Like a festive, light atmosphere and im glad. Weve got a great presentation for you tonight. My name is steve weberg. I work in the Public Affairs department of the library. Its my honor to introduce a guy ive gotten to know and really come to admire a lot here in the past few months working with him. Some of you may have already been through our new exhibit opened just under two months ago on the second floor in the mountain gallery, cattle cowboys and culture. If you havent, i would strongly urge you to. Its just a fascinating collection and im talking a large collection of artifacts. Art and other objects that illuminate it connection that i wasnt aware of down through history back through the cattle days in amarillo, texas. Its so big part of it spilled out if had to kirk hall on it first floor. You may see seen the big saddle and hall tree. I would be remisprobably at this point before getting to michael if i didnt introduce ann deucy in the very back, back there. He is our library, art exhibit director and shes responsible for all it great exhibits you see in both of our galleries. She does a terrific job and michael really is responsible for the most part for this exhibit being here. Hes the associate director of Territorial Affairs in the curator of art and western heritage at the pan handle Plains Historical museum in canyon, texas. Just south of amarillo in the texas pan handle. The Largest History Museum in the state of texas and iftexas,r believe its large. Hes also a lecturer in the western aparecon studies at western west texas a m university. Michael overseas art, weapons, military, sports and cowboy and ranching collections at it museum. Which, as he puts it is quote working in a giant toy store. I call it stealing money. He curatored this exhibit with an associate professor of art history at texas a m. Hes from the kansas city area, born in kck, graduate of oak park high school. He went on to college at ku where he had a double major in art history and painting. Went on to earn his masters at smu in dallas. After college he worked at whats now the Smithsonian American Art Museum in washington d. C. Ultimately he landed at the pan handle Plains Historical museum in texas. From the time he was a kid, michael says he was always fascinated by historical objects. He collected animal bones and relics. He grew up wanting to be a cowboy or a pro football player. And says he went to art school because he was good at drawing horses. Michael was invited to dinner at the white house with george w. And laura bush at one point during the second bush presidency. The museum had had loaned a painting, couple paintings to one painting to the white house for display there and michael turned them down. It turned out he would have had had to have missed his sons graduation from high school. So he turned down it invitation from the white house. Among other things, michael knows a lot, an awful lot about cowboys. And hes revered in the amarillo area for the Living History Program he presents as cowboy mike and i think hes come tonight as cowboy mike. I was making the joke some of you are remember a few years ago when we did our big read on true grit. And was very fond of pulling on an eye patch and a duster. You never got the sense he actually strung some fence. This guy looks like hes strung some fence. And tonight hes going to set us straight about cowboys. Hes going to give us their true history. One spoiler. Six shooters are not involved. I say this all the time. Im proud of the public programming that we do here at the library. And are of the speakers we bring in i think are really good. But the ones who really stand out are the one whose bring a passion thats infectious. They love what they do. They love talking about it and they love sharing it with other people. And weve gotten that from michael in the several months hes worked with us on the exhibit and youre going to get that tonight. Youre in for a real treat. Please welcome michael [ applause ] first all of, thank you all for coming. Its a really nice crowd that includes not only people from kansas city but that group inhadcludes my dearest friends are here and also some of my family. Got a little surprise a few minutes ago. Ive been doing the cowboy mic program for almost a decade and it stems from, as he was saying, an interest incorrecting history and its a little different from academic history in that our job is to take history out of academia and put it in the hands of the general public and help tell good stories and thats basically what i get to do for a living is hang pictures on the wall and tell good stories and they keep paying me so i guess its working out for somebody in any case. When this project fell in my life and my co curator, amy von lintel, im a great believer in giving back and i think its vite tool give back to our communities and im lucky that im able to give back to the two place s that are my home. The opportunity to give back to my home town is a great thing for me because i remember as a little kid my grandparents lived in whats called rose dale edition and i could see the ship and also the big hurpert bull and im not a cowboy but i get to play one on tv. And i do it quite a lot and ive come to know cowboys. Ive had the honor to handle art facts that belonged to the greatest cowboys you ever knew and its not about the famous ones. Ritsz r about the ones who did the work and thats what i hope to convey to you today. This is a special type of person that mostly is misunderstood. And thats where im going to take you on a journey today. Now, ann ducy was willing to take a risk by letting us do a pressen tashz. About two years ago this month we gave a presentation about cattle cowboys and culture and it was in its infancy and we didnt know how big it was going to get. We kept looking in our collection and finding these connections. Every time we opened a page, we found two more. And there are stories everywhere. I believe very strongly and i see this