Sensitivities in mind, hoover officialhe take a semi tour latin america after the election. Coolidge agreed. Earlyovember 19 1928 to january 1929, hoover not only stayed out of washington. Better still, he stayed out of the country. Fulfilling an29, ambition that had touched his soul for a decade or longer, Herbert Hoover became president of the United States. He had done so without ever elective public office. For an hour and a half, he and Calvin Coolidge stood, sat and walked sidebyside without saying a word to each other. In his inaugural address, hoover paid tribute to his right predecessor. Is when the ceremony was over, they said goodbye, and the expresident went home to new england. Announcer 2 you can watch this and other American History programs on our website where the video is archived. That is cspan. Org history. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Buffalo Bills death at the buffalo and the Buffalo BillsCenter Hosted a symposium. Western historian paul hutton delivered the keynote address. He described how william cody, best known as buffalo bill became a symbol of the frontier , and the american perception of western culture. This is just over an hour. Welcome, everyone, to the final event of what has been a terrific three days. You know when you start to plan these things, and you think we will have this person and that person and do all this stuff. There was this moment when we started to put the program on the paper and went we have 36 , different speakers on this thing. And it became exceeded our , expectations certainly. And so thank you to everyone for all of their thank you to all of their terrific presentations. Thanks very much. [applause] and this wont be the last you will have heard from the gathered scholars. We are going to compile an edit and edit a new volume in our william f. Cody series of the American West with the university of oklahoma press. All of the presenters are invited, as they know, to submit their work for consideration for this volume. Then all of the rest of you are invited to purchase and read that volume when it comes out. [laughter] so stay tuned. Its a great pleasure to introduce tonights keynote speaker. Paul Andrew Hutton is an american cultural historian. He is an awardwinning author. He is a documentary writer and television personality. He serves as a distinguished professor of history at the university of new mexico. As we all know, he is published quite widely in both scholarly academic venues and popular magazines. And he has reached a very large audience through that kind of work. His work has been recognized far and wide. He is a sixtime winner of the western writers of america spur award and a sixtime winner of the western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and western Heritage Museum for his work in both print and film. Mentioned book jeremy the other day Phil Sheridan and , his army, that received the prize from the organization of american historians, the evans biography award, and a spur award. He is also the editor of several books that we all have on our shelves western heritage, round region thetier and , custer reader and soldiers west, as well as a 10volume eyewitness to the civil war series he did for bantam in the 1990s. He started in many ways reaching on shaping western historical scholarship when he was an associate editor at the western historical quarterly and then editor of the new Mexico Historical review. Now he has written several short films, dozens, of television documentaries, and he has appeared upon, if this is to be believed, over 300 Television Programs on major networks, public television, and Cable Networks as well. You may have known or seen the work that he did behind the scenes as a historical consultant on ron howards film the missing. Favreausrked on jon cowboys and aliens and recently on Gavin Oconnors jane got a gun. He has been very active as a public historian, making an imprint on programming at museums by guest curating exhibits on everything from the alamo, the custer legend, Davey Crockett, and billy the kid. His latest book, the apache wars, was published by crown, in may 2016, and it was recognized with a 2017 american writers spur award for best nonfiction. Coming up through western history, my academic career came up during the time that we just saw reflected in the various toasts that we had. The heady era of the new western history, old western history range wars. [laughter] and, you know, paul hutton served as the executive director of the western History Association from 1990 to 2006. So, you know, when we think of davy crockett, you know we have , a popular image in our minds of fess parker. When we think of the lone ranger, it is going to be clayton moore. When you think of james bond, it has got to be sean connery. Right . And when you think of the western historian, you think of paul hutton. So it is my great pleasure to introduce paul to speak to us tonight. [applause] paul hutton i know it is just so common to think of me and sean connery in the same way. [laughter] paul hutton certainly my wife does. [laughter] paul hutton not. [laughter] paul hutton i want to thank the Buffalo Bill Center of the west. I want to thank jeremy and his excellent staff. This really has been a marvelous three days. The only thing ive really learned as i have aged is how little i know. And being around all these bright, Young Scholars this week has certainly shown me just really how little i know about something i thought i knew everything about. It is just wonderful, new work and exciting new work. As a historian, one of the things that makes you get up in the morning and after hearing that introduction, all this stuff i have done, i understand why i am so tired, and it is so hard to get up in the morning. [laughter] paul hutton but i certainly