National Day of the Cowboy

The National Day of the Cowboy is coming up soon (the fourth Saturday of July), prompting me to go sifting through the archive for collection items to highlight. The national day officially began in 2008, when the National Day of the Cowboy resolution passed in both the Senate and the House, though there had been smaller state and local commemorations throughout the western states for several years. The language of Senate Resolution 450, which originally designated July 26, 2008 as “National Day of the Cowboy” reads as follows:

“Whereas pioneering men and woman, recognized as “cowboys,” helped establish the American West;
Whereas the cowboy embodies honesty, integrity, courage, compassion, respect, a strong work ethic, and patriotism;
Whereas the cowboy spirit exemplifies strength of character, sound family values, and good common sense;
Whereas the cowboy archetype transcends ethnicity, gender, geographic boundaries, and political affiliations;
Whereas the cowboy is an excellent steward of the land and its creatures, who lives off of the land and works to protect and enhance the environment;
Whereas cowboy traditions have been a part of American culture for generations;
Whereas the cowboy continues to be an important part of the economy through the work of approximately 727,000 ranchers in all 50 of the United States that contribute to the economic well-being of nearly every county in the Nation;
Whereas annual attendance at professional and working rand rodeo events exceeds 27,000,000 fans and rodeo is the 7^th most-watched sport in the Nation;
Whereas membership and participation in rodeo and other organizations that promote and encompass the livelihood of a cowboy span every generation and transcend race and gender;
Whereas the cowboy is a central figure in literature, film, and music and occupies a central place in the public imagination;
Whereas the cowboy is an American icon; and
Whereas the ongoing contributions made by cowboys and cowgirls to their communities should be recognized and encouraged: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate –
1) designates July 26, 2008, as “National Day of the Cowboy”; and
2) encourages the people of the United States to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

It was the fourth line of that resolution that jumped out at me first, in respect to the collections I was sorting through: “Whereas the cowboy archetype transcends ethnicity, gender, geographic boundaries, and political affiliations.” Last week, while staffing a table at the Library’s Teacher Open House event, I spoke with a Florida teacher about this very thing. She was looking for primary sources she could fold into lesson plans about westward expansion and was interested in materials about cowboys in the American West, especially those showing the diversity of the occupation.

The American cowboy, as an image and icon, is…complicated, to say the least. Over the years, the image of the cowboy has evolved, allowing for both the idealized, romanticized cowboy of literature and film, as well as the real working cowboy of both the past and present. Cowboy imagery is prevalent throughout the country, even in places not particularly associated with the open plains of the western U.S. For instance, this photo of a sign for the Cowboy Steakhouse is found in the American Folklife Center’s Pinelands Folklife Project, which surveyed the folklife of communities living in and around the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The giant wooden cowboy cut-out waves at passing travelers, as if to beckon them to pull up to the “saloon.”

While interviewing Bertha Marion in her home in Galax, Virginia, Terry Eiler took this photograph of Bertha working on her cowboy quilt. Like the New Jersey pine barrens, the wooded hills of the Blue Ridge Parkway are a fair distance away from cowboy country in the western states.

Much of the imagery found in advertisements and popular media depict cowboys in the style of gruff loners played by John Wayne-types, or the archetypal satin-shirted singing cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Neither archetype generally includes a deep exploration of the intersection of ethnicity and occupation that can be found in a study of cowboy history and folklife.

The earliest cowboys of the American West were the vaqueros of the Spanish colonial period, originally working for California companies before the widespread establishment of the cattle trade throughout areas like Nevada, New Mexico and Idaho. The occupational folk traditions of these skilled vaqueros has influenced modern-day cowboy traditions throughout North and South America and continues today, as evidenced in the 374 images that make up the Charlie Seemann collection of photographs of vaqueros and gauchos in Uruguay and Paraguay (AFC 2018/001). The collection documents multiple aspects of ranch life in these regions, including vaquero dress, gear, and ranch buildings. (Note: This collection is open to research, but materials are stored offsite. Researchers wishing to view the collection must contact the AFC Reading Room in advance.)

Cowboys, horses and other examples of life in the wide-open west can be found in a number of the Center’s archival collections. Three of these – the Montana Folklife Survey Collection, the Colorado Folklife Project Collection, and the Paradise Valley Folklife Project Collection – include robust online collections, where curious researchers can click through digital images of rodeos, listen to songs and stories shared around a campfire at a wagon train night camp, and read articles about the history of the Ninety-Six Ranch and the “buckaroo” way of life.