in both my home towns is turning your back on your history is the worst thing you could possibly do and seeing whats been happening in amarillo now, youre in a cow town, folks. Youll always be a cow town, no matter how many things you build. Youre a cow town. Embrace it. And thats what im trying to convey. I dont care what you build. So embrace them, capitalize on them and use them. You have Great Stories here in kansas city. Use them, leverage them. Because Everybody Loves cowboys, right . I do this program for little bitty critters, all it way up to the little bitty critters that were 75 years old and i swear every time i do it i watch people turn into children. And thats a fact. So im going to take you through a history of cowboys according to my own research and you may agree or disagree but there will be time for questions. I only have a short time. I have a tendency to go off but ill try to stay on point as best as i can. I learned how to use it clicker deely a little while ago. And well see how this goes. All right. So as they say tighten your cinches. Here we go. Cowboys were not gun fighters, crime fighters, bank robbers, unless they got fired. They didnt come to town and shoot things up, generally speaking. Okay. And this is probably my favorite art fact is right here. Shoot for kansas city. This cowboy in this ribbon is only this big as if all cowboys carries that kind of nonsense. Cowboys are the most misunderstood of all americans. And where i live today and which still exists up to western canada, they lived a particularly dangerous life and they did the work that no one really wanted to do because the wages were low. Was dangerous. Dirty and frankly a lot of times it was boring. But they were responsible for someone elses property and i think thats the key to understanding what they were doing. As america expanded to the west, we grabbed big chunks of territory and the cow country is generally all this in here, everything from the rockies east. Although theres cattle country in california and in the northwest, its generally the great plains and kansas city is the gateway to the great plains. So theres a great demand for beef cattle in the midwest and the eastern United States as well as in Great Britain, specifically. Cattle has been left to run wild in texas where estimates are anywhere from 6 to 10 million animals by 1865. All it wild horses were there as well. At least 2 million in 1865 in texas. Most cowboys came from texas. Ill get to the two waves of cowboydom that goes north. But generally speaking the horses were there, it cattle were there and the cowboys were there and they all come out of texas. This is the kind of animal were talking about is descendants of spanish cattle well get to in a moment. And texas longhorns. And so almost pdly there were attempts to breed them up and make the quality of their meat better. This is what the plains looked like and its hard for us to understand that today unless you go out to western nebraska, montana, wyoming or where i lived in northwest texas. Its as simple as this. I have to do my lectures to school kids. So you sats nigh legislature. Everybody say it with me. We aint got no trees. Remember that. Thats important. So theres no place to hide. So cattle this great commodity is coin bide an illinois businessman who realizes the way to get the product to the great market in the midwest and eastern United States and europe, you had had to get them to market somehow. There were railroads in texas but three time as expensive and the first of course was at abilene. The original tails kansas citys not even on this map. But almost pdly by the 1850s. Then missouri does. And eventually by 1860, theyve shut off for texas cattle on the lope. However, ta could enter the state on rail car. This is why the Central Pacific goes out here because eastern kansas counties also instituted quarantine. So texas cattle on the hoof were not welcome into the part of the country we normally reckon. So abilene was a cow town for about a year 1 2, caldwell is here. And then dodge city is about right there. So you can see the great cattle field and one of the things we need things we need remember is territory basically governed by comanches from the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Mississippi Valley by fear and trade. So you do, you strike a treaty with the comanches. And you tell them they have to give up all this and move to this. We all know nobody wants to go to oklahoma on purpose. Right . Nobody wants to do that. So that didnt go over too well. But nonetheless, this is what happened. And the u. S. Army is in collusion, i believe in my own research in protecting the cattle trail out of texas. They were for to protect the cattle interests. By the time to trail start and they continued to about roughly 1890. We believe there were probably 35,000 cowboys if volved. But nobody knew what a cowboy was or a trail driver given what you see here. There aint no cow trail that ever looked like that and texas long horns didnt look like jersey cows either. So the whole idea of what was a cowboy and what were these cattle . Thats something that enters the popular consciousness and there were attempts to render what a texas cowboy looked like and nobody knew. Popular culture gets ahead of it pretty quickly. They appear as literally part of the wild west as wild riders, wild west cowboys. Eventually dime novels pick up on this and by the way jesse james was not a cowboy. He was a psycho path with a gun. Thats really important. He was never a cowboy. But you start to see the great blending between wild west heroes and cowboys. Eventually western fiction gets a jump start with the publication of the virginiaen and the next thing you know you have a tsunami of western fiction. And everybody who can pick up a pen is writing cowboy stories ands are supplying illustration, mostly by artists who never been out west. In this case wyatt went out west and worked as a cowboy for nine days and