Cowboys Ranchers And The Cattle Business

Papers from a conference held at the Glenbow Museum in Sept. 1997.

Focusing on the northern plains and the Southwest, Iverson traces the rise and fall of individual and tribal cattle industries against the backdrop of changing federal Indian policies. He describes the Indian Bureau's inability to recognize that most nineteenth-century reservations were better suited to ranching than farming. Even though allotment and leasing stifled ranching, livestock became symbols and ranching a new means of resisting, adapting, and living - for remaining Native.

The cattleman didn't vanish with the fencing of the open range. He is very much with us today--this two-fisted, hard-driving citizen of the pastures from El Paso to Butte. He is a very special kind of American, not solely because of the romantic history of his kind, but because of the way he looks at things. C. L. Sonnichsen, who talks the language of cow country folk, has written an absorbing account of the modern cattleman--full of anecdotes and the good, profane dialogue that gives warmth and vigor to western conversation. Above all, it has the quality of wit and humor. Cowboys and Cattle Kings evaluates the cattle raiser of the High Plains and Rocky Mountain areas since the fencing of the open range--how he lives, what he thinks, and how he conducts his business. Sonnichsen considers the roots and background of the present-day cowman and describes modern ranch children, ranch women, cowboys, managers, and others in the business. He clarifies the cowman's position in recent controversies concerning grazing and lease rights and control of the range. From the enormous "ranch empires" to the small enterprises, from the strongholds of the old-time ranchman to the popular dude ranches for tourists, Sonnichsen touches every segment of the industry. Most important, perhaps, is his sympathetic account of the troubles of modern ranching--blizzards, droughts, rustlers, financial burdens--and the counterbalancing advantages of ranching as a way of life.

Looks at the history of cattle ranching in the West and the role of the cowboy in the expansion and culture of the western United States.

This is a strong, scholarly, historical account of the cowboy era. The use of photographs, song lyrics, and authentic recollections help make it a convincing portrait.--Kirkus Reviews

A true adventure story of a man who built a four-million acre cattle empire in the remote ranges of the British Columbia Interior.

Cowboys are an American legend, but despite ubiquity in history and popular culture, misperceptions abound. Technically, a cowboy worked with cattle, as a ranch hand, while his boss, the cattleman, owned the ranch. Jacqueline M. Moore casts aside romantic and one-dimensional images of cowboys by analyzing the class, gender, and labor histories of ranching in Texas during the second half of the nineteenth century. As working-class men, cowboys showed their masculinity through their skills at work as well as public displays in town. But what cowboys thought was manly behavior did not always match those ideas of the business-minded cattlemen, who largely absorbed middle-class masculine ideals of restraint. Real men, by these standards, had self-mastery over their impulses and didn’t fight, drink, gamble or consort with "unsavory" women. Moore explores how, in contrast to the mythic image, from the late 1870s on, as the Texas frontier became more settled and the open range disappeared, the real cowboys faced increasing demands from the people around them to rein in the very traits that Americans considered the most masculine. Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.

The story of the cowboys who drove cattle across bayous, marshes, and rivers through the vast grassland prairies and marshes of south Louisiana. Known mainly for its sugarcane, oil, and seafood resources, south Louisiana has rarely been recognized for its cowboys. This illustrated account tells the largely undocumented history of migratory cattle ranching in Louisiana from colonial days up to the present, from the trail drives of the 1760s to the few existing modern-day ranches.