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Drawing of cowboys riding in the desert, guns drawn, while a herd grazes.

The Hell We Raised: How Texas Shaped the Gunfighter Era

Texans left an enduring mark on the gunfighter era. The frontier was a darker place because of it.
by Bryan Burrough via Texas Monthly on May 5, 2025
John Dudley Sargent standing next to Edith Sargent.
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Something We Were Never Meant to See

Finding a story in the ways Robert Ray Hamilton, John Dudley Sargent, and Edith Sargent weren’t quite forgotten. 
by Maura Jane Farrelly via HNN on July 9, 2024
Reenactment of Old West gun fight

American Gun Culture Ignores How Common Gun Restrictions Were In The Old West

A scholar of gun culture looks at the roots of Americans’ love affair with firearms – and their willingness to accept gun violence as a price of freedom.
by Pierre M. Atlas via The Conversation on June 29, 2022
This photo, taken on the Minnesota frontier, depicts Regina Sorenson and three others "dressed in men's suits." MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Forgotten Trans History of the Wild West

Despite a seeming absence from the historical record, people who did not conform to traditional gender norms were a part of daily life in the Old West.
by Sabrina Imbler via Atlas Obscura on June 21, 2019

The Settler Fantasies Woven Into the Prairie Dresses

The fashion trend is shorn entirely of the racism and colonial entitlement it once cloaked.
by Peggy O'Donnell via Jezebel on January 30, 2019
Members of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Daughters of Union Veterans gather in Colorado in the 1930s.

Veterans Visit an Idealized West

A gathering of Union veterans in 1883 sheds light on the country's vision of the American West—as a space for reconciliation and a prize won by the war.
by Cecily Nelson Zander via The Civil War Monitor on February 3, 2025
4 photographs of Josie Rudolph Thurnauer through the years 1874-1938.

Josie’s Story: From 19th-Century Sitka To Her Escape From The Holocaust

Josie Rudolph’s life, in an era of worldwide migration and colonial ambition, offers a new perspective on the familiar tale of modern Alaska’s birth.
by Tom Kizzia via Anchorage Daily News on October 28, 2024
A political cartoon depicting Brighma Young walking in front of a group of his wives, the majority of whom are depicted as non-white.

The Sovereignty of the Latter-day Saints

Less about morality than about rights, the Mormon War of 1858 hinged on the issue of polygamy, pitting a Utah community against federal authorities.
by Katie McBride Moench via JSTOR Daily on August 28, 2024
A rider from the 9th US Cavalry, one of several segregated units called the Buffalo Soldiers.

Meet The Black Cowboys Who Shaped Colorado History

The gunslingers, innovators, and explorers who carved their destinies from the sprawling promise of the West.
by Corey Buhay via Atlas Obscura on May 29, 2024

Space Isn’t the Final Frontier

Mars fantasists still cling to dreams of the Old West.
by Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith via Foreign Policy on January 21, 2024
A herd of bison.

A Panoramic View of the West

A sweeping new history examines many untold stories of the American West in the late nineteenth century.
by Bradley J. Birzer via Law & Liberty on December 13, 2023
Residents of Icaria, Iowa.

The 19th-Century Novel That Inspired a Communist Utopia on the American Frontier

The Icarians thought they could build a paradise, but their project was marked by failure almost from the start.
by John Last via Smithsonian on November 28, 2023
A man wearing a cowboy outfit shoots at a series of targets in a sand pit

Home on the (Firing) Range: Gunfight Reenactments, “Old West” Competitive Shooting, and the Myth of Authenticity

Reenactments of the frontier west, complete with cowboy shootouts on main streets, reproduce a narrative of history that is widely accepted by millions.
by Jennifer Tucker via The Panorama on November 15, 2023
original

Borderland Stories

What we remember when we remember the Alamo.
by Ed Ayers on November 13, 2023
Small homesteading cabin in the desert.

“Jackrabbiting” Away from Urban Spaces

Seeking rural solitude, urban Southern Californians ventured into the Mojave Desert, armed with pickaxes and dreams but facing harsh landscapes and red tape.
by Julie Haltom via The Metropole on August 29, 2023
Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina.

"If America Doesn't Become America": Outlander and the American Revolution

"Outlander" challenges the myth of American exceptionalism at the root of much U.S. popular culture.
by Michelle Orihel via Age of Revolutions on July 3, 2023
Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

A Child's Primer for Liberty

Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series is the best introduction for a child to virtues indispensable to liberty.
by John O. McGinnis via Law & Liberty on April 20, 2023
Map of Iowa and a drawing of a factory processing corn.

Searching for the Spirit of the Midwest

Was the nineteenth-century Midwest “the most advanced democratic society that the world had seen”?
by Phil Christman via The New Republic on February 22, 2023
An illustration of Puritans in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The Witches of Springfield

Before Salem, this small town succumbed to the witch-hunting fever.
by Katrina Gulliver via Law & Liberty on December 16, 2022
Chuck Norris as Sergeant Cordell Walker in Walker: Texas Ranger.

Walkers and Lone Rangers: How Pop Culture Shaped the Texas Rangers Mythology

Texas’s elite police force has long played the hero in film and television, although the reality is far more complex.
by Sean O'Neal via Texas Monthly on November 16, 2022
Museum diorama replica of miners eating.

How to Eat Like a 19th Century Colorado Gold-Miner

A confluence of cross-cultural foodways fed a series of Colorado’s mining booms, and can still be tasted across the state today.
by Ashawnta Jackson via Atlas Obscura on June 3, 2022
Bass Reeves

The Resurrection of Bass Reeves

Today, the legendary deputy U.S. marshal is widely believed to be the real Lone Ranger. But his true legacy is even greater.
by Christian Wallace via Texas Monthly on June 22, 2021
Picture of the Ingalls family from the TV Series, "Little House on the Prairie."

Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Big Woke Woods

A recent documentary reminds us of her family’s strength and our own weakness.
by Jonathon Van Maren via The American Conservative on February 26, 2021
A Continental Army soldier's shirt and a detail from a painting depicting a soldier wearing such a shirt.

“Natives of the Woods of America”

Hunting shirts, backcountry culture, and “playing Indian” in the American Revolution.
by Marta Olmos via The Junto on July 14, 2020

Was El Monte Really Founded by White Pioneers?

A new book explores the history of the people who have been written out of the L.A. suburb's longtime origin story.
by Steve Chiotakis via KCRW on June 24, 2020

The Real Calamity Jane Was Distressingly Unlike Her Legend

A frontier character's life was crafted to be legendary, but was the real person as incredible?
by Sam Leith via The American Spectator on February 6, 2020

No Man’s Land

In ignoring the messy realities of westward expansion, McCullough’s "The Pioneers" is both incomplete and dull.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on May 10, 2019

On the Range

Excavations at a ranch in the southern High Plains show how generations of people adapted to an iconic Western landscape.
by Eric A. Powell via Archaeology Magazine on April 1, 2019

Pregnant Pioneers

For the frontier women of the 19th century, the experience of childbirth was harrowing, and even just expressing fear was considered a privilege.
by Erin Blakemore, Sylvia D. Hoffert via JSTOR Daily on June 5, 2018

Bearing Arms vs. Hunting Bears

The persistence of a mythic second amendment in contemporary Constitutional culture.
by Saul Cornell via The Panorama on June 4, 2018
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