went back to pennsylvania and made accurate western stories. Originally the great cult magazines got involved. And this is what cowboys allegedly did according to western fiction and hollywood gets involved. And this shows gary cooper getting his lipstick arrived so he could play it texan. And hollywood has gotten it wrong nearly every time. Im about to tell you why. So true west magazine a couple of years ago decided ta would look into this in a scholarly way. Where did start . And there were a couple of there were three different people writing about this and heres what im about to tell you. Cowboy ground zero starts in spain with the bringing of cattle to north america roughly 1521 if hnto what is now mexico. Spanish herd hadding practishes meant cows do what cows do and they paid lot more cows. But these heard haddirding tech were learned by someone. Who taught the spaniards how to be cowboys . It was north africans. Who wrote something called up in the air. Which means they road on a shortened stir. And they were not nice. They were about munervability on it back of a horse moving direction after direction and meentz you had to Wear Clothing that allowed you to move. And thats part of this whole idea. So north africans taught what would become spanish beketos. But they did not use rope. They used what was called a hawking braid, a long hall with a krcrescent shaped blade on th back. They simply ride up behind them and flick that blade and cut their hamstrings and they drop on the spot. They butcher them right for, and leave the meat to rot. Does anybody know what does that sound like to you . What else happened in north america a couple hundred years later . Exactly what happens with the buffalo. Same thing. So where does the rope come in . Where does the rope come in . From west african slaves who used a rope to capture and heard animals they roped from foot. So its a blending of technologies from north and western africa. This is cowboy ground zero is africa. Thats vital for us to understand where they go. Now what kind of cowboys were for . Initially bacittos were not owners of the ranches. They were mix hadded blood people. What im trying to tell you is the first cowboys were probably indians. Uhoh, that flies in the face of a lot of stuff. They didnt wear boots. They might wear shoes. They did wear spurs, usually on their bare feet. Some didnt use stir. S but they learned how to use rope and ultimately mexican cowboys can do things with rope that no one can do today. I laid out in the floor on the front. I have a jrope. Its about 80 feet long. A texas cowboy rope is half the size. So its all about how you manage it rope and this style thats learned from the bacettos its called a wrap around. What they call dalying today. When you rope the animal. And im going to try to show you how to do this. Pretend this is a cow. Its all about securing your loop, right. And doing it the right way. Hopefully i can do that today. We hit it most of the time this afternoon. Wind caught it. Youll see that. In any case. So i catch the animal here and im going to wrap it around my saddle horn. And that way i can feed the rope back and forth using the bacaro method. Its a lot like stitching. Because you dont want to hurt their self esteem. You want to coax them in and them think its their idea. This is very much alive in the land of california, the land of fruits and nuts where we really care about it feeling. In texas they did whats called tying fast. You tie it fast and you grab that animal where you want it to go. You dont care about its feelings. But hispanic cowboys, as you can see were very much part of the conversation. However, they were usually paid about 1 3 the wages of other cowboys. There were African American cowboys, paid the same wages as american cowboys. So about 1 4 were black or hispan hispanic. American indian cowboys. They raised their own cattle. And comanches in oklahoma insisted that any cowboys that were grazing herds on their own land had to be ifdian cowboys because they didnt like texans. Imagine that. But most of them are euro american of some type. As you can see from this photograph they came from Great Britain, denmark, france. Germany. All over the place. Most of them were attracted by the stories theyve read that made it sound very exciting. Most men that came out and tried to be cowboys didnt last because it was just too hard. It was too difficult, dirty. All kinds of Different Things. So they really didnt last. So and then everybody got swept up, even by it mid1880s posing for photographs in dodge city and pay close attention. None were cowboys. Just dressed this way for picture cans. But notice this. This is the key. A firearm. Im not antigun. Im not. But the whole idea that cowboys were brisling with firearms is patently false. The historical record does not bear it out. If a cowboy owned a gun they were obliged to keep it in a chuck wagon or a chuck box because on it back of a horse a firearm is dangerous. Most cowboys if they owned one, it was civil war surplus like this example here and they had a tendency to do this called chainfire. And you can see in this photograph those are rounds jammed between the frame and the cylinder when chainf fire happens. Imagine this happening on the back of a horse. So the dee understanding all this stuff is it was against it law in texas after 1871 for you to carry a gun. You could not do it. It was against the law for a couple here. Any Frontier County libel to incursion by hostile indians. Battles between cowboys and indians almost never happen. They took a toll as you crossed indian territory. However, if you owned a gun and got close to oklahoma, always better to be armed when you go if to oklahoma, right . O o or montana. Like wise they had rules prohibiting you careyish a pistol, dirk, dagger, slingshot, knuckles bowee knife or any other similar instruments. Most of them rules against drinking whiskey, playing cards, dealing with women. Which basically ruins