Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Of The American Cowboy 20171209

Mountain gallery, cattle, cowboys and culture. If you havent, i would strongly urge you to. It is a fascinating collection. I am talking about a large collection of artifacts, art and other objects that illuminate the connection that i was not aware of, down through history through the cattle days, between the city of kansas city and amarillo, texas. It is so big, in fact, part of it has spilled into kirk call on the first floor. You may have seen the big saddle. It is a terrific exhibit. And i would be remiss at this point, before getting to michael, if i did not introduce ann duecy, standing in the back there. She is our Library Art Exhibit director. She has worked with michael. She is responsible for all of these great exhibits that you see in both of our galleries. She does a terrific job. And michael is really responsible for the most part, for this exhibit being here and bringing it to us. He is the associate director of Curatorial Affairs and the curator of art and western heritage at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in canyon, texas, just south of amarillo in the texas panhandle. It is the Largest History Museum and the state of texas. In the state of texas. If it is the largest in texas, you Better Believe it is large. He is also a lecturer in western american studies at west texas university. Michael oversees art, weapons, military, sports, and cowboy and ranching collections at the museum. Which, as he puts it, it is like working at a giant toy store. I call it stealing money. Exhibit withd this an associate professor of art history at west texas a m, amy von lintel. Michael is from here, from the kansas city area. He was born in casey k, kck, he is a graduate of oak park high school. He went on to ku, where he had a double major in art history and painting, hard his masters in art history in smu in dallas. After college, he worked at what is now the smithsonian and art museum in washington dc. Ultimately, he landed at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in texas. From the time he was a kid, michael says he was always fascinated by historical objects. Neglected animal bones he collected animal bones and relics. He was always fascinated by the American West. He grew up wanting to be a cowboy or a pro football player. He says he went to art school because he was good at drawing horses. Well, here is how big he has gotten. Michael was invited to dinner at the white house with george w. And laura bush during the second bush presidency. The museum had loaned a couple paintings to the white house for display there. And michael turned him down. It turned out that he wouldve had to have missed his sons graduation from high school. So he turned down the invitation to the white house, so good for him. Among other things, michael knows a lot, an awful lot about cowboys. He is revered in the amarillo area for the Living History Program that he presents as cowboy mike. I think he has come tonight as cowboy mike. I was kind of making the joke some of you may remember a few years ago when we did the big read on true grit. Our director was very fond on of putting on an ipad, cowboy eyepatch, cowboy hat, and a duster. He looks cool, but you did not get the impression that he had strung some fence. This guy looks like he has trung some fence. He is going to set it straight about cowboys. He is going to give us their true history. One spoiler. Six shooters are not involved. I say this all the time. I am proud of the programming, the public programming that we do at the library. All of the speakers that we bring in are really good. But the ones who really stand out are the ones who bring a passion that is infectious. They love what they do, they love talking about it, and they love sharing it with other people. We have gotten that from michael in the several months he has worked with us on the exhibit. And you are going to get that tonight. You are in for a real treat. Please welcome michael grauer. [applause] Michael First of all, thank you all for coming. It is a really nice crowd. That includes not only people in kansas city, but some of my closest and dearest friends that are here, also some of my family. Sorry, i got a little surprise here a few minutes ago. I have been doing the cowboy mike program for almost a decade at panhandle plains, and it stems from what steve was saying correcting history and being a public historian. Correcting history is different from academic history, and our job as public historians is to take history out of academia and put it in the hands of the general public to help tell good stories. That is basically what i get to do for a living, hang pictures on the wall and tell good stories. I make valuable american dollars doing that. They keep paying me, so i guess it is working out well for somebody, and any case. But when this project fell into my lap, at with my cocurator amy von lintel i am a great believer in giving back. I think it is vital for us to give back to our communities. I am lucky in that in this project, i am able to give back to the two places that are my home. The opportunity to give back to my hometown is a great thing for me. I remember as a little kid, my grandparents lived over in what used to be rosedale. We would drive by on the highway. I could see the ship we settled building should we saddle and alsoaddle building the big bull that got moved since it moved away from kansas city. I am not a cowboy, but i get to play one on tv. I have come to know cowboys. I have had the honor to handle artifacts that long to some of belonged to some of the greatest cowboys who ever lived, or some that you have never heard of. Those are the ones that interest me, the less famous ones. We are going to talk about the history of cowboys because it is not about the famous ones. It is about the ones that did the work. That is what i hope to convey to you today, this is a special type of person that is mostly misunderstood. Now, ann was willing to take a risk by letting us do a presentation here two years ago this month. We came, my cocurator and i, and we gave a presentation about cattle, cowboys, and culture. We do not know how big it was going to get. We kept looking at our collection and finding connections every time we opened a page, we found two more pages. Every rock we