The Cattle Kings

Lewis Atherton

Description

Cowboys, gunslingers, and superpowered marshals dominate fictionalized accounts of the American West, but they were minor figures in the true history of the region. In The Cattle Kings, Lewis Atherton restores the leading role to the cattlemen—the genuine adventurers who opened the plains, built empires, and brought prosperity, law, and order to the West.

This classic history of the West tells the true stories of rugged cattlemen like Charles Goodnight, Shanghai Pierce, the Lang family, the Marquis de Mores, and Richard King, who were attracted by the challenge of the frontier and the astounding economic opportunities it offered. Self-reliant and progressive, these young individualists revolutionized ranching. The new industry transformed the West, bringing law and order to infamous sin towns like Abilene and Dodge City and leaving an indelible mark on America's national history and character. Atherton dramatically recreates the realities and economics of everyday life on the ranches, including the role of women, attitudes toward education and religion, and the philosophy of the cattle region. Now with an updated foreword by Western historian Timothy Lehman, this new edition of a beloved classic reveals the true heroes of the legendary cattle kingdoms that created the West.

Foreword by Timothy Lehman

1. Change and Continuity

2. Why Be a Cattleman?

3. Code of the WEst

4. Live and Let Live

5. The MOderating Hand of Woman

6. The Cult of the Self-Made Man

7. God's Elect

8. Changing Tides of Fortune

9. Land, Labor, and Capital

10. Poker on Joint-Stock Principles

11. The Vanguard of Change

12. Cattleman and Cowboy: Fact and Fancy

13. The Cattleman's Role in American Culture

Notes

Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Adolph Franz Láng
• Viejo oeste
• Kilotón
• Óxido de carbono (II)
• Cattle baron
• Cowman (profession)
• George H. Littlefield
• Richard King
• George W. Littlefield
• Shanghai Pierce
• Conrad Kohrs
• American Old West
• Western United States
• Dodge City, Kansas
• Murdo MacKenzie
• Range
• History of the Americas
• United States
• NV
• Charles Goodnight
• HI
• Élevage extensif
• Abilene
• Lang
• ID
• UT
• MT
• Dodge City
• Pioneer
• Wichita
• CA
• CO

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253039033
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE CATTLE KINGS

