The Wild West

Explore the Wild West! 25 Great Projects, Activities, Experiments invites young readers ages 6–9 to experience the spirit of the Wild West. Kids learn about explorers who mapped the American West, Native Americans, gold miners, cowboy culture, cattle drives, Wild West legends, frontier towns, peacekeepers, lawbreakers, and much more. Through projects ranging from making a settler’s soddie to mining for gold, kids develop a better understanding of the rich history of the Wild West in the 1800s.

This book, written by the author of the celebrated volume Six Guns and Society, explains why the myth of the Wild West is popular around the world. It shows how the cultural icon of the Wild West speaks to deep desires of individualism and liberty and offers a vision of social contract theory in which a free and equal individual (the cowboy) emerges from the state of nature (the wilderness) to build a civil society (the frontier community). The metaphor of the Wild West retained a commitment to some limited government (law and order) but rejected the notion of the fully codified state as too oppressive (the corrupt sheriff). Compelling and magnificently suggestive, the book unpacks one of the core icons of our time.

An extensively illustrated day-by-day adventure that tells the stories of pioneers and cowboys, gold rushes, and saloon shoot-outs on America’s frontier. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the lure of land rich in minerals, fertile for farming, and plentiful with buffalo bred an all-out obsession with heading westward. The Wild West: 365 Days takes you back to these booming frontier towns that became the stuff of American legend, breeding characters such as Butch Cassidy and Jesse James. Prize-winning journalist and historian Michael Wallis spins a colorful narrative, separating myth from fact, in 365 vignettes. Learn the stories of Davy Crockett, Wild Bill Hickok, and Annie Oakley; travel to the O.K. Corral and Dodge City; ride with the Pony Express; and witness the invention of the Colt revolver. Included throughout are images drawn from Robert G. McCubbin’s extensive collection of Western memorabilia, encompassing rare books, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts, including Billy the Kid’s knife.

This true crime history of the American Frontier separates fact from fiction with in-depth profiles of thirty-eight career criminals and infamous outlaw gangs. In the years following the American Civil War, the country’s western frontier was home to a prodigious number of myth-making cowboys, infamous gunslingers, saloon madams, and not always law-abiding lawmen. But the romantic mystique of these individuals and the time in which they lives is largely the product of novelists and filmmakers. In Outlaws of the Wild West, Terry Treadwell presents the real stories behind such legends as Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, the Dalton Brothers, and others—as well as their lesser-known but equally criminal peers. Here are the stories of William Clark Quantrill and his Confederate Army unit, Quantrill’s Raiders, who turned hit-and-run raids into a way of life; Henry Starr, the Native American career criminal who went on to play himself in the movie of his life; Ann and Josie Bassett, the sisters who defended their ranch from cattle barons with the help of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch; and many more.

On 14 May 1804, the personal secretary President Thomas Jefferson, one Capt. Meriwether Lewis, and a companion, William Clark, led a thirty-three-man expedition to the new lands of Louisiana, purchased from Napoleon the previous year. 8,000 miles (13,000 km) and two years later, after rafting up the Missouri and crossing the Rocky Mountains, the...

Introduces the 19th century American West. Topics include, wagon trains, gold rush, pioneers, cowboys, frontier towns, the Indian wars, the industrial boom. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.

An essential addition to the shelves of all true aficionados of the Old West. Catch the light glinting on the barrels of the Spencer rifles of the United States 7th Cavalry in 1868, as they ride out of Fort Riley on patrol in Kansas. Smell the intoxicating aroma of Chuck Wagon Stew, amidst the trail dust on the Chisholm Trail in 1870. Hear the sound of gunfire on the lawless streets of Tombstone, Arizona, 1881. The Wild West Catalog captures the essence of the greatest period of expansion within the United States, between 1866 and 1900, when the West was well and truly tamed. Fighting and riding skills gained in the Civil War were put to good use in opening up and populating the West, while more sophisticated weapons developed during the Civil War were put to both good and bad use in the sometimes-volatile environment. Illustrated with more than 250 illustrations, including archival photographs, artworks, color photography of artifacts, weapons, recipes, and historic places then and now, The Wild West Catalog portrays all the great characters of the West, including cowboys (and their favorite foodstuffs), Native Americans, the US Cavalry, outlaws, lawmen, homesteaders, and saloon girls. Western artifacts and locations are also described, including frontier weapons and towns, and the burgeoning railroads. The book also discusses the West as it was depicted in movies, television, and literature, and catalogs the many classic toys inspired by the West, which have entertained generations of imaginations worldwide. Comprehensive and fascinating, the book brings the complete Old West alive for the reader.

Chronicles the history of the American frontier from 1800 to 1899, discussing how the expansion into the lands west of the Mississippi influenced the nation's formation.