overturned, we found two more rocks. One of the things as a student of the American West i believe very strongly is i see this in both of my hometowns turning your back on your history is the worst thing you can possibly do. Being able to come back to kansas city and seeing what is happening in amarillo now, you are in a cowtown, folks. You will always be a cow town. The matter how many things you build, you are a cow town. Embrace it. I am going to evangelize for you today. I have done this in amarillo as well. I do not care what you build, you cannot escape your roots. So embrace them. Capitalize on them and use them. You have Great Stories in kansas city. Use them. Leverage them. Everybody loves cowboys, right . I do this program for little tty critters, all the way up to the critters that are 75 years old. Every time i do it, i watch people turn into children, whether they are four years old or 84 years old. That is fact. I will take you through the history of cowboys. This is according to my own research, and you may agree or disagree, but there will be time for questions. I have a short time and i have a tendency to go off on trails. But i will try to stay on point as best i can, ok . I am also a a technophobe. I learned how to use the clicker thing a little while ago. [laughter] we will see how this goes, all right . As they say, tighten your cinches here we go. , first of all, cowboys were not certain things. They were not gunfighters. There were not crimefighters. They were not bank robbers. Not unless they got fired, ok . They did not come into town to shoot things up, generally speaking, ok . This is probably my favorite artifact here. This is from our panhandleplains collection. Shoot for kansas city. This cowboy in this little ribbon it is only about this big hes carrying a hand cannon, as if all cowboys carried that kind of nonsense. We will get to that in just a minute. As charles good night said, cowboys are the most misunderstood of all americans in certain respects, but they were also in the cow country, where i live today and which still exists largely from texas all the way to western canada, they live a particularly dangerous life and did the work to do really wanted because the wages were low, it was dangerous, it was dirty, and frankly a lot of times it was boring. But they were responsible for someone elses property. That is the key to understand what they were doing, they were filling an important void. As america expanded to the west, we grabbed big chunks of territory. Cow country is generally all of this in here. Everything from the rockies east all the way to saddle country in california, and not in the northwest now in the northwest. Generally the great planes. Kansas city, the gateway to the great planes. That is key to understanding. After the civil war, there was a great demand for beef cattle in the midwest as well is in the eastern United States and Great Britain specifically. Cattle was left to run wild in texas. Stimates are anywhere from 6 million animals to 10 million animals by 1865. Did other side of the equation, all of the wild horses were there. At least 2 million wild horses in texas by 1865. In the final part of the equation most cowboys came from , texas. Thatl get you the two ways cowboys go north. Generally speaking, the horses were there, the cattle were there, and the cowboys were there. They all come out of texas. This is the time of what we are talking about, descendents of spanish cattle which we will texast in a minute longhorns. The meat was not necessarily good. So there were attempt to breed the animals up and make their quality of meat better, and kansas city plays a big role in that. It is hard to stand unless you go to western kansas, montana, wyoming, northwest texas. It is as simple as this this is what i tell the school kids. I have to give my lectures to the schoolkids. Everybody say it with me we aint got no trees. [laughter] we aint got no trees. Remember that. It is important. No place to hide. So cattle, this great commodity, is seen by an illinois businessman named joseph jean mccoy who realizes the way to get this product to that great market in the midwest and also in the eastern United States and europe, you had to get them to market somehow. There were railroads in texas, but it was three times as expensive to ship your cattle by rail as it was to drive them to the new railhead in the Central Pacific. And the first railhead of course was in abilene, here. The original cattle trail came out of south texas to sedalia. Kansas city is not even on this map you can do something about that, you can. The shawnee trail is to the east, but almost immediately by the 1850s, here illinois had quarantined against texas cattle, then missouri, that missouri is shut off from texas cattle on the health because of texas fever. They carried a tick that would investigated cattle, but they could enter the state that on railcars. Is why the Central Pacific is out there because eastern Kansas County also instituted quarantine. So texas cattle on the whole of hoof were not welcome into the part of the country we recognize. So cow town moved west. Abilene for a while, then ellsworth, wichita, then dodge city. You can see the great cattle trails. One of the things you need to remember is the cattle trails went right through comancheria. It was a territory basically governed by comanches from the Rocky Mountains to the mississippi valley, governed by fear and trade. So what to do do . You signed a treaty with these comanches that did not understand the treaty of 1867, and you tell them they have to give up all of this and move to this. We all know nobody wants to go to oklahoma on purpose, right . [laughter] michael so that did not go over too well, but nevertheless this is what happened. The u. S. Army was in collusion of protecting the cattle trails that came out of texas, even from the line of military forts year they were there to protect the cattle interest. By the time the trail started and it continued from 18651890, we believe there were probably about 35,000 cowboys involved in this. But nobody knew what a cowboy was. Nobody knew what a trail drive looked like it given what you see here in new monthly magazine harpers magazine. , there aint no cow trail that ever looked like that. And Texas Longhorns did not look neither. Ey cows that was important to remember. So