every western youve ever seen, right . Ruins all of them. So heres it question is youre more likely to have better use for a claw hammer doing cow work than a six shooter. Its dangerous. And theyre evhaddy. They bang on your leg. Now i know that there are people who do competitive shooting and one of them is a friend of mine and i hope he doesnt correct me right here but thats all part of the mythology. It really isnt part of it and even cowboys themselves started to believe what popular cultural told them. Everybodys got their gun. But this is my favorite. We didnt think we was grown till we got where we could fire a pistol and light a durham cigarette while atrotting. But this is cow work right here. Done from the back of a horse. You dont need a gun. You need a good rope and you need to wear your tool kit. As you can see in this photograph here from our collection. A cowboy had to wear his tool kit because once hes on the back of a horse, theres no going back to the pick up because i forgot something. There aint no pick up. You stay there all the live long day. A cowboy might change horses five to six time as day because horses get tired too. So a cowboy wear as big at. Basically an umbrella. They get bigger, smaller over time. In texas they wear what looks like big taco shell on their head. Mine that i wear is what we call a made by stetsen and by the way all had cowboys called all hats stetsons. They didnt know there were other makers and only knew one kind of coffee, arbuckles. Whether it was arbuckles or not. So they also got trained to your head and theyre proud of Different Things that happened to them over time. Most of them wore what they call the wild rag. And for you teachers, you use this in your math component. They would go to the general store and buy a yard of cotton cloth whatever color they had for two bits and thats your first aid kit. Tie it on your head for ear muffs with it got cold, your dust mask and incase you want to play ninja. And they like the blow their nose. Im just kidding. I made that up. There were no doctors out there. You broke your arm, you had to fix it yourself. Unlike today if you get a hangnail, you go to the urgent care center. There are no doctors, nurses, you doctor yourself. So a handy sling is always around your neck. Its a handy thing to have. Cowboys didnt wear heavy sheep skin coats. Its impossible to move around with you have a coat like that. So you wore a wool jacket like mine they called a jacket or a nearry all of them wore a vest because it keeps the body warm and allows you to move and do your work. Plus it has pockets for all your stuff, especially your cell phone. So you can snap chat the other cowboys across it heard and let them know guess what, im still moving the cows. What are you still doing . And keeps the dirt out because they never took a bath. Never. Everybody smell just as rank as the next dguy. They were bearded mostly. Most you men in here when you get up in the dark, do you shave in the dark . There aint no mirrors out here and there arent no lanterns. And they cut their own hair like i do. I styled this about two hours today and put lot of product in it. It look good . Cowboys are really concerned about that. They didnt look like brad pitt. They were dirty and they smelled bad. So you keep the shirt on to keep the dirt out. One shirt to wear to town and one to work in. Thats it. Leather cuffs to protect your arm from rope burn. Also chapo, or down in texas they call them chafs. Leather pants. Initially in spain they used full on leather trousers. Only hollywood stars are crazy enough to wear that stuff because its hot and make sure theyre split down it back so you can take them on and off. Once they dismounted cowboys usually took them off because theyre hot and you get covered with cow and horse sloper and blood. It looks great in western movies but generally you took them off because they were hot. They wore wool pants called a california pant. Generally, sometimes they were plaid and looked kind of cool. Or cotton duck which is like wearing a tent and everyone say it with me, the only kind of denim trousers cowboys ever wore were made by levis. Wranglers, thats clever marketing. So heres your job. You got pair of wranglers and think theyre cowboy pants, you burn them in the backyard and get your safl pair of proper cowboy pant. Levis only had one back pocket and a cinch belt in the back and no belt loops. But remember this is an opportunity to accesses are. Right . Okay. So boots were hard to come by down in texas because there werent very many boot makers. They came to kansas city and bought higher boots. Usually up to the knee to protect the lower leg. Sometimes pointed, sometimes not. And spurs were not fancy because cowboys couldnt afford them. So they usually would buy a pair of 1. 50 spurs called the okay spur and thats what i wear. We have spurs in the exhibition i hope you will see because you can get them here in kks kansas city from chiply saddles or ascue as well. This is where you bought your spurs. So thats pretty much the cowboys kit. No gun, because you didnt need one or you kept it in the saddle bag or a chuck box. How about drinking whiskey . Not so much. With a cowboy got paid frequently, hed going to the general store and buy cans of peaches and eat so many hed get sick because he craved it sugar. Cowboys a sweet tooth so drinking whiskey, not on the job, rarely on the trail and this is a good time to remind you. There were trail hands, who were drovers. Usually Contracting Companies that would go to texas and say for x number of dollar s ill take your heard for you. And there were ranch hands who worked on the ranch all the time. And there were Seasonal Workers who were shop keepers during the day but wanted to be cowboys in the spring and fall round up. Droervs, the one on the trail usually supplied their own horses. A cowboy rarely owned his own horse, the ranch did. And of course cowboys are always singing. Singing around the camp