Cowboy history

Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #43 Review by Scott Kirkpatrick Two books I recently acquired, thanks to Amazon's thoughtful automatic suggestions, deal with the fabled lands of the West in entirely different ways. Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the...

Most cowboys didn't wear cowboy hats. Even tumbleweeds didn't appear in America until the late 19th century.

Legends, 1993 © Ron Tarver, Courtesy Robin Rice gallery, New York You may hear it, before you see it. The gentle trotting of hooves backdropped by the sounds of New York City’s JFK Expressway. Even locals do a double take when they cross paths with a member of the Federation of Black Cowboys. Whe

Journal of A Gypsy Cowboy, July 2011

Cowboy on 1/6 plate tintype. Estimated date 1890. Acquired in Northern California.

The man who wrote the script for Lonesome Dove has created a worthy tribute not only to the TV series itself, but to the vast Southwest that inspired it. For many fans of the classic Lonesome Dove miniseries, the room on the seventh floor of the Albert B. Alkek Library at Texas State University in San Marcos seems almost like a shrine. “Some people actually get real weepy when they come in here,” says Bill Wittliff, scriptwriter and coproducer of the 1989 television epic based on the…

Cowboys have certainly gotten their due in movies and pulp fiction over the years, but what about the cowgirl? As early as the 19th century, pioneering women learned their way around a lasso and horse on the American frontier. Holly George-Warren’s…