the whole idea of what was a cowboy and what were these enters the public consciousness, and that was something that under the popular lexicon. Nobody really knew. Popular culture gets a hold of it quickly. They had a wild west show as literally part of the wild west. Ok . , wild lessers cowboys. Eventually, dime novels pick up on this in the 1880s and 1890s. By the way, jesse james was not a cowboy. He was a psychopath with a gun. That is really important. He was never a cowboy. But you start to see a blending between what are called wild west euros and cowboys and heroes and cowboys and cowboys get sucked into that. Eventually, literature gets a jumpstart with the publication of the virginian and pretty soon you have a tsunami of western fiction sweeping across the country. Everybody who can pick up a pen is writing cowboy stories and artists supplying illustrations, most of which by artists who have never been out west. In this case, the artist went to colorado and worked for nine days and then went back to pennsylvania and wrote stories. Made accurate western stories. Eventually, the great pulp magazines of the 1930s got involved, and this is what cowboys allegedly did according to western fiction. Then hollywood got involved with moving pictures. This is one of my favorite pictures showing gary cooper getting his lipstick applied so he can play a texan. Ok . Hollywood has gotten it wrong nearly every time. Im about to tell you why. Ok, so true west magazine a couple of years ago decided they would look into this and sort of a scholarly way. Where was cowboy ground zero . Where did it start . There were three different people writing about this. In my own research, heres what im about to tell you. Cowboy ground zero starts in spain with the beginning of bringing cattle to north america, roughly about 1521 into what is now mexico. They were brought on ships and turned loose. Spanish herding practices meant they did not castrate the bull calves. Cows do what cows do and they made a lot more cows. That is important to remember. But these herding techniques were learned by someone. I always ask students this one, who taught the spaniards had be cowboys . Ok . It was north africa. They had a style called up in the air it was about riding on a short stirrup with maneuverability on the horse, quick mobility. Direction after direction. You Wear Clothing that allows you to move. That is part of this whole idea. So north africans taught what would become spanish cowboys, but they also did not use rope. They used something called a hawking blade a long pole with a , crescent shaped blade on the back. Because the wild cattle were running everywhere and there are so many in mexico, they simply would flick that hawking blade and cut hamstrings and they would drop on the spot. ,hey would butcher the hide take it right there, render the tallow and leave the meat to rot. What does that sound like to you . What else happened in north america about a couple hundred years later . Absolutely. That is what happened to the buffalo. Same thing. So where does the rope come in . It comes from west african slaves who used the rope to capture and heard animals and herd animals they roped from foot. It is a blending of technology from north and west africa the gives us a cowboy we know today. This is cowboy ground zero. Africa. That is vital for us to africa. That is vital for us to understand where they go. Now, initially they were not owners of ranches. They were mixed blood people. When i want to tell you folks, the first cowboys were probably indians. Uhoh. That flies in the face of a lot of stuff, doesnt it . They did not wear boots. They might wear shoes. Some did not even use stirrups. They learned how to use a rope. Ultimately, mexican cowboys can do things with rope no one can do today. I laid out on here in the front and i want you to come look, i have a cattle rope that as you can see is about 80 feet long. In texas cowboys rode with this about 2030 feet long. Half the size, ok . It is all about how you manage the rope. The style learned will become part of it. Wraparound. When you rope the animal. I am going to try to show you how to do this. Pretend this is a cow. It is all about securing your loop. We didnt as afternoon. We hit it most of the time this afternoon. The wind caught it. Do you see that . The wind caught it. [laughter] michael so i will capture the animal here. I can feed the rope back and forth theoretically. Give them a little room going back in because you do not want to hurt their self esteem. [laughter] michael the vaquero tradition is very much alive and well in california. In texas, they did what is called tie it fast. I fast and drag the animal where you want it to go, you dont care about his feelings. That is the important distinction. Hispanic cowboys were very much part of the equation. But they were paid about one third the wages of other cowboys. This is important. There were africanamerican cowboys. About a quarter of them were black or hispanic, mostly black. There were American Indian cowboys. They raised their own cattle in indian territory. Comanches, after they moved on to the reservations in southwestern oklahoma, insisted that any cowboys grazing herds on their only and had to be indian cowboys. They did not like texans. Imagine that. But most of them were euroamericans of some type. As you can see in this photograph of dodge city. They came from denmark, germany, france, all over the place. Most of them were attracted by the stories they read that made it sound very exciting. Most men the came out and tried to be cowboys did not last. It was just too hard. It was too difficult. It was dirty. All kinds of Different Things, they really do not last. Then even by the mid1880s your people doing this sort of thing, posing for photographs in dodge city. None work cowboys. Just dressed this way for a picture. [laughter] michael but notice this. This is the key. The firearms. Ok . I am not antigun. I am not. The whole idea that cowboys were bristling with violence, the just patently false. The historical record does not bear it out. If a cowboy owned a gun, and most did not, they were advised to keep it on the check wagon because on the back course a firearm is dangerous. Most cowboys, if they owned one, it was civil war surplus like this example here. They had a tendency to do this chain fire. Ok . You can