Western Icons

NewMexiKen was looking on the shelf for something else just now and Larry McMurtry’s Oh What a Slaughter caught my eye. I didn’t particularly like this book when I read it — too sketchy and slapped together I thought — but I did find this interesting:

The movies, by their nature, favor only a few stars, and only a few national heroes. Of the thousands of interesting characters who played a part in winning the West, only a bare handful have any real currency with the American public now. Iconographically, even Lewis and Clark haven’t really survived, though Sacagawea has. With the possible exception of Kit Carson, none of the mountain men mean anything today. Kit Carson’s name vaguely suggests the Old West to many people, but not one in a million of them will have any distinct idea as to what Kit did.

The roster of still-recognizable Westerners probably boils down to Custer, Buffalo Bill Cody, Billy the Kid, and perhaps Wild Bill Hickok. …

Skimpy as the image bank is for white Westerners, it is even skimpier for Indians. My guess would be that only Sacagawea, Sitting Bull, and Geronimo still ring any bells with the general public. Crazy Horse, who never allowed his image to be captured, is still important to Indians as a symbol of successful resistance, but less so to whites. Even a chief such as Red Cloud, so renowned in his day that he went to New York and made a speech at Cooper Union, is now only known to historians, history buffs, and a few Nebraskans.

At the broadest level, only the white stars Custer, Cody, and Billy the Kid, and two tough Indians, Sitting Bull and Geronimo, are the people the public thinks about when it thinks about the Old West.

NewMexiKen would add Wyatt Earp, but otherwise thinks McMurtry is correct. Anyone feel differently?

One thought on “Western Icons”

  1. Since I grew up in the West, I guess I have a more complete education about the people who lived here in the past than most folks do. I thought there were a lot more people who were aware than McMurtry suggests, but then I remember that many people who are products of mainstream education can’t even find Mexico on the map. Upon further consideration, I realize that very little of what I do know about the Wild West was learned in school. Sad, really, that we aren’t taught our combined heritage.

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