Included in Paradise Valley collection are a handful of audio recordings related to Indigenous buckaroos and farmhands who have worked on the Ninety-Six Ranch and surrounding territories. Buckaroo Tex Northrup and ranch owner Les Stewart both remark on hiring buckaroos from the local tribes:

Both men acknowledge the skill of these buckaroos, while also commenting on their tendency to leave early or only sign on for short-term work. “For strictly buckaroo, strictly cowboy, I prefer Indian boys over a white boy for short, temporary help,” Les admits. “The failing they have is that they don’t like to stay on the job for very long. The job that lasts a month suits them just fine.”

In another clip, when asked about the differences between buckaroos “then and now,” Les states that buckaroos nowadays are “oriented to the social world a lot more than the old-timers, because the old-timers…you’s out on one of these ranches, 50 or 100 miles from town and there was no way to go but horseback, you didn’t go to town very often. So there’s a difference there.”

That comment made me wonder if this could actually be the best explanation for why the Indigenous buckaroos Les and Tex hired on only tended to stay for the short-term. While Les and the other “old-timers” saw their fellow buckaroos as a tight community with shared traditions and culture tied to their occupation, the Native buckaroos would have had ties to social communities outside of the ranch that were just as strong, if not stronger. The cowboys that Les hired from local Northern Paiute, Shoshone, Apache and Dine communities might have built their short-term work around calendars of traditional practices that did not necessarily match up with the schedule of the Ninety-Six Ranch. Unfortunately, I did not come across any interviews with the buckaroos in question in the rest of the Paradise Valley collection, so this remains an unconfirmed theory of mine at present.

The Paradise Valley Folklife Project Collection includes a series of short videos which give viewers insight into the daily work of buckaroos working on the Ninety-Six Ranch.

In the above video, fieldworkers documenting life on the Ninety-Six Ranch filmed buckaroo Theodore Brown isolating a cow from the herd, accompanied by commentary from ranch owner Les Stewart. According to the catalog record, the commentary was recorded later in the project, with the fieldworkers playing a copy of the film on Les’s living room television set, and Les providing narration in real-time. The commentary, delivered in a matter-of-fact manner, provides insight into how Theodore and his horse work together as a team to do the task efficiently and without spooking the cattle. “A lot of this depends on the horse being trained as well as the man,” Les points out. In a similar video, Les himself can be seen out on the ranch, sharing more insights on how the buckaroos “work the cow” when sorting the herd at the end of a drive. This second video also gives viewers an idea as to why the fieldworkers opted to record additional commentary in a quieter, indoor location rather than trying to compete with the sounds of the cattle in the field.

As part of the Montana Folklife Survey, fieldworkers Barre Toelken, Gary Ward Stanton, and Paula Johnson interviewed Paul E. Young, a retired rancher living in Miles City, Montana. The interviews, which took place over two different days, cover Young’s life as a former bronco buster, cowboy singer, and cowhand. In part three of the August 11^th interview, Young tells a story about “Stone Boat Bill,” a cowboy who was dragged by his horse when he was thrown to the ground and his foot was caught in the stirrup. If only Stone Boat Bill had known to rig his saddle with a Latigo Knot, as Les Stewart shows in this video from the Paradise Valley collection.

In Stewart’s words:

“If you get in a bad jackpot, sometimes you can pull that loose and the saddle will come off. Sometime a fellow’s horse will fall on him and for some reason or another he knows he’s trapped in the stirrup or something, he can reach over and jerk that loose. When the horse does get up, he might drag him a jump or two, but the saddle and everything will come off.”

In addition to the audio recordings collected as part of the aforementioned field surveys, researchers interested in stories about cowboy life can listen to recordings in several other collections. In an interview in the Western Folklife Center Occupational Folklore Project, Margaret A. Glaser and Charlie Seeman interview Walter “Bimbo” Cheney. Cheney had originally worked as a cowpuncher for several ranches in Nevada, in addition to competing at rodeo and working in feed lots. After two separate ranches were sold out from under him, Cheney opted to shift gears and went to work as a surface miner for the Newmont Mining Corporation.

The American English Dialect Recordings includes an interview with an 88 year-old man named James B. Franklin, from Fruita, Colorado. Franklin’s parents, who were both from Arkansas, migrated west to Colorado as part of a covered wagon train, settling in the area around modern-day DeBeque. Franklin recounts his early days “punchin’ cows” and riding broncos to Kathi Prudhomme, the interviewer (timestamp 2:52):