see in this photograph, those are rounds jammed between the frame and the cylinder when chainfire happens. Imagine this happening on the back of a horse, ok . The key to understanding all this stuff is it was also against the law in texas after 1871 for you to carry a gun. You could not do it. It was against the law except for a couple of your frontier counties open to hostile fire. Battles between cowboys and indians almost never happened. The indians would just steal a cow, or they took a toll as you crossed indian territory. That is important remember. However, when they got close to oklahoma it was better to be armed. It is always better to be armed when he going to oklahoma, right . Or montana. Likewise, most of the ranches had rules forbidding carrying even on your person or in your saddlebag a pistol, dagger, boring knife, other instruments for defense. In other words, you could get fired if you were carrying a gun. Most had roles against whiskey, cards, dealing with women, which basically ruined the western you have ever seen, right . Ruined all of them. So here is the question you are more likely to have better use for a claw hammer then a sixshooter. You just dont need it. Theyre dangerous. And they are heavy. They bank a on your leg. I know there are people who do competitive shooting and one is a friend of mine in the audience right here but that is all mythology. Even cowboys themselves started to believe what Popular Culture told them. But this is my favorite. This is cow work right here, done from the back of a horse. You dont need a gun. As you can see in this photograph, a cowboy hat to wear his toolkit because once he is on the back of a horse, there is no going back to the pickup. There aint no pickup. Once you are mounted, you stay there all the livelong day. Hat. Boy wears a big it is basically an umbrella. Cowboy has get bigger, they get smaller over time. Down in texas now, they wear what looks like a big talker shall talk of shelf taco shell on their head. They call the hats stetson because they did not know there were any other makers. Likewise, they only knew one kind of coffee. They also got trained to your head. They were proud of Different Things that happen to them over time, ok . Here is for you teachers, you can use this in your mouth component when youre tired my used is. They would go to the store and buy a yard of cotton cloth. Whatever they had. That was a first aid did. You could use it to tie on your hat, it are muffs, probably to blow their nose. Im just kidding. I made that up. But it is also a sling. Because you need to remember there were no doctors out there. You broke your arm, you had to fix it yourself. Unlike today, if you go get a hangnail, you go to the urgent care center. There were no doctors there. You doctor yourself, so a handy sling is always around your neck. It is a handy thing to have. Cowboys did not wear heavy sheepskin coats like you see in the commercials. It is impossible to move around in a big coat like that so you wore a short cotton or wool jacket like mine. Nearly all of them were a vast because it keeps the body warm and allows you to move to do your work. It has pockets for your stuff. Especially your cell phone. [laughter] michael so you can snapchat the other cowboys across the herd and let them know you are still moving the cows. What are you doing . And they never, ever took a bath. Never. Everybody smelled just as rank as the next guy. Likewise, they were not clean shaven. They were bearded. Most of you men when you get up in the dark, do you shave in the dark . There aint no mirrors out here and there aint no lanterns. So they were bearded, and they also cut their own hair like i do. I put a lot of product in today. Does it look good . Cowboys did not look like brad pitt. They were dirty and they smell ed bad, ok . You keep your shirt on to keep dirt out. You might have two shirts, one to wear to work and went to go to town in. To protect your arms from running on burns and rope burns. Or chaps, leather pants. Initially in spain they were full pull on leather trousers. Only hollywood stars were brave enough to wear that stuff. Because it is hot. And they had spring buckles that like i have on mind so you can take them on and off. Once they dismounted, cowboys usually took these out because they were hot. You could get covered with all kinds of stuff, blood, but generally the cowboys took them off because they are hot, ok . Pantsrs, cowboys war wool called california pants. Generally they were plaid and they look kind of cool. Or cotton duck and it was like wearing a tent. Everyone say it with me the only kind of denim trousers cowboys ever wore were made by levis. Wranglers say it with me thats clever marketing. Wranglers, you think those are cowboy pants, take them home and go burn them in the backyard and get yourself a pair of proper cowboy pants. Heres the kicker levis only had one back pocket. Until 1922. They also had no belt loops. So you had to wear suspenders to give them up, this is an opportunity to accessorize. Boots were hard to come by down in texas because there were not in north texas. They came to kansas city. Its were usually up to the need to protect the lower leg. Sometimes pointed, sometimes not. High heels for certain. Spurs were not fancy because cowboys just could not afford them. And they usually would buy a pair of 1. 50 pair of monkey roebuck. Sears and we have some doubt in the exhibition i hope you will go see. This is where you buy your spurs. That is pretty much the cowboy kit. No gun, didnt need one or kept it in the saddle bag or check box. How about drinking whiskey . Not so much. When the cowboy got paid, he would go to the general store and buy cans of peaches and eat so many he would get sick because he craved the sugar. Cowboys had a sweet tooth. Drinking whiskey, not on the job. Rarely on the trail. This is a good time to remind you there were three or four , different types of cowboy. Trail hands, drovers. Usually, contractors would go to texas and say for a certain amount of dollars they would take the cows to certain places. Contracting crews. And there were ranch hands. They worked on the ranch all the time. Then there were Seasonal Workers day workers who were shopkeepers , during the day who really wanted to be cowboys. Drovers, on the trail drives, usually supplied their own horses. A cowboy rarely