fire, singing to the cows. Thats true because cattle are spooky and as dumb as a sack of hammers, dumb as a box of rocks. Cowboy chuck was usually pretty grim, beef steak. Blagz saddles got the beans right. Because they were if had expensive. Pinto beans were inexpensive. And what kind of dressing does the cowboy always order . Absolutely. Always ranch. So all thats pretty much the same and with had they got to the end of the trail, they didnt order beef steak because theyd been ordering beef steak for three months. What did they want . Fried chicken because most of them were southern boys and they grew up eating Fried Chicken and you couldnt raise a chicken out there because the cioats would eat them. So they loved Fried Chicken. Cowboy wages between 1880 and 1930 were 1 a day. It average was 1 a day. A mexican cowboy got 30 cents. A black cowboy got dollar a day. And so in 1883 the cowboys went on strike. Remember i told you if you didnt own your own horses and youre wearing high heeled boots not plez tonight walk in. They immediately took them away and put them on foot. We actually own this. This is the only time in u. S. History where cowboys wentz on strike. Because they love riding around on a horse and all that fresh air for a doctllar a day. So they asked for a raise in wages. They all got fired because by this time virtually every cattle ranch in north america was owned by british capitalists. Nearly every single one and they didnt see any difference between a hired man and a man who worked in a shoe factory in london. They didnt care. They fired him had. Most of them became black listed and never worked as cowboys again. At about this time rail lines are open. And i think this is a very telling statistic on this next slides. 1887 is when the rail lines hit amarillo from here. Within a year a half million head of cattle and in two years 1 million animals from where im from. Youre a cow town. Be a cow town. Be a baseball town. But thats okay. But be a cow town. Thats the key. And so the trail driving changed. Cowboys would get on the train after the cattle are loaded in special cattle cars, either ride in the cubooss or special bump cars to take of the animals all it way to kansas city and they were responsible for somebody elses animals. Thats the key to understanding this. That sense of responsibility that is largely lost today. So they didnt come can to town to shoot things up because the whiskey wasnt available till they got here and theyre probably eating peaches. Their foreman or wagon becauses wouldnt let them have guns. But occasion tale did happen. Because the average age was 15 to 25 years old. Theyre just kids. They were little. Im 64. So im a lot taller than most cowboys. Im about the same height as the average american cowboy just older and fatter. Yulshzy they were small because horses were small. Cow ponies. With all due respect to the American Quarter Horse association, they didnt ride those until the 1950s. And so a bigging cowboy didnt last very long because it out last it horses and the horse is far more important than the cowboy. But if you give liquor and gun to a kid, what do you think is going to happen . Most towns ordinances against carrying firearms in town. Were there women cowboys . Yes, markers got ahold of something they called the cowboy girl and she wore kind of a uniform as you can see, always sporting a gun. A leather skirt. She wore laceup shoes, usually high heels and marketers used this and morphed into recognizing that there were women who did do ranch work, cow work but usually from a side saddle. Yall see that . And it reminds me of what ginger said about fred. I dids everything he did but backwards and in high heels. The wouoman was obliged to ride sideways until 1905 and suddenly women are riding astride and pushing cows. Theyre performing in wild west shows and rodeos and women were an absolute central part of rodeo until 1943 when gene oughtry, the singing cowboy himself basically barred women from rodeo competition. After bonny mccarol was killed on a bucking horse and some others were ifjured, he said that wasnt lady like and created the whole rodeo princesses thing. Im just a reporter of that. I didnt do that. Im just telling you. But there are ranch women today. They call them cowboy girls but theyre cow girls today. The kelly sisters. And ill conclude with this. Theres a belief that cowboys dont exist, that cowboys are gone. And remember a man wearing a western at 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 and then i saw one in a wheelchair and one more. And when my friends from southeastern kansas walked in, theyre wearing the correct kind of male head wear. Thats good. I wonder when we stopped wearing hats. I dont mean caps, i mean hats. I digressed. Anyway, do cowboys still exist . On march 6th of this year, which is alamo day in texas, three prairie fires swept across the texas pan handle and out there they go rapidly. They go Different Directions and cowboys life was always about trying to anticipates what comes next and being ready to take action for somebody elses property and three cowboys. This young man, Cody Crockett was a cowboy in the middle of that and his fiance Sidney Wallace was in the middle of that and Sloan Everett was in the middle of that and they road into the prairie fire to rescue 40 mama cows and their calves buzz they could not stand to let them burn to death. Okay. And this quote is really telling about it cowboy philosophy that most of us dont understand is why in the world would you do that for someone elses property . You dont think fwitwice about and thats it underscore of what a true cowboy is. They saved them and all three of those cowboys burned to death, are of them. All three. When they found them the only thing left was their boots and their leather belt. All their clothes and hair had had burned completely off of them. Sidney and cody had had ridden on a horse named junior. Sloan went on a fourwheeler. The only thing left