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How to compete in a man's world: Kitty LeRoy and the American West

How to compete in a man’s world: Kitty LeRoy and the American West

How do you survive in a world that is uncompromisingly male-biased? A landscape, so convention dictates, where women are born to serve men. Kitty LeRoy, born in 1850 in Michigan, never heard the question and certainly didn’t wait to find out the answer. Born to live Kitty LeRoy This was a woman in a hurry, her ultimate purpose being to enjoy life. And gender wasn’t going to get in the way.…

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#Calamity Jane #Deadwood #Gambling #Hickok #Kitty LeRoy #Mint Gambling Saloon #Wild Bill

Alice Ivers

“I would rather play poker with five or six ‘experts’ than eat.” Somehow it’s hard to see Alice as being happy with a pair of knitting needles “At my age I suppose I should be knitting,” Alice Ivers once said, “but I would rather play poker with five or six ‘experts’ than eat”. Fighting talk from a woman in a man’s world. And Alice knew just how to play that male-dominated game. Not just a pretty…

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#Alice Ivers #Casino #Gambling #Gold Dust Gambling House #Poker

The music of the cowboy

When the American folk vocal group, The Sons of the Pioneers, went into a recording studio in 1937 and belted out “Blue Juniata” they added fresh voice to what is generally credited as being the first ‘Western’ song. As they sang, fiddled, and strummed their guitars, this American folk vocal group also revitalized a specific musical genre, the ‘Western.’ Synonymous with the American West and the…

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#Accordion #Cowboy #Mariachi #Mexicans #Music #Rancheros #Tejano #Vaquero

Cowboy boots

“As a very young man growing up in Texas, usually I got a shotgun or cowboy boots for Christmas,” remarked Robert Wilson. Cowboy boots and guns have been symbols of Texas for at least 200 years. Cowboys wore footwear that reflected their job and the unforgiving environment in which they worked, with vast distances to cover, over terrain that constantly presented challenges. They needed footwear…

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#Charles Hyer #Counter #Cowboy Boots #Leather #Olathe #Vamp

Samuel Morse and the electric telegraph

“Greetings and thanks to the Telegraph fraternity throughout the world. Glory to God in the highest, on Earth Peace, Goodwill to Men.” And with these words Samuel Morse, the man whose name is inextricably linked with the invention of the electric telegraph, signed off his final message to the American people. A battery of carefully hidden telegraph instruments conveyed his message to every town…

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#Alexander Bain #Charles Wheatstone #Oscar Wilde #Samuel Morse #Stock Exchange #Telegraph #Western Union

Good old mules

Gilbert and Sullivan’s template for the ‘very model of a modern major-general’ in the Pirates of Penzance was the British Field Marshall Sir Garnet Wolseley. He published The Soldier’s Pocket-Book of Field Service in 1874, which formed the basis of field service regulations in armies around the world. In this book lies a rather dry-looking table of comparisons that merits closer attention. In it…

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#American Civil War #General George Crook #Hannibal #Horse #Kit Carson #Mule #Sir Garnet Wolseley #Texan-Indian War

The 1851 Navy Colt Revolver

On 16 May 1843, a gun battle raged in the bay outside the port of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico. For three hours a combined force from the Republics of Texas and Yucatan traded fire with the Mexican navy. On the face of it this was an unequal contest. The allied fleet, that included the 600-ton sloop-of-war Austin and a squadron of gunboats, confronted a much larger, more powerful force…

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#Civil War #Doc Holliday #John Wayne #Ned Kelly #Robert E Lee #Samuel Colt #Wild Bill Hickok

The Missouri Mormon war of 1838

On October 29 1838, a militia of 250 men under Colonel Thomas Jennings rode into Caldwell County, Missouri, from the east. Their destination was the Mormon settlement at Haun’s Mill, where the riders knew at least 40 families were encamped. The leaders of the community, quickly realising that their visitors were in no mood for discussion, hastily retreated to the blacksmith’s store. For the next…

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#Amish #Church Of Jesus Christ Of The Latter Day Saints #Crooked River #Haun&039;s Mill #Huguenots #Illinois #Joseph Smith #Lilburn Boggs #Missouri #Mormon #Shakers

