tainted blankets to the natives? Rumor—spread by colonists and Native Americans alike—ran rampant in early America. In Groundless, historian Gregory Evans Dowd explores why half-truths, deliberate lies, and outrageous legends emerged in the first place, how they grew, and why they were given such credence throughout the New World. Arguing that rumors are part of the objective reality left to us by the past—a kind of fragmentary archival record—he examines how uncertain news became powerful enough to cascade through the centuries. Drawing on specific case studies and tracing recurring rumors over many generations, Dowd explains the seductive power of unreliable stories in the eastern North American frontiers from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The rumors studied here—some alluring, some frightening—commanded attention and demanded action. They were all, by definition, groundless, but they were not all false, and they influenced the classic issues of historical inquiry: the formation of alliances, the making of revolutions, the expropriation of labor and resources, and the origins of war.

A seasoned historian assembles a remarkable cadre of authors, who reveal forgotten, true stories of the American frontier.

"The American Frontier" provides a detailed and richly illustrated overview of the westward expansion of colonial and post-colonial America through diplomacy, war, wanderlust, and grit. The frontier is defined and demythologized as Hollywood's stereotypical portrayals are replaced with factual yet no less fascinating and lively depictions of pioneer life. Daniel Boone, the Louisiana Purchase, the explorations of Lewis and Clark, the subjugation of the Indians, the Mexican-American War, and the building of the transcontinental railroad are among the events and personalities vividly described.Challenging review questions encourage meaningful reflection and historical analysis. Maps, tests, answer key, and extensive bibliography included.

Log cabins and wagon trains, cowboys and Indians, Buffalo Bill and General Custer. These and other frontier images pervade our lives, from fiction to films to advertising, where they attach themselves to products from pancake syrup to cologne, blue jeans to banks. Richard White and Patricia Limerick join their inimitable talents to explore our national preoccupation with this uniquely American image. Richard White examines the two most enduring stories of the frontier, both told in Chicago in 1893, the year of the Columbian Exposition. One was Frederick Jackson Turner's remarkably influential lecture, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"; the other took place in William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's flamboyant extravaganza, "The Wild West." Turner recounted the peaceful settlement of an empty continent, a tale that placed Indians at the margins. Cody's story put Indians—and bloody battles—at center stage, and culminated with the Battle of the Little Bighorn, popularly known as "Custer's Last Stand." Seemingly contradictory, these two stories together reveal a complicated national identity. Patricia Limerick shows how the stories took on a life of their own in the twentieth century and were then reshaped by additional voices—those of Indians, Mexicans, African-Americans, and others, whose versions revisit the question of what it means to be an American. Generously illustrated, engagingly written, and peopled with such unforgettable characters as Sitting Bull, Captain Jack Crawford, and Annie Oakley, The Frontier in American Culture reminds us that despite the divisions and denials the western movement sparked, the image of the frontier unites us in surprising ways.

Now available in a paperback edition, AMERICAN FRONTIERS is a perceptive account of this country's geopolitical developments and diverse frontier cultures. With clarity and intellectual vigor, Gregory H. Nobles shows us not only the culture and social composition of the West but also the centuries of expansion and conquest all over the continent that created our nation as we know it today.

This book examines how the American frontier was presented in theatrical productions.