Download or read book Gunfighters Highwaymen and Vigilantes written by Roger D. McGrath and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1987-03-23 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Preface:On the frontier, says conventional wisdom, a structured society did not exist and social control was largely absent; law enforcement and the criminal justice system had limited, if any, influence; and danger--both from man and from the elements--was ever present. This view of the frontier is projected by motion pictures, television, popular literature, and most scholarly histories. But was the frontier really all that violent? What was the nature of the violence that did occur? Were frontier towns more violent that cities in the East? Has America inherited a violent way of life from the frontier? Was the frontier more violent than the United States is today? This book attempts to answer these questions and others about violence and lawlessness on the frontier and do so in a new way. Whereas most authors have drawn their conclusions about frontier violence from the exploits of a few notorious badmen and outlaws and from some of the more famous incidents and conflicts, I have chosen to focus on two towns that I think were typical of the frontier--the mining frontier specifically--and to investigate all forms of violence and lawlessness that occurred in and around those towns.
Download or read book Gunfighters Highwaymen and Vigilantes written by Roger D. McGrath and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Preface:On the frontier, says conventional wisdom, a structured society did not exist and social control was largely absent; law enforcement and the criminal justice system had limited, if any, influence; and danger--both from man and from the elements--was ever present. This view of the frontier is projected by motion pictures, television, popular literature, and most scholarly histories. But was the frontier really all that violent? What was the nature of the violence that did occur? Were frontier towns more violent that cities in the East? Has America inherited a violent way of life from the frontier? Was the frontier more violent than the United States is today? This book attempts to answer these questions and others about violence and lawlessness on the frontier and do so in a new way. Whereas most authors have drawn their conclusions about frontier violence from the exploits of a few notorious badmen and outlaws and from some of the more famous incidents and conflicts, I have chosen to focus on two towns that I think were typical of the frontier--the mining frontier specifically--and to investigate all forms of violence and lawlessness that occurred in and around those towns.
Download or read book Gunfighters Highwaymen Vigilantes written by Roger McGrath and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hell s Half Acre written by Richard F. Selcer and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas is a place where legends are made, die, and are revived. Fort Worth, Texas, claims its own legend – Hell’s Half Acre – a wild ’n woolly accumulation of bordellos, cribs, dance houses, saloons, and gambling parlors. Tenderloin districts were a fact of life in every major town in the American West, but Hell’s Half Acre – its myth and its reality – can be said to be a microcosm of them all. The most famous and infamous westerners visited the Acre: Timothy (“Longhair Jim”) Courtright, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Sam Bass, Mary Porter, Etta Place, along with Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch, and many more. For civic leaders and reformers, the Acre presented a dilemma – the very establishments they sought to close down or regulate were major contributors to the local economy. Controversial in its heyday and receiving new attention by such movies as Lonesome Dove, Hell’s Half Acre remains the subject of debate among historians and researchers today. Richard Selcer successfully separates fact from fiction, myth from reality, in this vibrant study of the men and women of Cowtown’s notorious Acre.
Download or read book Vigilantes written by Kevin Grant and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-01-03 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many people, the cinematic vigilante has been shaped by Charles Bronson's character in Death Wish and its sequels. But screen vigilantes have taken many guises, from Old West lynch mobs and rogue police officers to rape-avengers and military-trained equalizers. This book recounts the varied representations of such characters in films like The Birth of a Nation, which celebrated the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, and Taxi Driver, Falling Down and You Were Never Really Here, in which the vigilante impulse was symptomatic of mental instability. Also considered is the extent to which fictional vigilantism functions as social commentary and to what degree it is simply stoking popular fears.
Download or read book Nevada Gunsmoke written by Elmer D. McInnes and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-01-27 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1860 to 1900, many towns in Nevada sprang up to serve the mining camps in the area. These towns provided the breeding ground for a unique character known as "the mining camp gunman." This book delves into the violent and gritty lives of various Nevada characters, including gunfighting miner Dick Prentice, lawman and politico Leslie Blackburn, peace officer William McKee, ruthless killer Hank Parrish, outlaw escape artist John Burke and other characters.