owned his own horse. The ranch did. Cowboys were always singing, right . Singing around the campfire. Singing to the cows. That part is true because cattle were notoriously spooky, and remember they are also dumb as a sack of hammers. Dumb as a box of rocks. Was usually pretty grim. The move is get the beans right. Because they were inexpensive. I like to tell the kids cowboys always requested a salad and a always got what kind of dressing does a cowboy always order . Ranch michael absolutely. Good. When they got to the end of the trail they did not order beef , steak because they ate beef steak for three months. They wanted fried chicken. Most of them were southern boys and they grew up eating fried chicken, loved fried chicken. You could not raise a chicken out there because the hailstones would pound them to death and the coyotes would eat them. Cowboy wages between 18801930 were one dollar a day. The average was one dollar a day. A mexican cowboy got . 30. A black cowboy got a dollar a day. In 1883, the cowboys went on strike. Remember what i told you about you did not own your own horses . And you are wearing highheeled boots that are not pleasant to walk in . Here is the ultimatum, we actually own this. This is the only time in history cowboys went on strike. They loved Walking Around on the horse in all that fresh air for one dollar a day, who would not want to do that . They asked for a raise in wages. They all got fired because by this time, 1883, virtually every cattle ranch in north america was owned by british capitalists. Nearly every single one. And they did not see any difference between a hired man on the back of a horse and a man who worked in a shoe factory in london. They didnt care. They fired him. Most of them became blacklisted and never worked as cowboys again. Some of them became outlaws. About this time, the rail lines stretching between amarillo and kansas city are open. I think this is a very telling statistic on this next slide. Take a look at this 1887 is when the rail lines hit amarillo from here. Within a year, and have million a halfmillion head of cattle. In two years, one million animals, from where im from. You are a a cow town. Be a cow town. Be a baseball town, too, but you are a cow town. The trail driving changed. Cowboys would get on the train after the cattle are loaded in special cattle cars and ride in the caboose is our special cars to take care of the animals like they did on the trail previously all the way to amarillo city. They were responsible for somebody elses animals. The sense of responsibility that is largely lost in many respects today. They did not come to town to shoot things up because the whiskey was not available until they got in and they were probably eating peaches. They did not have guns because their wagon bosses would not let them have them, but occasionally, it would happen. Remember the average age of the 15 to 25n cowboy was years old. They were just kids. They were little, ok . I am 64, so i am way taller than the cowboys. I am just fatter than they are. They are usually 120 to 150 pounds. Usually they were small because the horses were small. With all due respect to the american Quarter Horses as vision, they did not ride those until 1950. Ok . They were little. A big cowboy did not last very long because he wore out the horse and believe me, the horse was far more important to the ranch owner. But if you give liquor and a gun to a kid, what do you think is going to happen . People were smarter than that. Most towns had ordinances against carrying firearms in towns. How about women . Were there women cowboys . Yes. Marketers got a hold of something that they called the cowboy girl, around the turn of the last century. She were kind of a uniform, as you can see. Always sporting a gun, as you can see. She did not wear boots, usually laced up shoes, high heels. Marketers use this, recognizing there were women who did do ranch work, did do cow work. But usually from a sidesaddle. You see that . It reminds us of what ginger said about fred i did everything , he did only in high heels and backwards. The woman was obliged to hook her leg up over the saddle horn and ride sidesaddle, until about 1905 when the new woman sweeps the new Womens Movement sweeps the United States and suddenly women are riding astride and pushing cows, writing barking horses, performing in wild west shows, also performing in rodeos. Women were an absolute central part of rodeos until about 1943, when gene autry the singing cowboy himself basically barred women from rodeo competition after Bonnie Mccarroll was killed on a bucking horse and some others were injured. He said that wasnt ladylike. He created the whole grand rodeo and great entry thing. I am just a reporter of that. I did not do that. Im just telling you. But there are ranch women today, they call them cowboy girls but they are cowgirls. From western nebraska, ive got a couple sisters, the kelley sisters. I will conclude with this, there is his belief that cowboys do not exist. The cowboys are gone. Remember, a man wearing a western hat is not a cowboy necessarily. I was in the amarillo airport at 6 00 this morning and i was the only one sporting a cowboy hat until i saw one another. When my friend from southeastern withs walked into grace us their presence in the correct kind of mail headwear, as you can see over here. That is good. I dont mean gimme caps, i mean hats. I digress. Do cowboys exist . On march 6 of this year, alamo day in texas, three prairie fire s swept across the panhandle. Out there they go rapidly and are unpredictable. They go different directions. Cowboy life was always about trying to anticipate what comes next and being ready to take action for something elses property. Three cowboys, this young man Cody Crockett was a cowboy in the middle of that and his fiancee, sydney wallace was in the middle of that and Sloan Everett was in the middle of that. They rode into the prairie fire to rescue 40 mama cows and their calves because they could not stand to let them burn to death. Ok . This quote is really telling about the cowboy philosophy that most of us do not understand. Why in the world would you do that for someone elses property, right . You dont think twice about it. That is the underscore of what a true cowboy is. They saved them and all three of those cowboys burned to death. All of them. All three