Myths about the Wild West
When I was a kid my grandfather used to bounce me on his lap and then pretend to push me off. At the same time, I pretended to fall. We both thought it was a great game.
My grandpa emigrated to the United States of America at the end of the last century. He served in the US Army in the First World War, but I don’t think he ever saw any fighting. Then he came back and took over the family farm.
I used to ask him about his years in America, haunting him for tales about cowboys and indians, gunfights and heroic deeds. My image of life in the United States was based upon western comic strips, television series like “Bonanza” and “High Chaparral” and old John Wayne movies.
My grandfather really tried, but his tales of harvesting in Nebraska and Minnesota never satisfied my craving for headier stuff. Growing up, I read a string of books about life on the Frontier, about Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, Billy The Kid, Jesse James, Doc Holliday, Butch Cassidy. How could my grandpa have missed all the action?
You all know the familiar image of the hard, silent cowboy with a six-shooter, more often than not a Colt Peacemaker. But this image was never true, according to a recent article in The Economist, a British newsweekly. Reading this, I realised that the Hollywood myths about the Wild West perhaps serve another purpose than just box office revenue.
Before 1850, there was never more than a tenth of the American population that owned guns. For one thing, they were expensive. At the beginning of the last century, a gun cost about a year’s wages for an ordinary farmer; nowadays you can get a gun for three days’ work at the average US wage.
Guns were rare – until the civil war, 1861–1865. Before the civil war, Americans owned a couple of hundred thousand guns. After the civil war there were millions of guns in the country, and men trained to aim and fire them.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, mass production of guns was introduced by Samuel Colt and his colleagues, thereby creating a new sector of US economic life: the arms industry. He also forever changed the way Americans commit murder.
The civil war was followed by a crime wave. Murder with guns became, for the first time, more common than other, less efficient methods. This was the reason why Samuel Colt could continue to sell guns, even though the war was over.
His clever advertising campaigns drew on people’s fears, but above all cemented the image of the gun-toting frontiersman, defending his family, Colt in hand. Owning and using a gun became as American as apple pie. The image was false, but the gun became an American icon.
In our century, western heroes like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson, both made immortal by the cinematic genius Sergio Leone, bridged the gunfighter gap into the modern USA with their “Dirty Harry” and “Death Wish” movie series. The Lone Ranger suddenly reappeared in the modern American metropolis, gun in hand.
The staggering number of handguns in the homes of US citizens, greater than anywhere else in the world, is obviously the main reason behind the record number of persons shot and killed each year in the same country.
There are several myths about life in America over the last 400 or so years. As my grandfather probably realized early on, a lot of them were simply not true. Unfortunatly, the myth about the well-armed, male, white American going West is so useful for the arms-lobby that it still can be touted pretty much without challenge.
My grandfather is long gone, and his old uniform hangs in a museum somewhere, together with memorabilia from his time in America. The myth about the “special relationship” between the American man and his gun should be put to rest as well.
Published in Euro Metro, 5 August 1999
My grandpa emigrated to the United States of America at the end of the last century. He served in the US Army in the First World War, but I don’t think he ever saw any fighting. Then he came back and took over the family farm.
I used to ask him about his years in America, haunting him for tales about cowboys and indians, gunfights and heroic deeds. My image of life in the United States was based upon western comic strips, television series like “Bonanza” and “High Chaparral” and old John Wayne movies.
My grandfather really tried, but his tales of harvesting in Nebraska and Minnesota never satisfied my craving for headier stuff. Growing up, I read a string of books about life on the Frontier, about Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, Billy The Kid, Jesse James, Doc Holliday, Butch Cassidy. How could my grandpa have missed all the action?
You all know the familiar image of the hard, silent cowboy with a six-shooter, more often than not a Colt Peacemaker. But this image was never true, according to a recent article in The Economist, a British newsweekly. Reading this, I realised that the Hollywood myths about the Wild West perhaps serve another purpose than just box office revenue.
Before 1850, there was never more than a tenth of the American population that owned guns. For one thing, they were expensive. At the beginning of the last century, a gun cost about a year’s wages for an ordinary farmer; nowadays you can get a gun for three days’ work at the average US wage.
Guns were rare – until the civil war, 1861–1865. Before the civil war, Americans owned a couple of hundred thousand guns. After the civil war there were millions of guns in the country, and men trained to aim and fire them.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, mass production of guns was introduced by Samuel Colt and his colleagues, thereby creating a new sector of US economic life: the arms industry. He also forever changed the way Americans commit murder.
The civil war was followed by a crime wave. Murder with guns became, for the first time, more common than other, less efficient methods. This was the reason why Samuel Colt could continue to sell guns, even though the war was over.
His clever advertising campaigns drew on people’s fears, but above all cemented the image of the gun-toting frontiersman, defending his family, Colt in hand. Owning and using a gun became as American as apple pie. The image was false, but the gun became an American icon.
In our century, western heroes like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson, both made immortal by the cinematic genius Sergio Leone, bridged the gunfighter gap into the modern USA with their “Dirty Harry” and “Death Wish” movie series. The Lone Ranger suddenly reappeared in the modern American metropolis, gun in hand.
The staggering number of handguns in the homes of US citizens, greater than anywhere else in the world, is obviously the main reason behind the record number of persons shot and killed each year in the same country.
There are several myths about life in America over the last 400 or so years. As my grandfather probably realized early on, a lot of them were simply not true. Unfortunatly, the myth about the well-armed, male, white American going West is so useful for the arms-lobby that it still can be touted pretty much without challenge.
My grandfather is long gone, and his old uniform hangs in a museum somewhere, together with memorabilia from his time in America. The myth about the “special relationship” between the American man and his gun should be put to rest as well.
Published in Euro Metro, 5 August 1999
posted by Pelle at Thursday, August 05, 1999
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