Download or read book Age of the Gunfighter written by Joseph G. Rosa and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joseph G. Rosa's vivid and expertly written tale of this violent time combines contemporary accounts with meticulous historical research and an unjaundiced appraisal of the facts. Telling the story of every major gunfighter, peace officer, and outlaw of the West, Rosa places them within the context of a violent frontier and the coming of law and order. Complementing the text are twenty-seven outstanding color spreads featuring firearms from the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum (Los Angeles) and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody). Many of the spreads contain guns owned and used by such well-known individuals as Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, John Wesley Hardin, Frank James, and Harvey Logan.
Download or read book Taming the Elephant written by John F. Burns and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-04-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The final of four volumes in the 'California History Sesquicentennial Series', this text compiles original essays which treat the consequential role of post-Gold Rush California government, politics and law in the building of a dynamic state with lasting impact to the present day.
Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Lawmen Outlaws and Gunfighters written by Leon Claire Metz and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2002 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standoffs, saloons, and sunsets spring to mind when one envisions the rough and tumble early days of the American frontier.
Download or read book Fire and Sword written by Leland H. Gentry and published by Greg Kofford Books. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Mormon dreams flourished in Missouri. So did many Mormon nightmares. The Missouri period--especially from the summer of 1838 when Joseph took over vigorous, personal direction of this new Zion until the spring of 1839 when he escaped after five months of imprisonment--represents a moment of intense crisis in Mormon history. Representing the greatest extremes of devotion and violence, commitment and intolerance, physical suffering and terror--mobbings, battles, massacres, and political “knockdowns”--it shadowed the Mormon psyche for a century. Leland Gentry was the first to step beyond this disturbing period as a one-sided symbol of religious persecution and move toward understanding it with careful documentation and evenhanded analysis. In Fire and Sword, Todd Compton collaborates with Gentry to update this foundational work with four decades of new scholarship, more insightful critical theory, and the wealth of resources that have become electronically available in the last few years. Compton gives full credit to Leland Gentry's extraordinary achievement, particularly in documenting the existence of Danites and in attempting to tell the Missourians’ side of the story; but he also goes far beyond it, gracefully drawing into the dialogue signal interpretations written since Gentry and introducing the raw urgency of personal writings, eyewitness journalists, and bemused politicians seesawing between human compassion and partisan harshness. In the lush Missouri landscape of the Mormon imagination where Adam and Eve had walked out of the garden and where Adam would return to preside over his posterity, the towering religious creativity of Joseph Smith and clash of religious stereotypes created a swift and traumatic frontier drama that changed the Church.
Download or read book Violence in the West written by Marilynn S. Johnson and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2014-06-05 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Generations of Americans have developed an image of violence in the “Wild West” through books and films. But what conditions really resulted in violence on the American frontier between the 1880s and 1910s? How frequently did violence occur, and what forms did it take? Johnson explores these questions through the lens of the mining and range wars that plagued the region during this period. The author opens with an introductory essay that situates violence within social, political, and economic circumstances of the time, considering smaller cases of interpersonal violence and larger conflicts. Documents are then presented to illuminate two case studies of collective violence—the Johnson County range war in northern Wyoming and the 1913–1914 coal strike in southern Colorado resulting in the Ludlow Massacre. The closing epilogue examines the role both incidents played in shaping the collective memory and cultural history of the American West. The book’s format provides readers with both a general understanding of the history of western violence and the context of specific historical cases that allow for more in-depth study and comparison.
Download or read book Wyatt Earp A Vigilante Life written by Andrew C. Isenberg and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of the iconic nineteenth-century law officer separates fact from fiction while exploring Earp's role in creating his own myths, revealing his lesser-known activities as a thief, gambler, and confidence man.
