Western Legacies Series – serie

The remarkable photographs in Peoples of the Plateau capture the lives of Pacific Northwest Indians at the turn of the twentieth century - and at a turning point in their own history.The Columbia River Plateau, in the interior Pacific Northwest, was populated for centuries by the Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Cayuse Indians. By the late nineteenth century, after the U.S. government had confined these peoples to a single reservation, their lives began to change irrevocably. Major Lee Moorhouse, a businessman and former militia officer, served as an Indian agent during this period. Believing that the Indians he encountered were a ""dying race,"" Moorhouse was driven to collect their artifacts and, for posterity, take their photographs.Although he was not a professional photographer, Moorhouse produced more than 9,000 glass-plate negatives, one-third with Indians as his subjects. Although his works to some degree reflect a stereotypical view, they are an invaluable aid for tribal researchers and historians because they identify their subjects by name.This book marks the first major examination of Moorhouse and his work. Featuring eighty exquisite plates, it not only showcases Moorhouse's extensive photographs but also tells the story of the man - about whom little is known - and of the world in which he lived and worked.

The enduring fascination of the American West marks this collection of essays by distinguished historians, investigative reporters, a novelist, and a celebrated screenwriter. All of these articles have won Wrangler Awards - the western equivalent of the Oscars - presented annually by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.Exciting storytelling, a hallmark of western writing, shapes every selection. C. L. Sonnichsen's 1986 revisionist account of Geronimo's life foreshadows the work of younger historians who continue to deepen our understanding of American Indian history. Jeffrey Pearson's story of the death of Crazy Horse and Greg Michno's novelistic rendering of the Lakota view of the Battle of the Little Bighorn represent history as practiced by scholars who are also powerful writers.Journalist-screenwriter William Broyles's narrative of the King family and ranch is a Texas saga as captivating as anything by Larry McMurtry. The renowned novelist Oakley Hall writes with a historian's precision about Wyoming, setting for The Virginian and site of the Teapot Dome scandal and the Johnson County range war. Focusing on Charles M. Russell, Raphael Cristy establishes the western artist's importance as a writer who overturned stereotypes about American Indians.Environmental studies are showcased in Dan Flores's essays on the demise of the great buffalo herds and the history of the horse trade. And no overview of the West would be complete without military and law enforcement history, amply represented by Robert M. Utley's work on the Texas Rangers, Paul Hutton's panoramic recounting of the Alamo, and Sally Denton's new look at the controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre, incorporating the latest forensic evidence. In what serves as a fitting coda to the violent yet inspiring history of the American West, Hutton offers a stirring account of Teddy Roosevelt's leadership at the Battle of San Juan Hill.This is a collection as pleasurable to read as it is rich with great and significant stories about one of the most enduring national epochs - the history of the great American West.

The history of American firearms is inseparable from the history of the United States, for firearms have played crucial roles in the nation's founding, westward expansion, and industrial, economic, and cultural development. This history unfolds in compelling words and images in A Legacy in Arms, a volume that draws upon the collections of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City to trace the business and art of gun making from the early national period to the turn of the twentieth century. With more than 200 images - almost all in full color - A Legacy in Arms not only documents the inspiration and innovation of arms makers from individual artisans to mass producers, but also describes the development of decorative expression in the gun maker's art.In an account both entertaining and enlightening, Richard C. Rattenbury details the development of commercial arms making, from the genesis of the Kentucky rifle to the arms of such iconic manufacturers as Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, Sharps, Marlin, and Winchester. Into this narrative he weaves the particulars of design evolution and the impact of mass production via the ""American System."" The accompanying photographs and illustrations stand as eloquent testimony to the range and richness of the gun maker's craft - and its rightful place in the story of American industry and culture.

In this earliest known day-by-day journal of a cattle drive from Texas to Kansas, Jack Bailey, a North Texas farmer, describes what it was like to live and work as a cowboy in the southern plains just after the Civil War. We follow Bailey as the drive moves northward into Kansas and then as his party returns to Texas through eastern Kansas, southwestern Missouri, northwestern Arkansas, and Indian Territory.For readers steeped in romantic cowboy legend, the journal contains surprises. Bailey's time on the trail was hardly lonely. We travel with him as he encounters Indians, U.S. soldiers, Mexicans, freed slaves, and cowboys working other drives. He and other crew members - including women - battle hunger, thirst, illness, discomfort, and pain. Cowboys quarrel and play practical jokes on each other and, at night, sing songs around the campfire.David Dary's thorough introduction and footnotes place the journal in historical context.