appreciate so much, all that they are doing to bring about new insight, but also to discover new material. I mean, we were shown all kinds of new material about buffalo bill and his show this week that is just absolutely astonishing to me. Thank you all for educating me this week. I dont know if i am going to educate you very much tonight. This room is full of course of experts on william f. Cody. The story i am going to tell is a familiar one, but i sort of thought that thematically i might be able to pull together here as the last speaker some of the themes that we have been talking about this week and put buffalo bill in perspective. Let me start by doing that by telling you a personal story because we have been getting some of those this week as well. Of course you know we are here because it is the centennial of Buffalo Bills death, william f. Codys death. That was in 1917, which was the year of my mothers birth. Then in 1968, 51 years later, i first visited this wonderful institution in company with two of my high school chums, Steve Horowitz and don fork. We had just graduated from Short Ridge High School in indianapolis, and we had dons volkswagen bus, and we had simon and garfunkels america ringing in our ears, and we went out in search of america. Im still looking. [laughter] paul hutton well, the boys were anxious to get to the climax of our trip, the final destination, the really golden dream at the end of the western rainbow for all young men, las vegas, nevada. [laughter] paul hutton but i would not and not ba be a party to the trip unless we visited first the black hills. Then the little big horn battlefield, and then here, to cody, wyoming, to this museum, and they reluctantly agreed to to that. And they were perhaps not as delighted as i was by this institution in 1968, but they pretended to be charmed. It has now been 49 years since i made that journey. 51 years from the time of Buffalo Bills death until i made the journey, 49 years now since i did that. And my point to you is just how short our history as a nation is and how an institution like this and what we are trying to convey is in fact a connection point, something that connects us to americas living past. It is alive. It dictates so much of our actions today. Whats the old joke, if youre people who dont know the past are have to repeat it, and of course, the curse of historians is they do know the past and they have to watch the country repeat it over and over. And if you live long enough you get to see it being repeated again. Its like if you watch i used to watch days of our lives and you watch it too many times they repeat the same plots over. New people, same story. William f. Cody was a man seemingly trapped in a distant past. Yet he was one who cared desperately about an onrushing future for himself, for his family, his business and of course, his nation. He was progressive in his politics. He favored votes for women long before that liberal icon Woodrow Wilson finally got around to supporting it. And he was, for his time and place, you must always keep that in mind, he was for his time and place incredibly enlightened on questions of race and equality. He had lived the american dream. He had risen from abject poverty to incredible wealth. He had been fawned over by kings and queens, president s and captains of industry, and at the time of his death, he was the living symbol of what it meant to be an american. President Theodore Roosevelt described him thusly. An american of americans, he embodied those traits of courage, strength and selfreliant hardihood which are vital to the wellbeing of our nation. He was like the nation he came to symbolize, though, a bundle of contradictions. Paradoxes is the word used. Contradictions works as well. He was a hunter who became a conservationist. He was a friend to the indian who was famous as an indian fighter. He was a rugged frontier scout best remembered as a sequined showman who could have stepped off the stage with liberace. Or elvis in vegas. A living artifact from a pioneer past playing out his role in a world of telephones, motion pictures, automobiles, airplanes, skyscrapers, and finally at the very end world wars. Codys life 1846 to 1917 spanned a period of astonishing change. And he participated in much of that change. His father was a martyr in the fight to keep slavery out of kansas. And as a teenager, he fought in the civil war. He rode for the pony express. [laughter] paul hutton hunted buffalo for the railroad, where he earned his nickname. Scouted for the army. Won the congressional medal of honor in a fight with the sioux. Took the socalled first scout for custer. And a celebrated duel at war bonnet hat as it was originally known, creek in 1876. And took a final curtain call in his western adventures at the time of the terrible tragedy at wounded knee. That fight at war bonnet creek in which there was only one casualty, that fight is the defining episode of his life. And i want to talk about it for it was in many ways a moment an incredible moment simply frozen in time. Where western reality and the frontier myth, the topics that im going to talk about tonight, came together. But first, a little context. To set the stage of how we got to war bonnet creek, one of my favorite movies is fort apache, in which the custer legend of western legend is proven to be entirely false. And yet it is covered up and protected by Army Officers and the line the final line in that film which is so powerful is correct, in every detail, about a famous painting of custers last stand. Let me just say that this painting, too, is correct, in every detail. [laughter] paul hutton nothing is correct in that painting. Many serious scholars who spent a considerable part of their lives debating points such as this have placed the birth of the western at 1823 with the