Download or read book Gunfighter Nation written by Richard Slotkin and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2024-01-23 with total page 1024 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award Finalist: The “impressive” conclusion to the “magisterial trilogy on the mythology of violence in American history” (Film Quarterly). “The myth of the Western frontier—which assumes that whites’ conquest of Native Americans and the taming of the wilderness were preordained means to a progressive, civilized society—is embedded in our national psyche. U.S. troops called Vietnam ‘Indian country.’ President John Kennedy invoked ‘New Frontier’ symbolism to seek support for counterinsurgency abroad. In an absorbing, valuable, scholarly study, [the author] traces the pervasiveness of frontier mythology in American consciousness from 1890. . . . Dime novels and detective stories adapted the myth to portray gallant heroes repressing strikers, immigrants and dissidents. Completing a trilogy begun with Regeneration Through Violence and The Fatal Environment, Slotkin unmasks frontier mythmaking in novels and Hollywood movies. The myth’s emphasis on use of force over social solutions has had a destructive impact, he shows.” —Publishers Weekly “Stirring . . . Breaks new ground in its careful explication of the continuing dynamic between politics and myth, myth and popular culture.” —The New York Times “A subtle and wide-ranging examination how America’s fascination with the frontier has affected its culture and politics. . . . Intellectual history at its most stimulating—teeming with insights into American violence, politics, class, and race.” —Kirkus Reviews
Download or read book Western Gunslingers in Fact and on Film written by Buck Rainey and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Belle Starr, Wyatt Earp, the Younger Gang, the Dalton-Doolin Gang and Bat Masterson--these real-life lawmen and lawbreakers have been the basis of so many Hollywood Westerns that it has become difficult to discover where the truth ends and the legend begins. All actually became larger-than-life characters during their lifetimes, as contemporary newspapers and books embellished their deeds for their own purposes. But it was in Hollywood that the line between reality and myth was completely blurred. Each chapter-length entry here first focuses on the known facts of the people's lives and how each became truly legendary during their lifetimes. The reality is then compared to how they have been portrayed in the movies.
Download or read book Crime Justice and Retribution in the American West 1850 1900 written by Jeremy Agnew and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western movies are full of images of swaggering outlaws brought to justice by valiant lawmen shooting them down in daring gunfights before riding off into the sunset. In reality it would not have happened that way. Real lawmen did not simply walk away from a gunfight--they had to face the legal system and justify shooting a civilian in the line of duty. Providing a more realistic view of criminal justice in the Old West, this history focuses on how criminals came into conflict with the law and how the law responded. The process is described in detail, from the common crimes of the day--such as train robbery and cattle theft--to the methods of apprehending criminals to their adjudication and punishment by incarceration, flogging or hanging.
Download or read book Shotguns and Stagecoaches written by John Boessenecker and published by Thomas Dunne Books. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true stories of the Wild West heroes who guarded the iconic Wells Fargo stagecoaches and trains, battling colorful thieves, vicious highwaymen, and robbers armed with explosives. The phrase "riding shotgun" was no teenage game to the men who guarded stagecoaches and trains the Western frontier. Armed with sawed-off, double-barreled shotguns and an occasional revolver, these express messengers guarded valuable cargo through lawless terrain. They were tough, fighting men who risked their lives every time they climbed into the front boot of a Concord coach. Boessenecker introduces soon-to-be iconic personalities like "Chips" Hodgkins, an express rider known for his white mule and his ability to outrace his competitors, and Henry Johnson, the first Wells Fargo detective. Their lives weren't just one shootout after another—their encounters with desperadoes were won just as often with quick wits and memorized-by-heart knowledge of the land. The highway robbers also get their due. It wouldn't be a book about the Wild West without Black Bart, the most infamous stagecoach robber of all time, and Butch Cassidy's gang, America's most legendary train robbers. Through the Gold Rush and the early days of delivery with horses and saddlebags, to the heyday of stagecoaches and huge shipments of gold, and finally the rise of the railroad and the robbers who concocted unheard-of schemes to loot trains, Wells Fargo always had courageous men to protect its treasure. Their unforgettable bravery and ingenuity make this book a thrilling read.
Download or read book Law and Order in Buffalo Bill s Country written by Mark R. Ellis and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrated accounts of lawless towns that relied on the extra-legal justice of armed citizens and hired gunmen are part of the enduring cultural legacy of the American West. This work presents a case study of law and legal culture in Lincoln County, Nebraska, during the nineteenth century. It also examines legal institutions on the Great Plains.