of juniors saddle was a burnt crisp. He came back to the house. So these are true cowboys and they still exist today and the true cowboys in america are buried in unmarked graves all across the american west. Theyre not the famous ones, theyre not the ones that made it to the dime novels or into the movies. Theyre it ones whose names we dont know. Who brought a product that built america because america was built on its stomach and beef cattle were absolutely vite thool building of america including kansas city and amarillo, texas. But its hard for us to understand that. So i leave it to wailen and willy who said it better than anybody. Them that dont know them wont like him and them that do sometimes wont know how to take him. He aint wrong thank you. [ applause ] howd i do on time . Now questions. And if i dont know the answer, ill makeup a real good story. Could you please talk a little bit about why most of the ranches were owned not by american interests but by did you say british interests owned these . Why didnt some big finance ear from it northeast or other parts of america end up owning all of that at the time . Its a great question and we may deal with this in the spring in a separate program. But a book called how to get rich on the plains was published by a u. S. Army officer and the army and probably the federal government were inclusi collusi with the cattle industry. However the book was published in Great Britain and they literally lined up. One of the most famous and biggest ranches in texas was entirely owned by british conglomerate who thought they were going to get rich. Theyicide have visited it first. The frying pan, the turkey track. Some ranches you may have heard of and some were managed from here. The tea anchor was managed from here. The turkey tracks was managed from here. It was an opportunity they thought could make a killing and they didnt. But it was an opportunity that america and its a great question. Why did american entrepreneurs not do it . Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Well, i got to ask you. Whats your favorite western movie and favorite western tv series and why . This may sound like splitting hairs but theres a difference between a western and a cowboy movie. A western isnt necessarily a cowboy movie. My favorite western favorite cowboy movie is john wayne called the cowboy. Literally those little boys remember the opening scene they all show up with big guns and he makes them put them all in the baks in the wagon, right . Thats as accurate as it could be. John wayne was not a cowboy. He was an actor. I have one hat. John wayne might have six hats during the show. Thats important. But the cowboys, the most recent cowboy movie i thing is accurate, open range. Its a great, great story. Unforgiven is not a cowboy show. Its a western. Western tv show . Wow. Current or past . Well, man. Im a junky for that stuff. Gunsmoke of course. It was soabsolutely true. My first horse was named gun smoke as a matter of fact. Yes, maam. You said the average age was 15 to 25. Did they live much longer than that or what did they do after 25 . Most of the time they stopped because it was too hard. And they made no money. They got hurt. And heres the other thing that flies in the face of the great western. Most of them wanted to be farmers. Because with farms come wives and children and then schools and towns. And i believe heres my belief is the open range time, the ranchers who started the big ranches in the ladder part of the 19th century, they knew their window was 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 and so they did. Now, along with her question is some of you probably have ancestors my great grandpa went up the trail about 12 times. Grandpa probably was telling you a lie. Because most of them did once. Or they quit halfway because it was too dangerous. Texas is a ladder of rivers and every time you cross a river and because most cowboys couldnt swim, they were terrified of water. One was drowning. The other was getting hung up in the stirup. Thats why they wore tall heeled boots and they road on the instep. They sunk into the stirrip this way. But if you were unlucky enough to get pitched off your horse, they wont stop and i know a cowboy who was dragged to death and he was in pieces by it time they caught the horse. Im not trying to over dramas it stuff. Im going to grow up to be a cowboy. The wrangler song talks about that. They were just kids. Looking for an adventure, generally. Yes, maam. Yes, sir. I was talking to my friends involved in the history. The dangers of driving a herd up through southwestern whether wr could you talk about that a little bit . What hes talking about is the risks of driving cattle either through southwestern missouri or southeastern kansas in that corner, because of the civil war, the bush whackers and thats where all that stuff was going on. And texans were southerners and thats where the cattle were coming from. A lot of cowboys were 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 didnt want those animals on the hoof coming through there and killing the domesticated cattle. So it was condoned largely. Is that what you meant . Yes, sir. That did happen, you bet. So that did lead to some of them going armed, but generally they were only armed in the frontier counties and so on. But there were dangerous times, yes. Its a great presentation, thank you, very educational. Let me ask you, the term cowboy, at some point, when did it become synonymous to someone who just lived out west as opposed to someone who herded cattle. Because you dont think of using the term, its a term like for anyone who wears boots and hats and they live out west and when did that happen and why . Hes talking about the entomology of the term cowboy, how that word makes it into popular language. There was no cowboy word in the english language. The scotchirish word, cow and boy, there was some herding practices on foot, usually a small boy with a stick. However