publication of james coopers novel the pioneers. Now, some grumbled that the more enduring and clearly superior last of the mohicans in 1826 deserves that spot of honor. The point is well taken but then others argued that the tales of captain jon smith and pocahontas, colonial indian captivity narratives, john fillsens marvelous little chapter on the adventure of daniel boone written in 1784 are the true origin point for the western story. Which is ultimately the story of america. Now, there are those who give all credit to that talented harvard dude who came right out here to where we are, owen worcester, and he captured the imagination of the world with his 1902 novel the virginian. It was worcester who turned the american cowboy and in fact an epithet. And it is still used that way sometimes. Cowboy foreign policy, cowboy diplomacy, and when you said cowboy you meant a wild, rowdy, uncontrolled element in your society. Well, suddenly he makes the cowboy into an american centaur. Im looking at you, professor warren. An american centaur. Hes always so riveted by my comments. [laughter] paul hutton like the kid in class who pretends, you know, that youre his favorite professor and of course hes always on his phone facebooking in your class. Anyway, i took professor warrens phone away from him before we began. [laughter] paul hutton it was worcester who turned the american cowboy into a national symbol. Albeit with considerable help from, of course, our hero william f. Cody from Frederick Remington from Charlie Russell and of course from the cowboy president himself, the real cowboy president , Theodore Roosevelt. All cowboy president s go to harvard. [laughter] paul hutton well, this debate helped found expression among my class of people in the endless and sometimes tiresome argument over Frederick Jackson turners 1893 frontier thesis. Now, turner saw the American National character and thus american exceptionalism as an outgrowth of the frontier experience. His critics, and there have been many, like the premier of star wars and line them up around the block and his argument the frontier is but one of many forces that shaped our nation. And of course you cant argue with that. The argument, though, is one between process and place. With the strongest modern interpreters, sometimes referred to by people like me as the rebel, led by professor Patricia Nelson limerick of the university of colorado, professor warren is just a fellow traveler with her. [laughter] paul hutton and when you go to yellowstone and you see those packs. Shes the leader. Leader. Well, this is exactly the same debate in historical circles that you have between cooper and owen worcester. Where does the story begin . Well, it doesnt matter where the story begins, i would argue. Its just rich and varied literary history, thats rich and varied historiography thats central to our understanding of ourselves and were always looking for that. You start when youre a kid and you are always looking for your identity and of course many of us never get there. But nations do that, too. And were looking for our identity. And we hope were not like some of the other nations that were familiar with. We want to be so special. And its always been this way. In the 1820s americans were in search of identity that might unite them as a people. Who were we . 13 colonies, what the hell is that . How do we get together and how do we become one out of many . North and south accomplished that by looking to the west. Frontier america suddenly became respectable in literary circles with the success of coopers leather stocking tales, the hunters of kentucky celebrating the prowess of kentucky and tennessee militiamen over the english at the 1815 battle of new orleans, apologies to our english brands. Friends. But we elect president s because they shoot english people. [laughter] paul hutton im a historian. I can only speak the truth. I love the british. I tell my students that theres a beautiful thing about the british. Is that they unite all peoples everywhere around the world. India. Africa. Russia, germany, france. The United States. Weve all shot at them. Because theyre always in somebody elses neighborhood. Telling folks how to behave. And then they get themselves in trouble and they get all shot up and then they build beautiful statues in london which we all pay a lot of money to go visit. It was a very clever technique. [laughter] paul hutton nevertheless, that song the hunters of kentucky helped to sweep Andrew Jackson into the white house. And border dramas as they were called in those days, stories such as nick the woods and the lion of the west which was a play based on the life of Davey Crockett. It became all the rage on eastern and european stages in the 1830s and 1840s. And the rise of jackson, other western political figures , including the legendary crockett himself, symbolized a political and cultural shift in this country from the east to the west. Which i always cheer for. No offense to our eastern friends. But since weve already done in the british, why not just continue . Timothy flinch, bestselling biography of daniel boone, the martyrdom of Davey Crockett at the alamo, the celebrated adventures of kit carson and john fremont and the romance surrounding the great migration to oregon, which was immortalized by one of americas first great historians who was of course a western historian, frances parkman, harvard. [laughter] paul hutton and by the way, professor limerick and professor warren, that is harvard, not yale. But i went to Indiana University so what the hell do i know . Thank you all very much. Good basketball. Well, anyway, they all served to change the frontiersmen once sustained by the guardians of American Culture as a dangerous symbol of low breeding and anarchy into the very ideation of the evolving