of them. When they found them, the only thing left were there boots and leather belts. All of their clothing and hair had burned completely off of them. Sydney and cody had written out together on a horse named junior. Sloan went out on another horse. A four wheeler. Junior had to be put down. The only thing left of his saddle was a burned little chris. He came back to the house, ok . These are true cowboys. They still exist today. The true cowboys in america are buried in unmarked graves all across the American West. They are not the famous ones. Theyre not the ones who made it into the dime novels of the wild west shows or into the movies. They are the ones whose names we do not know who bought a product that built america because america was built on its stomach and these cattle were absolutely vital to the building of america including kansas city and amarillo, texas. But it is hard for us to understand that. So i leave it to whalen and thane, who said it better anybody. He aint wrong but hes different. Hes just different but his pride wont make him do things that you think is right. Thank you. [applause] michael how did i do on time . Questions . Yes, sir . Oh, wait, got to wait for the microphone. If i dont know the answer, i will make up a real good story, i promise. Could you please talk about why most of the ranches were owned not by american interests, but by did you say british interest owned these . Why didnt some big financiers from back in northeast or some other parts of america and up owning all of that at the time . Michael a great question. We deal with this in the spring and a separate program. But a book called how to get rich on the planes was published by a u. S. Army officer and the army was probably in collusion with the cattle industry in my opinion. The british capitalist saw the opportunity because the book was published in Great Britain. They literally lined up. One of the famous biggest ranches in texas was entirely on by a british conglomerate who thought they were going to get rich. They should have visited first. The frying pans, the turkey tracks, the ranches you may have heard of. Some of them were actually managed from here. The tacre was managed from here. The turkey tracks was managed from here. They thought they would make a killing, they did not. Most of them did not get a return on investment but it was an opportunity. A great question, why did american entrepreneurs not do it . Its really a great question, thank you. I have to ask, what is your favorite western movie and your favorite western tv series, and why . Michael ok. This may sound like splitting hairs, but there is a difference between western and a cowboy movie. A cowboy movie can be a western but a western is not necessarily a cowboy movie. My favorite cowboy movie is john wayne called the cowboys. Because it is the most accurate. Those little boys, and the opening scene, theyll show up with big guns and he makes them put them all in a box on top of the wagon, right . That is as accurate as it can be. John wayne of course was not a cowboy, he was an actor. I meant to say this. I have one had. Hat. John wayne might have six hats during the show. That is important. The most recent cowboy movie i think is good as open range. Its pretty accurate. You have to understand the context of that story. It is a great story. Unforgiven is not a cowboy show. Its a western. Thats the key. Western tv show . Wow. Current or past . Old man. Well, i am a junkie for that stuff. Gunsmoke, of course. It was absolutely true. My first horse was named gunsmoke as a matter fact. Yes maam. You said average age was 15 to 25. Did they live much longer than that . What did they do after 25 . Michael a great question. The average age of the american cowboy was 15 to 25 years old. Most of the time they stopped because it was too hard. They make no money, they got hurt, and heres the other thing that flies in the face of the great westerns. Most of them wanted to be farmers because with farms come wives, then children, then schools, then towns. Here is my belief, the open range time, the ranchers who started the big ranches and the latter part of the 19th century, they knew their window was very narrow. They had to make as much money as fast as they could because they knew the farmers were coming and the towns were coming. So they did, they truly did. Now, some of you probably have ancestors my great grandpa went up the trail to dodge city about 12 times. Grandpa probably was telling you a lie. Because most of them did it once or they quit halfway because it was too dangerous. Texas is a latter of rivers and every time you cross a river and because most cowboys could not swim, they were terrified of water. Terrified of drowning, the other one was getting up high not in a they were terrified of two things one was drowning and the other was getting hung up in the stirrup. That is why they wrote up high. They rode on the instep. They sent there boots all the way into the stirrup this way, ok . But if you were unlucky enough to get your foot hung up in the stirrup and you got pinched off your horse, they will not stop. And i know a cowboy who was dragged to death through a canyon and he was in pieces by the time they caught the horse, ok . I am not trying to over dramatize stuff but that is the truth. It was just not what they thought it would be. Most of them were kids. I am going to go be a cowboy. Little joe wrangler, talked about that. He just ran away. They were just kids looking for an adventure generally. I was talking to some of my friends involved in history, the dangers of driving a heard of through missouri around the time of the civil war. Could you talk about that a little bit . Michael what he is talking about is the risk of driving cattle through southwestern missouri or southeastern kansas in that corner because during the civil war because of the bushwhackers and the j hawkers and all of that. After the war, that was a hold over. Texans were southerners, and that is where the cattle were coming from and they literally were bushwhacked. A lot of cowboys killed and the herd stolen and brought up to kansas city and sold. It was basically condoned Cattle Rustling is what it was because those eastern kansas counties and the western missouri counties did not want those animals on the half coming through there and killing domesticated cattle so