James: I come down there, another fellow and I, with some horses to sell
Kathi: So you were older then?
James: Uh, yes. I’d been working. I hit this old feller up for a job punchin’ cows. I was a good bronc rider then. And the old man said, “If you can ride the horses I give you to ride, I’ll give you a job.”
Kathi: And you did, huh?
James: I went to the summer camp and I was there about a week and the old man got up one morning, and said, “Jimmy, you throw a pack saddle on a horse and you go to DeBeque.” It was thirty, about thirty-five miles to DeBeque, from where our camp was. And he said, “You get you some winter clothes.” That was in September. “I don’t need no winter clothes.” (laughs) “No, but you will before you get back.” So I went and got my clothes and fixed up for coming winter. Got back up there and cut me out…I don’t remember, eight or nine head of saddle horses. And I went to the north side, what they call the North Side, on the Piceance side. You know where Piceance is?
Kathi: No, I’m not familiar with it.
James: Well, it’s way over towards Rangely, and you know where Meeker?
Kathi: Yes.
James: Well, it’s way over there towards Meeker, you know, that Piceance country. Or you go that-away to go up Piceance Creek. So I went and I was gone seven weeks on them round-up, following the wagon.
Kathi: Now, did you break these horses for him? Did you train them?
James: Well, I broke lots of them. Broke a lot of horses for him. Yeah. In them days they weren’t corral raised horses. They were wild bronco horses. I used to just love it!
Kathi: Some of these horses they’re rounding up, are these still some of the same type of horses you had?
James: Of course, those cow outfits, see, well, they’d buy their horses. In them days they didn’t raise many saddle horses but they’d buy ‘em outta horses. Somebody was a-raisin’ them you know. No, I broke horses, another fellow and I up there one summer broke 22 head.
Kathi: I’d think that would be a pretty important job and one that not everybody did.
James: Well, they didn’t, they didn’t everybody do it.
Kathi: Does that mean that you got more pay than the rest of them?
James: Yes, I did and that wasn’t very much. (laughs) Forty dollars a month.
Kathi: Is that right?
James: That’s right, and that was top wages. That was, there wasn’t very many got over 30, 35.

When asked if he ever rode for the rodeo, James points out that there were no rodeos in the area at that time and the riding he was doing was “strictly work.” He admits that, had there been rodeos, he might have considered participating regularly. Then, remembering a rodeo that did take place in Glenwood, he adds “I didn’t ride. Several of the boys, cowpunchers there wanted me to ride in it but I didn’t want to show myself and get throwed off!”

A number of photographs from this and other collections depict common cowboy tasks and skills. In addition to cutting the herd, as seen in the video, the photographs depict buckaroos roping and branding cattle, moving cattle into corrals, and working their horses. These skills, and many others, also appear throughout a number of rodeo events. According to the Official Handbook for the Working Cowboy Ranch Rodeo, which can be found in AFC’s “cowboy” subject file:

“Webster’s dictionary defines cowboy as a ranch worker who rides horseback on his job of herdin’ cattle and a rodeo is defined as a public exhibition of the skills of cowboys, so RANCH RODEO is the sport of cowboys.

Ranch Rodeo is a sport that is so old it’s new. It is the sport that was practiced by our forefathers before they drove their cattle up the old Chisom Trail.”

The handbook specifies that a “complete” Ranch Rodeo should consist of five major events: branding, milking, horse event, pasture roping and penning.

Most of the rodeo photographs I came across while researching these collections depict rodeos held on reservations out west. Among these were the Babb Indian Rodeo on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, the McDermitt Paiute Indian Reservation Rodeo in Paradise Valley, and the Crow Fair Rodeo in Montana, known as “the largest all-Indian rodeo in the country.”

Several photographs from the Babb Indian Rodeo depict the “wild horse race,” an event where a pair of cowboys must rope, saddle and ride a horse until they reach a certain point. This is comparable to the “Horsebreaking” event laid out in the Ranch Rodeo handbook, which states:

“This is an art still practiced the world over. There are many different ways to break a horse to saddle. Some do it gently while others do it rapidly. In the old west, a cowboy often did not have time to get a horse ready for riding, so he was “snubbed,” or tied to the saddle horn on another horse, then saddled and when the time seemed right, he was released to see what he would do. Most often, he would run until he tired and would then be ready to be taught to rein and would be a working horse. These unbroken horses were called green horses and are still so known by the name.”

In modern rodeo, the origins of this cowboy “art” can be seen in the bronco riding event.

Barrel racing, while not specifically called out in the handbook, is also a feature of many modern rodeos and demonstrates both the speed and agility of the horses, as well as the horsemanship skills of the rider. Examples of this event are found in both the Babb Indian Rodeo photographs and pictures taken in Mosquero, New Mexico as part of the New Mexico Folklife Project Collection.