Vets and animal welfare in the West

In May 1932, T. Swann Harding published The Metamorphosis of the Horse Doctor. In it he vividly described the life of a veterinary surgeon in rural Virginia before the 1870s. Carrying a bag of rudimentary instruments that included a knife, a needle and a ball of twine, these animal practitioners charged round their parish in a sprung gig carriage, administering to horse, pig or cow as necessary.…

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#Animal Welfare #Burkholderia Mallei #Civil War #Glanders #Lincoln&039;s Homesteading Act #Lyon #Vet #Veterinary School

Sourdough bread

Stories abound about everyday life during the Klondike gold rush in Alaska that began in 1898. This is unsurprising, considering the extraordinarily harsh environment in which men worked. One such tale involves a group of miners who discovered, during a typically bitter winter, the frozen remains of a colleague. Once over the initial shock of this gruesome discovery, the men’s spirits rose when…

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#Boudin #Bread #Sourdough #Wheat

Protecting a cowboy's legs

Protecting a cowboy’s legs

Motorcyclists the world over not only ride powerful machines, they wear clothing that is designed for their mode of transport. No biker would seriously contemplate getting on a bike without a set of black leathers. Easy to put on and take off thanks to side zips, these body length ‘suits’ provide bikers with all-over protection against inclement weather, and the ever-present hazard of coming off…

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#Armitas #Batwings #Chaps #Cowboys #Vaqueros

Blacksmiths in 19th Century America

“Under a spreading chestnut-tree the village smithy stands; the smith, a mighty man is he, with large and sinewy hands……”. These are the opening words of the poem ‘The Village Blacksmith,’ penned by the American poet William Henry Longfellow in 1840. It is both a tribute to his ancestor Stephen Longfellow, blacksmith, schoolteacher and town clerk, and to the craft of smithing. A village…

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#Blacksmith #Civil War #Connestoga #Great Depression #Horseshoes #Studebaker #William Henry Longfellow

Beans and the cowboy in Nineteenth Century America

In 1974 Hollywood released the movie Blazing Saddles, directed by flamboyant maverick Mel Brooks, in which the cowboy took centre stage. It became notorious for its repetitive scenes of cowboys breaking wind. While the viewing public loved this movie and remember it fondly, the professional critics were less impressed and preferred to forget it. Kidney beans are part of the same family as the…

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#Beans #Blazing Saddles #Cowboy #Kidney Bean #Oregon Trail #Phaseolus Vulgaris #Pinto Bean

The Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company

In the autumn of 1879 residents of Boston arriving at the central railway station were greeted by a novel spectacle. A gentleman flamboyantly dressed in tuxedo, high silk hat and clothing that shimmered, was lecturing to an audience seated in front of him. Suddenly the air was shattered by the bloodcurdling whoops of Indian war cries. The next moment their eyes widened further as a troupe of…

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#Bigelow #Doc Flagg #Healy #Kickapoo #Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company #Pure Food And Drug Act

William Henry Jackson, photographic pioneer of the Old West

In August 1870 a small detachment of US cavalry left Camp Carlin, an army supply depot just outside Cheyenne, Wyoming. Following close behind was Ferdinand Hayden, explorer and formerly professor of geology at the University of Pennsylvania. Accompanying him were a motley group of scientists, including a mineralogist, a botanist and a topographical artist. This disparate collection of experts…

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#Grand Teton #Native Americans #Pawnee #Photographer #Photography #W H Jackson #William Henry Jackson #Yellowstone Park

Camels in the Old West

In 1891 two thirsty gold prospectors, Shep Searcy and Charlie Fisher, were drinking from a muddy puddle on the western fringes of Death Valley, California. A sixth sense alerted the pair to the fact that they had company. Glancing up, they were transfixed by a sight neither would ever forget. There, silhouetted against the night sky, were nine camels eyeing them speculatively. Then with a snort…

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#Camel #Douglas MacArthur #Edward Beale #Fort Tejon #Gila River #Jefferson Davis #Mexican War #Samuel McLaughlin #The American Camel Company

Jerky

“This is what I feed my dogs in the afternoon,” Kathy Lee Gifford declared scornfully on America’s ‘The Today Show,’ as she sniffed some beef jerky. It was January 2015 and the show’s skeptical anchor was discussing with author Esther Blum the premise of her new book titled, Cavewomen Don’t Get Fat: Ancient Secrets to Rapid Weight Loss. Americans, Blum asserted, needed to eat more healthily. Her…

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#Biltong #Charqui #Jerky

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