it was condoned largely. It did happen. That does lead to some of them going armed but generally they were only armed in the front or frontier counties and so on. They were dangerous times. Hello. That was a great presentation. Very educational. The term cowboy at some point, when did it become synonymous with just someone who lives out west as opposed to someone who herded cattle . It is a term for anyone who wears boots, hats, lives out west. When did that happen and why . Michael the etymology of the word cowboy, Popular Culture. There was no cowboy word in the english language. However, one scholar says it is a scotch irish word because in scotland or ireland there was some herding practices on foot, usually with a small stick. A small boy with a stick. However, the spanish word the care of the spanish word vaquero means cowboy. But as a standand for all western people is largely due to what i told you about Popular Culture. Blame buffalo bill, right . He blended two Different Things together, ok . The next thing you know they are gunfighters, bank robbers, crimefighters, superheroes and stuff. It is a blending. Then i will take this a little bit further. In recent times, it is both popular and a throwaway snide Cocktail Party line. Hes just a cowboy. Or cowboy up. Here is something you will learn in cow country. They will say things like he , and there is no greater complement than that. Or hell make a hand. But the blending is a late 19th century phenomenon according to my research. 1880s or so. Give or take. In the back, yes, maam . Can you tell me how long it took to move the cattle by rail from texas up to kansas city and when you said the cowboys ride on the cars and take care of the cattle, what does that entail . Michael the trains were not very fast. Miles, give or take. Every couple days they would get them off the cars and feed and water them. They were cramped into the cattle cars. One of the things the cowboys would do was to climb in there with the cattle because some of them would get down and once , they are down they could die , so they had to get them to their feet. So it was literally just a different kind of trail. They were on a mechanized vehicle. It would take about four days, give or take. From where i live, which is down in amarillo. It is 570 miles. When we installed the exhibition, i found a way to drive the original Santa Fe Railway as close as i could with a truck and it took a little while. I was glad i did it. I really was. Just so you know, a little side thing, because of Texas Railroad law, santa fe could not build directly into texas. They had to establish a completely different corporation with an office in texas called the kansas city the southern Kansas Railroad of texas. It was very much part of the santa fe line but from indian territory which is in higgins, texas, down to amarillo, that was a separate company. And denver city also should cattle to kansas city through fort worth. What kinds or what breeds of horses were used for driving cattle . Was there a certain breed that was preferred over others . Michael almost immediately everyone realized they had this great surplus of Texas Longhorns. The meat was not very good. So almost immediately, durhams, short forms short horns, angus comes a little bit later. They started crossbreeding. Most of the animals that come to kansas city are not pure bred, they are not pure longhorn, they are about half. So the meat quality was better. As far as horses were concerned, to improve the horses, the mustangs started almost immediately as well. There were thoroughbreds, standard breads, and spanish they were crossed usually because the quality of the spanish mustang, surefooted nose, hardiness, the ability to go long time without water was something they wanted to maintain. Hey her for it cow cant walk across the street without collapsing. Same as some of the horses, out of breath within a couple blocks. But the spanish mustangs could run forever. But they are little. They are tiny. They used to talk about them not being much bigger than a dog. They were little. The problem with the mustang was that they were wild, ok . It is in the historical record that two out of every three mustangs would die after was captured. They called it a broken heart. You can do with that whatever you want. They were mostly mustangs. Related to horses, the last herd of wild mustangs were i live was captured in 1907 on the train to kansas city to be trained as harness horses and sold for seven dollars and animal, and then theyre out of texas because what happened was while horses were considered vermin. You would shoot the stallion first and kill it and either drive the rest off the cliff or shoot them with a winchester. They all got pushed into new mexico, las vegas. So every wild horse today is descended from texas mustang, every one of them. They came from spain to mexico into texas and then spread. You mentioned native americans and the treaties. How did they strike those treaties . Who was doing the striking . Michael what do you mean striking . The native americans had to communicate with somebody about how to draw up the treaty and with whom. Michael ok, i understand your question. Treaties were u. S. Indian policy and treaties are always struck between sovereign nations of the u. S. Government recognized the indians were sovereign nations, otherwise they would not use treaties, they were just for they would just push them out of the way. A sensibly, they are foreign nations, right . So they had to use interpreters. And using interpreters youre going to get confused, never fails. And comanche is notoriously hard to learn. There are very few native comanche speakers today, for example. So, leaders from all of the tribes were brought in. Leaders. Indians learned pretty quickly that if you made a treaty with the u. S. Or British Government of the french government or whoever, you got presents. You might not understand what you just put your mark on. They call it touching the pen. You put a mark on a piece of paper, wheres my stuff . And, yes, of course, i speak for the comanche nation, wheres my stuff . I know that sounds trite, but that is the truth. And they would go back and say, we just signed a treaty with the whole comanche nation. They just signed a treaty with one guy. Its really quite sad. The other thing we learned is violations went both ways. The