the spanish word vacarro is cowboy but when did it enter the lexicon for the standin as a word for western people . It starts, you can actually blame pawnee bill. Because he blended two Different Things together, okay . And the next thing you know, they are gunfighters, they are bank robbers, they are crime fighters and superheroes and stuff. So its a blending. And ill take this a little bit further. In recent times, its both popular and a throw away snide Cocktail Party line, hes just a cowboy. Hes just a cowboy. Or cowboy up, which means stepping up in a time when its needed. Heres something you will learn in the cow country if you know this. They will something like, he sure can cowboy. And theres greater complement than that. Or hell make hand. Thats the other. But the blending of people in a western hat, with a cowboy, thats a late 19th century phenomenon, according to my research. Does that help you . 1880s or so, give or take. In the back. Can you tell us how long it took to move the cattle by rail from texas up to kansas city . And when you said that the cowboys ride on the cars and they take care of the cattle, what does that, take care of the cattle entail . The trains werent very fast, 20 miles an hour, give or take, okay . And every couple of days they would get them off and water them and feed them, because theyre cramped into a cattle car. And one of the things that cowboys would do when theyre riding in either the bunk cars or the caboose cars because some of them would get down, and once theyre down, they die. So they have to get them back on their feet. So it was literally just a different kind of trail, its just they were on foot, and they wore in a mechanized vehicle by this time. It would probably take about four days, give or take, from where i live, which is down near amarillo. Its 570 miles. Actually when we installed the exhibition, i found a way to drive the original Santa Fe Railway route as close as i could with a truck. But it took a little while. But i was glad i did it. I really was. Just so youll know, a little side thing, because of Texas Railroad law, santa fe cannot go completely into texas. They had to establish a completely called the Southern Kansas Railway of texas. It was a subsidiary and part of the line, which is in higgins, texas, down to amarillo, that was a separate company. Okay, and the ft. Worth and denver city also shipped cattle through kansas city through fort worth. What kinds or what breeds of horses were used for driving cattle . Was there a certain breed there was preferred over others . Thats a great question. Because almost immediately while people discovered there was this great longhorns that were in texas, but the meat wasnt very good. Almost immediately, durhams and herefords and they brought them down and crossbred them. Moist from kansas city city, theyre not purebred. Theyre not full longhorn, but theyre half and half. But the breeding of the mustangs started almost immediately as well. So there were thoroughbreds brought in, standard breds, all different kinds and they were crossed usually. Because the quality of the mustang, the sure footedness, the ability to go a long way without water. It was something they wanted to maintain likewise with the texas longhorn. Because a hereford cow cant walk across the street without collapsing. But the mustang could run for a forever. But theyre little, tiny. They used to talk about them not much bigger than a dog. They were little. But the problem with a mustang was they were wild, okay . And its in the historical record, that two out of every three mustangs would die after it was captured. They called it a broken heart. And you can do with what whatever you want. They were mostly mustangs. And by the way, ill relate to it horses, the last herd of wild mustangs where i live was captured in 1907, sent on the train to kansas city, to be trained as harness horses and sold here for 7 an animal. And then theyre out of texas. Because what happened wild horses became considered as vermin. There were two things you would do. You would shoot the stallion first and kill it. And you would drive the rest of them off a cliff or shoot them with a winchester. They got pushed off a cliff. So every wild horse today is descended from a texas mustang, every one of them. They came out of mexico, they came from spain, to mexico, up into texas and then spread. Yes, sir . You mentioned the native americans and the treaties. Uhhuh. How did they strike those treaties . Thats an excellent question. And who was doing the striking . Striking . What do you mean striking . The native americans had to communicate with somebody about how to draw up the treaty. And with whom . Okay, i understand your question. Treaties were u. S. Indian policy. And treaties are only struck between sovereign nations, so the u. S. Government recognized that Indian Tribes were sovereign nations, otherwise they wouldnt use treaties, they would just push them out of the way. So ostensibly they are dealing with a foreign nation, right . So they had to use interpreters. And if you used interpreters, language is going fail. There are very few comanches alive today. But all the kiowa, arapaho, apache, if you made a deal with the u. S. Government, you got presence, you may not understand what you just put your mark on. They call it touching the pen. You make a mark on a piece of paper, wheres my stuff. And yes of course i speak for the entire comanche nation, wheres my stuff. I know it sounds trite but thats the truth. Officials would go back to washington, d. C. And say, you know what . We just signed a treaty with the whole comanche nation. I mean they just signed a treaty with one guy. But its really quite sad. But heres the other thing we learn, the violations went both ways. The Medicine Lodge treaty said, we will feed you, we will house you, you move into a corner of oklahoma and well provide all the tools, so guess what . You stop being the greatest warriors of the plains