The American Cowboy: A Photographic History [Hardcover]

Richard Collins (Editor), Bob Edgar (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2002

In his introduction to The American Cowboy, Bob Edgar speaks of a "far-sighted fraternity"-the photographers such as Belden, Huffman, Koerner, Smith, and Kendrick-who recorded images of cattle drives, frontier towns, roundup camps, cowboys on the range, chuck wagons, and horses and cattle. They probably knew that they were recording for posterity both a dramatic and emotive period in history and a changing country, in this case the cattlemen's frontier, which existed from the end of the Civil War to the early part of the twentieth century.
Through the work of a small number of photographers whose pictures have been selected from museums and state historical society collections, The American Cowboy puts together a stirring series of images that capture the movement of life on the range. That this way of life no longer exists lends additional poignancy. Now, as our frontier extends itself into a new millennium with disparate concerns, The American Cowboy offers an evocative message of "a dream and a forgetting, a chapter forever closed."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This collection of more than 100 black-and-white photographs from the American West illustrates the work of cowboys at the turn of the previous century. A brief introductory essay by Bob Edgar, curator of the Museum of the Old West at Old Trail Town in Cody, WY, provides an entertaining, though loosely documented, account of actual cowboys and their experiences with stampedes, harsh weather, and hostile natives. The very solid photo reproductions represent the work of a handful of photographers of the period who specialized in recording cowboy life, including Erwin E. Smith, L.A. Huffman, Charles J. Belden, and F. Jay Haynes. Although no information is given about the editor, his selection of photographs works quite well with the essay. Two major themes covered in this book are the roundup, in which roaming cattle were periodically retrieved according to the brand of the owner, and the trail drive, in which herds of cattle were moved across large stretches of territory. An interesting browse with basic content, this is a marginal purchase for most public libraries.
Eric Linderman, East Cleveland P.L., OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...This is a wonderful book and a must for anyone who collects cowboy photo books."--Cowboy Magazine

"These black-and-white photographs capture the ruggedness of the Westernlifestyle and the men who lived it."--Mountain Living Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (June 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585744913
• ISBN-13: 978-1585744916
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 10.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,320,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful collection of historic cowboy photographs, June 27, 2003

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Cowboy: A Photographic History (Hardcover)

There are 110 pages of vintage photographs in this oversize book, by a half-dozen or so early photographers working with bulky equipment out on the plains during the years of open rangeland. Most of the photographs chosen for this book date from 1885 into the first decades of the 20th century, with a few as recent as the 1930s.

Besides herding, driving, and working cattle and horses, which have become familiar images over the years, the editor has included shots of meal-time and preparation of food at the chuckwagon. Some of these are nights shots, lighted by the campfire.

There are shots of cowboys with fiddles and guitars, one a younger man on a cot in a cabin, the photograph rich with details: the layers of worn blankets on the cot, the cowboy's big white hat, the two shirts he's wearing, the cuffs of his jeans turned up, two pairs of boots (the more beat-up pair shoved against one corner of the cot), a towel hanging against the log wall behind him, and a copy of Liberty magazine lying open on a seat in the foreground.

There are cowboys on horseback performing the remarkable trick of drinking water from their hat brims. (One of these is on the cover.) There are many groups shots of men lined up to face the camera. Two of them from early 1880s Montana show artist and writer Charles Russell. Another shows over 30 men at a cowboy's funeral, hats off, standing around a patch of freshly turned prairie sod, two of them holding shovels.

A group of ten trail cowboys from the XIT ranch sit for a portrait shot, two with revolvers drawn in their laps, each of them dressed very differently. There are two studio portraits of individual cowboys from the 1890s, one of them with long, shoulder-length hair, the other a fresh-faced youth, with silk scarf, woolly chaps, leather gloves with wide cuffs, gunbelt, and a monogrammed shirt with big medallion buttons.

There are a few shots of cowboying in winter, taken in the 1920s and 30s. In one remarkable two-page spread, a cowboy on his horse watches a long, long line of Herefords moving across a landscape totally whited out by snow. Also interesting are shots of early ranch houses and cow camp cabins, one of them against the eroded rocks of the Missouri Breaks.

The opening essay by Bob Edgar, curator of The Museum of the Old West, Cody, Wyoming, gives a general overview of the period, focusing on the cattle drives and talking briefly about the career of one dedicated photographer, Charles Belden. For more of a historical background to go with the photographs, there is Andy Adams' "Log of a Cowboy," "Cowboy Life" by William Savage, Jr., Ramon Adams' book about chuckwagons and the camp cook "Come an' Get It," and Larry McMurtry's novel "Lonesome Dove." For another book of vintage photographs of the Old West, look at "The Early Days in Jackson Hole" by Virginia Huidekoper.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid Photohistory of the American Cowboy, May 15, 2005

By 

Alan Rockman (Upland, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The American Cowboy: A Photographic History (Hardcover)

If you're a Cowboy and Western History enthusist you might be disappointed in how slim Mr. Collins' volume is - it is one of those wonderful books that make the reader wanting more.

Still he captures the essence of the American Cowboy in that brief period between the end of the Civil War and the beginning years of the 20th Century. Using archival photos by Charlie Belden, L.A.Huffman, and others, and coupling it with a splendid but terse essay, Collins adequately captures the life and the spirit of the American Cowboy; the cattle drives, the chuckwagon, the campfires, the loneliness,the ranch life, the joys and sorrows,including the extremely sad photo of a large group of cowboys surrounding the gravesite of a dead pardner. This last photo is even more poignant when one considers that even when that photograph was taken, the time of the individualistic cowboy riding the open range itself was coming to an end.

A beautiful coffee-table book for anyone who loves the history of the cowboys or for those who wanted to know what it was like back then between the opening of the trails and the closing down of the frontier. Mr. Collins' book, coupled with renowned photographer Jay Dusard's works of contemporary images of cowboys, would make an awesome two-pack gift for all who wished they could be a Hoppy, Gene, Roy, or Teddy Blue Abbott and Andy Adams.