(New Mexico State Tourist Bureau)
THE CATTLE KINGS
by Lewis Atherton
FOREWORD BY TIMOTHY LEHMAN
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
First paperback edition 2019
1961 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the
United States of America
LCCN: 61-13722
ISBN 978-0-253-03901-9 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-03904-0 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20 19
Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword by Timothy Lehman
Introduction
I
Change and Continuity
II
Why Be a Cattleman?
III
Code of the West
IV
Live and Let Live
V
The Moderating Hand of Woman
VI
The Cult of the Self-Made Man
VII
God s Elect
VIII
Changing Tides of Fortune
IX
Land, Labor, and Capital
X
Poker on Joint-Stock Principles
XI
The Vanguard of Change
XII
Cattleman and Cowboy: Fact and Fancy
XIII
The Cattleman s Role in American Culture
Notes
Index
List of Illustrations
The brand of ownership
Cutting out a cow from the roundup herd
Cowboy drinking at a waterhole
The Mill Iron Rawhide
Heating branding irons
Branding a calf on the range
Bringing a calf to the branding fire
Abilene in its glory
Dance house
Spur cowboys celebrating
Granville Stuart
Pierre Wibaux / Mrs. Wibaux
Marquis de Mores and his residence
Montana Club before 1903
Cheyenne Club
Library of Denver Club, 1902
George W. Miller / Mrs. Miller
The White House, 101 Ranch
Interior of an old-time ranch house
A Montana ranch family
Nester family at a New Mexico line camp
Conrad Kohrs / Mrs. Kohrs
Cattle on Conrad Kohrs range, Montana
John H. Slaughter / Mrs. Slaughter
John B. Kendrick / Mrs. Kendrick
John W. Prowers / Mrs. Prowers
Major George W. Littlefield
D. H. Snyder
Captain Richard King
Captain Burton C. Mossman
A. H. (Shanghai) Pierce
John W. Iliff
New Mexico trail outfit
Charles Goodnight and his Colorado ranch
Loading cattle at Wichita, Kansas ,
Eight of the winter s toll, 1886-87
C. M. Russell s Last of the 5,000
Cheyenne, Wyoming, in early 1880 s
Cowboys playing cards on saddle blanket
Mexican John, XIT cook, in Montana
Old-time chuck wagon, about
Texas colt fighting the rope
Bronc buster at Matador Ranch
Roundup outfit on the move
Windmill on a New Mexico ranch
Haying
Cowboy herding cattle to feed on cactus
Manager of Spur Ranch and his wife
Tenderfoot visitors to the JA Ranch
Foreword
I N 1961, much of what was written about western history was mired in the backwaters of a narrow provincialism. It might have been interesting enough to those who lived in the region, but it struggled to make connections with the larger themes of American life. For most historians, Frederick Jackson Turner s once-famous frontier thesis, which claimed that western frontiers had shaped American character, now seemed overstated and outdated. Turner appeared to offer little that could help an industrial, urban, and Cold War nation understand itself better. The frontier appeared as an ephemeral moment in the nation s past, largely irrelevant to the global depressions and wars of the twentieth century. With serious historical writing about the West sinking low and cowboy mythology riding high every week in top-rated television shows such as Gunsmoke and Rawhide , Lewis Atherton wrote a book that challenged conventional ideas about the West and its people. It was noteworthy in its own time and has become a durable classic for ours.
Atherton was concerned about the gap between the romantic view of the West and the realities of western life that he knew from his study of history. In particular, he thought that ranch owners were every bit as interesting and vastly more important than cowboys-those hired hands on horseback, as he called them-in shaping the region. The owners of cattle and capital, the cattle kings of his title, rather than their picturesque employees, determined the contours of western cattle country. The ranching industry, Atherton wrote, was less an extension of some primordial pastoralism than a stunning innovation in the development of industrial capitalism. It owed more to emerging global markets, the expansion of railroads, new technologies in meatpacking plants, and shifting patterns of commerce than it did to the folksiness of its labor force. The outsized entrepreneurs who created the cattle kingdom of the West ought to take their rightful place alongside the other robber barons of the Gilded Age.
These cattle kings were a cosmopolitan and sophisticated lot, representing diverse national origins and an unrivaled entrepreneurial acumen. They dressed like gentlemen, dined with bankers, and helped to build schools and churches. Atherton emphasized the distinction in both dress and manners between these respectable gentlemen and working cowboys. While those colorful characters may have captured the national imagination with their Stetson hats, fancy boots, and leather vests, Atherton noted that these clothes were a costume for show, not the way cowboys dressed for work and certainly not attire of cattle kings. Recent insights of masculinity studies have confirmed Atherton s ideas about the distinction between ranch owners and their employees: cowboys remained perpetual adolescents while cattle men formed the responsible pillars of polite society.
One of the most striking aspects of The Cattle Kings is Atherton s treatment of violence. At a time when gunfights and shootouts had become a staple clich of Hollywood productions, The Cattle Kings described ranchers who refused to carry weapons because they believed that personal violence interfered with good business practices. He noted that some leading ranchers thought carrying a gun would be a provocation to a fight. Many cattle bosses discouraged guns on the trail because they feared the blast of a shot would start a stampede, while many ranchers saw them as cumbersome and dangerous for the regular work of ranch hands. The lawless violence that erupted at times in western history, Atherton suggested, might actually have been encouraged by the lurid fictions of dime novels or the equally sensational stories of the Police Gazette , both common reading materials among western cowhands. The image of armed shootouts as a common way to resolve disputes, Atherton explained, came from outside of the region and imposed a false mythology on westerners who felt compelled to live up to this code of violent retribution. In our time, when cowboy images are routinely used to encourage gun ownership, it is worth remembering that ranchers valued, in Atherton s words, manners more than murder.
Atherton documented many crucial facets of nineteenth-century ranch life. He described the dreadful monotony of trail and ranch work with pay so low it motivated a few cattle workers to strike. He was keen on the connection between cattlemen and banking and was insightful when he analyzed the cattle bonanza of the 1880s and the ruinous bust that followed. He explored the religious and political views of ranchers, with some perceptive thoughts about how it is that the ranching community, the product of innovative and cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, could become politically conservative and socially traditionalist.
In the years since this book was first published, western history has benefited from an outpouring of scholarship that has transformed the field. Cultural and literary historians have explored western mythology, and environmental themes have come to the fore. Gender theory has revealed much about cowboy masculinity, the violence of cattle country has been detailed and debated, and there s much more. The Cattle Kings anticipates many of these later themes and so makes important reading for anyone pursuing these more recent topics. This book rises to the top of an earlier generation of scholarship because it is a model of historical scholarship and writing at its best: clear-eyed questions, thorough research in the primary documents, and careful conclusions, all done in a vivid, lucid prose that keeps us wanting more. Finally, this book is an example of a historian s courage to write against prevailing fashions, to reject idealized versions of the past and easy but misleading narratives. Atherton insisted on an honest understanding of the cattle kingdom, one based on meticulous research and less influenced by popular culture swirling around him, and for that reason alone this is a book worthy of our attention.
TIM LEHMAN
Introduction
A MERICANS display an avid interest in Western history but few take it seriously. Every schoolboy knows Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and Buffalo Bill; adults watch television shows and motion pictures based on Western themes. Rodeos rival baseball and b