and you get to be farmers and were going to take away your horses and everything about your way of life and you get to live in a log house. What a great deal, right . However they were also assured that there would be no buffalo hunting below the canadian river. Or the arkansas river, actually, initially. They violated that immediately. The indians also said they would stop raiding into texas. They didnt stop either. Go to Medicine Lodge, if you have never been there, its a pretty interesting place. The western painters, which one of the painters get the moist accurate portrayal of cowboys . Wow, thats a tough question. Its a really tough question. Because they were both subject to Popular Culture already. Remington had never been a cowboy, he tried to be, but he was a sheep herder and he worked as a bartender in kansas city for a while. He always wanted to be a cowboy, and he wanted to glorify the cowboy. Russell worked briefly also as a sheepherder and horse wrangler in montana. He was from st. Louis. And i think generally russell is probably closer to being accurate to cow work. I think thats safe to say. In terms over being the best parent, in my opinion, hands down, its remington. Remington is a far better painter. Russell is more interesting. Any other . I would put will james in there, but will james is known for his drawings in particular and hes a little bit later. Thats one. What were the skills that made a good hand . Thats 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 didnt get a job. Go be a store clerk, because you cant help us. You had to be able to manage a horse. There were levels of hands, the least experienced on a trail drive, for example, was usually riding drag, with all the dust and the mud going back in their face, then you graduated to swing and flank and up to the lead. Generally a cowboy crew averaged up to 1200 cowboys. The average trail herd was 1,500 to 2,500 animals, average trail drive was about three months. So to be a good hand, you had to have proficiency with a rope, you had to be able to ride green horses and in the morningthe question about horses is really good. And the question about hands is really good. Because theres this idea that the cowboys best friend was his horse and they loved each other and all that stuff. A horse will bite you if he wants to. He dont like you. You may think he likes you, but he doesnt want you on his back, especially if it was cold and in the morning. So in the morning, it was a rodeo, all the time. Every morning it was a rodeo. So you had to be able to stay on a pitching horse. And there were stories where you would be riding along, singing to the cows, and the next thing you know, that animal has exploded for no apparent reason and youre on the ground wondering what the heck just happened. The ability to stay in the saddle, that was great. You had to be able to rope. You had to think quickly, you had to be responsible, and you had to be committed. And a lot of men couldnt do it. They just couldnt do it. For all those reasons, its dangerous, dirty and all that. Low wages. Does that answer your question . Yes, sir. Yes, maam. You said that there were many people that died along the trail. Yes, maam. And there are unmarked graves. Thats right. Ock okay, so when they went back home, how did they tell the families that their 15yearold to 25 was not they usually collected their belongings if they got them. If they drowned they usually didnt get the body. They usually collected the belongings they had. And a cowboy usually carried something called his war bag, which were his personal possessions and they would gather those up along with their wages and take them to the family. That happened a lot. Most cowboys were illiterate, they couldnt read or write. So women started to showing up on the ranches, the woman becomes their mama, their girlfriend, their sweetheart, their nurse, oftentimes their stenographer, write a letter home to my mom and tell her im still alive. We take it for granted today, we have instant messaging, right . You send a message to someone and you have a heart attack when they dont respond in seven seconds. [ laughter ] you go years being away from home and cowboys were so starved for word you read until your letter fell apart and you were obliged to read it out loud because not everybody got a letter. They read it over and over again. Cowboy life was largely boring, it really was. You have been great audience and asked great questions. Go see the exhibition and thanks for coming. [ applause ] youre watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter cspan history for information on our schedule and to keep wake up the latest history news. Friday night, American History tv is in primetime with cspan cities tour focusing on religion. First, well take you to the Oldest Baptist Church congregation in the United States founded by Roger Williams in providence, rhode island. The tour also includes a visit to a nativeamerican Cultural Center in alabama, and a christian sect in albany, new york, which promotes come munnal living and the equality of the sexes. Thats American History tv in primetime, friday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. This weekend on American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on lectures in history, American University professor aaron bell talks about privacy laws and federal surveillance of city rights leaders. Hires William Sullivan shortly after the walk on washington and Martin Luther king jr. s i have a dream teach. We must mark him as the most dangerous negro in the standpoint of reflect on Lessons Learned and ignores during the war. We learned the limits of military power during the vietnam war. We learned that as a society, a culture, that you cant kill an idea with a bullet. American history tv this weekend, only on cspan3. Our cspan cities tour takes American History tv on the road to feature the history of cities across america. Heres a recent program. The lewis and clark