Medicine Lodge treaty said a couple things, we will feed you, house you, you move into a corner of oklahoma and we will provide all of these tools so you can guess what . Stop being the greatest warriors of the plane and be farmers. Were going to take away your horses and everything about your way of life into get to live in a log house. What a great deal, right . However, they were also assured there would be no buffalo hunting below the river. The indians also said they would stop raiding in texas. They did not stop, either. Go to Medicine Lodge, kansas, sometime if you have never been there. A pretty interesting place. The western painters such as remington and russell, which one of the painters get the most accurate portrayal of cowboys . Michael that is a tough question because they were both subject to Popular Culture already. Remington had never been a cowboy. He tried to be. He was a sheep herder and a bartender for a while. He wanted to be a cowboy and he glorified cowboy. Assell worked briefly as also sheep herder horse wrangler in montana. He was from saint louis. I think generally, russell is probably closer to being accurate to cow work. I think that is safe to say. In terms of being the best painter, in my opinion hands down it is remington. Remington is a far better painter. Russell is more interesting. Will james. I would throw james and there but he is known for his drawings in particular, and he is a little bit later. What were the skills that made a good hand . Michael its an excellent question. You had to be good with a rope. You had to be good with a rope. If you were no good with a rope, you did not get a job. You had to be able to manage a horse. There were Different Levels of hands, right . The least experienced was usually writing drag, with the dust and mud going back into their face. Then you graduated to swing and flank and lead. Usually there were 1012 trail riders. Average trail ride about three months. To be a good hand, you had to have proficiency with a rope. The question about courses is really good and the question about hands is really good because there is this idea that the cowboys best friend is his horse and they loved each other and all that stuff. A horse will bite you if he wants to. He does not like you. You may think he likes you, but he doesnt like you. He does not want you on his back. Especially if it is in the morning. So in the morning was a rodeo all the time. Every morning it was a rodeo. You had to be able to stay on a pitching horse. There are stories where you would be riding along and the next thing you know the animal has just exploded for no apparent reason and you are on the ground going, what the heck just happened . So the ability to stay on the saddle, that was great. You had to be able to handle a rope. You had to think quickly. You had to be responsible, and you had to be committed. A lot of men could not do it. , forjust could not do it all those reasons. Dangerous, dirty, low wages. You said that there were a lot that died along the trail. Michael yes, maam. And unmarked graves. When they went back home, how did they tell the families that their 15 to 25yearold would usually bring the belongings. If they drowned, they usually did not get the body. They usually collected whatever belongings they had. A cowboy usually carried something called a war bag, personal possessions. They would gather them along and take them along with their wages up until that point and take them to the family. That happened a lot. Most cowboys were illiterate, they cannot read and write. When women show up, the women becomes their mother, sweetheart, nurse, girlfriend, and oftentimes there stenographer. Write a letter to my mother and tell her im still alive, ok . Or when they got a letter from home and, you know, we take it for granted today, we have instant messaging. You send a message and start to have a heart attack if they dont answer and six seconds. You go years without a word and when a letter came from home, cowboys were so starved for news they would read a letter to live until they fell apart. You are obliged to read your letter from home out loud because not everybody got a letter. They read anything they could from home, frontward and backwards over and over again. Cowboy life was largely boring, it really was. You have been a great audience and asked great questions. Go see the exhibition. Thanks for coming. [applause] this weekend on a American History tv on cspan3, today at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, Yale University historian Joanne Freeman on alexander hamilton. When washington became president , he made hamiltons the nation hamilton the nations first secretary of the treasury. He pushed to strengthen and empower the National Government watching a really fierce political battle against those who wanted a far less powerful National Government. Thomas jefferson and James Madison were his foremost political opponents. Sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern, the 1980s training film unwelcome affection about inappropriate behavior in the work face workplace. You are new on the staff. That i andemind you the one that fixes up evaluation reports. I signed threeday passes and leave. If you want to get along on the staff, it would be beneficial to you to be a little bit nice to me. At 8 00 on the presidency, president Andrew Jacksons efforts to challenge and even cripple the bank of the United States during the 1830s. No president before had said anything like this. Other president s had warned americans against entangling foreign alliances. They had warned americans against sectionalism and excessive partisanship at home. Jackson warned them against control of their own government by, in his words, the rich and powerful. American history tv all weekend every weekend only on cspan3. This year, cspan is touring cities across the country, exploring American History. Next, a look at our recent visit to kansas city, missouri. You are watching American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan3. Physically, kansas city is 318 square miles. It is 480,000 people spread across 318 square miles for a density of about 1460 per square mile, which is pretty sparse when you get right down to it. We are roughly 29 percent, 30 africanamerican, about 11 latino, 5 various mixes of immigrants and various cultures. The rest caucasian