The American Cowboy first started when the Civil War ended. When this happened many of the United States citizens wanted to move away from the east coast of the United States. So they began to move west. Moving West was a big part in United States history. Because the U.S government was giving out free land to those who can build a house on the land and farm the land so it is well looked after. The government was giving out 100 acres at a time. This is a massive amount of land. The last time the United States government did this was when Alaska had been purchased. But at this time the maximum land you could get was 10 acres. No where near as big as 100 acres. And you still had to look after the land and build a house to keep ownership of the land. This picture to the right is showing 4 men and 4 women all rich land owners in the west. This pictures shows the fashion the women wore back in Cowboys days. It also shows a young Cowboy to the right with a strange looking shirt on. All Cowboys wore hats and so did the women too look unique. The weather must have been rather bad if they where all wearing jackets and long thick layers. In the background of this photo is a white fence. Must have just been built as it looks in perfect condition. Also there is a large building behind them and the fence. My guesses would be that this is the town hall or rodeo place which was a very popular at the time. Many Cowboys would preform and ride horses and bulls for spectators entertainment. You could make a very good income from this but was a very dangerous job. The American Cowboy must have had a very dangerous job. As i was looking through the pictures on Smiths collection, the main job done by the average Cowboy was too rally up cattle and move them from location to location. Also he had to look after horses and move them too. Many of the Hollywood films do not sure them working but more fight against Indians or other criminals. The truths about the American Cowboy is that most Cowboys worked to live. Not many participated in gun to gun combat like the films show. Some however fought against Native Americans or Indians because of land. Another pictures i added was the first picture shown to me by this website. This picture shows some of the hats and wagons they used and wore. The wagon looks very old and could break very easily. I would not like to travel thousands of miles on one of these because it looks very unsafe and unstable. In this picture the men do not look very well equipped to be Cowboys. Most Cowboys carry guns and have lots of back up. This is what i was told when I first started learning about the American Cowboy. Not all Cowboys have guns or are for fighting. Most of them have big jobs in the west. Such as looking after people, farming, moving cattle around, transporting goods between Native Americans and also moving them around so they can farm on the land. So the stereotypes about the American Cowboy can be wrong but somewhat are accurate. As i have learned from the video and from the pictures i looked at.
