Collecting Wild West Show Ephemera: Wild Wild West

A chromolithographed Buffalo Bill's Wild West poster, a vertical half sheet showing mounted group of "Mexican Ruralies and Vacqueros in Surprising and Seemingly Impossible Feats of Rope Spinning and Lasso Throwing" printed along bottom and "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World" in upper rightAirports, coffee shops, and strip malls are everywhere today, even in Dodge City.  These days the Wild West is definitely not so wild.  It’s hard to imagine how it must have appeared even a century ago, but part of that is because as a culture, we’ve spent most of that time re-imagining it, repackaging it to shape our version of the American past.  The American West was, undeniably, a rough place at one time, but stagecoach robberies, bloody gunfights and Indian scouts riding in stampeding herds of buffalo were not the norm.  Mostly, it was, in many ways, like a remote life back in New England – minimal daily comforts, grinding work, limited access to society and commercial goods.

Our version of the American West is due in large part to the phenomenon of the Wild West Show.  The first and undoubtedly most famous of these shows was Buffalo Bill Cody’s show, formed in 1883 and in operation until 1913.  Cody’s vaudeville show included some of the most legendary figures of the era: Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickok, Sitting Bull, Will Rogers, and even future president Theodore Roosevelt!  Coinciding with more affordable printing and photography, Cody’s shows are very well documented.  Modern collectors vie for cabinet card and silver gelatin photographs, show programs and posters (like the one pictured above) and advertising-related objects like trade signs and saddle soap containers.

Cody’s Wild West show traveled all over the United States, even performing in connection with the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.  The troop even made the trip to England in 1887, transporting 200+ riders, nearly 100 American Indians, and a menagerie of animals that included nearly 200 horses as well as buffalo, elk and longhorn steers.  (I was disappointed to find out that they didn’t all travel on a single ship – that would have been some voyage!)

Wild west shows began to wane in popularity near the end of the 19th century.  As Frederick Turner, perhaps the first true scholar of the American West, announced in 1893, “The frontier is gone.”  Vaudeville in general began to suffer as moving pictures began to develop, and rail travel became easier and more affordable, allowing people to see the West for themselves.  Still, the iconic and mythical image of the American frontier created by these shows is known around the world and has become an indelible part of the story Americans tell themselves about their past, guaranteeing it a place in collections of every generation.