The American West has a certain wild image of adventure filled with cowboys, Indians, wild animals, outlaws, and stagecoach ambushes. The real American West of the 19th century was not nearly as glamorous as often depicted. Cowboys, Native American Indians, army scouts, outlaws and wild animals did truly exist in the West. Gunfights, savage battles, stagecoach attacks, and train holdups, however were not an everyday ordeal. The dramatic myth of the Wild West as we see it today is really a “puffed-up exaggeration” (Zadra 23) of the real western frontier. The shaping of this myth of western life was aided into creation by paintings, sculptures, dime-novels, pulp magazines, live performances, film, and television. More than anyone or anything else, William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, can be credited with helping to create and preserve a lasting legend of the West. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show took the reality of western life and glamorized it into an appealing show for Eastern audiences and helped to permanently preserve the legend of the Wild West.Episode guide -
- The Real West - Ten Most Wanted Outlaws
- The Real West - The James Gang
- The Real West - The Law From Behind The Tin Star
- The Real West - Wild Bill Hickok
- The Real West - Legendary Cowboys