Cowboy music and poetry also make up a significant portion of AFC’s collections. The Center is home to the field recordings of the song “Home on the Range.” The song was originally recorded by John A. Lomax in 1908, sung by an African-American former cowboy in San Antonio, Texas. It has since been recorded several times, and has even appeared as a part of the Center’s first Archive Challenge in 2015, when Dom Flemons performed it as part of his lineup of Black cowboy songs.

Giving further proof of the widespread popularity and influence of cowboy culture on communities throughout the United States, the Center also has collections of cowboy music collected from Fitzgerald, Georgia and the Hawaiian Islands. In a 1977 performance captured as part of the South-Central Georgia Folklife Project Collection, musicians Winford G. “Wimpy” Fowler and C.M (Cleo Morgan) Copeland, Jr. play popular cowboy songs such as “Cowboy Yodel” and “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds.”

The Na mele paniolo: songs of the Hawaiian cowboys field collection (AFC 1991/028) includes 22 sound tape reels of Hawaiian songs recorded at Kipukai Ranch on Kaua’i, Parker Ranch on the Big Island, and Ulupalakua Ranch, on Maui. The songs were recorded on equipment loaned by the American Folklife Center, and were featured in a publication of the same name. In the Center’s cowboy subject file, I found a photocopied article about a traveling exhibit, Na Paniolo o Hawaii, which celebrated Hawaiian ranching traditions. The vaqueros who had set the stage for the later buckaroos of Paradise Valley in Nevada also influenced cowboy culture on the Hawaiian Islands. In the early 1800s, vaqueros were invited to the islands to teach Hawaiians how to work cattle and thus the Hawaiian Paniolos – a “Hawaiianization” of the word Español – were born. (Note: Both the Na mele paniolo collection and the cowboy subject file are available to researchers who visit the AFC Reading Room in person).

As is no doubt clear by now, there is no shortage of cowboy-related material in Center’s archival holdings. The subject file alone includes at least four folders, and I could fill an entire second post just with examples of cowboy poetry, and a third one with folk tales and jokes that feature this icon of the American West. In fact, I was surprised at how much humor I found throughout many of these collections, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been. Humor is often a major component of occupations which include a significant element of danger. Regardless of whether you refer to them as vaqueros, paniolos, buckaroos, cowpunchers or cowboys, something I think we can all agree on is that the lives and work of these skilled men and women are dangerous and difficult. To remember, all we need do is look at the experiences of the cowboys involved in the Milk River Wagon Train, as depicted in the photographs and fieldnotes of the Montana Folklife Project Collection.

At the outset of the wagon train, fieldworker Kay Young viewed the annual event as a “revivalist activity.” “Perhaps, at best I could consider some things ‘recently traditional,'” she wrote, “But after a few more days and opportunity to look more deeply into what was taking place I realized that although my first appraisal might still hold true for the overall event, the Milk River wagon train is the product of – in fact, composed of – elements of traditional culture extremely important in this community.” While outsiders might have viewed the event as somewhat theatrical, the event provided proof of the dangers of life and work out on the open plains. Over the course of the week-long event there were multiple injuries and mishaps. Early in the trip, a wagon overturned while heading up a steep climb. Cowboys calmed the horses and other participants picked up the supplies that had fallen out and worked on righting the wagon.

Another wagon, carrying two women, was involved in an accident when a boulder dislodged along the trail, spooking the horses. One woman was thrown clear of the wagon but later learned she had two cracked vertebrae. The other woman, unfortunately, was caught under the wagon and dragged for a short distance. She survived with severe bruises. These, added to a concussion she had received a few days earlier when she had been thrown from her horse and hit her head on a rock, led to her early departure from the event. When the runaway horses were finally stopped, their owner attempted to return them to the overturned wagon box. Instead, the horses were spooked again and dragged their running gear over the man, leaving him bruised.

On another day of the wagon train, cowboy Dennis Brown was thrown from his horse and broke his leg. Doc Curtis, a veterinarian who was participating in the event, propped the man’s foot up on some ice and sent a rider to fetch a doctor from town. While the wagon train waited for help to arrive, the men gave Brown several shots of whiskey “to dull the pain” and then settled down to pass the time with amusing stories.

When the doctor finally arrived, he and Doc Curtis used rags, rolled up newspapers, and tape to stabilize Brown’s leg. The whiskey, visible next to Brown’s elbow, may have helped to ease some of the initial pain, but it clear from this image that it was not successful in taking away all of it.

After all this excitement, it is no surprise that old-timers such as Web Dolson (pictured below) were only too happy to rest wherever they could.

 

Further Reading
Check out these digital resources from the Library of Congress about cowboys and cowboy life:

• Colorado Folklife Project (AFC 1991/032)
• Montana Folklife Project (AFC 1981/005)
• Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada (AFC 1991/021)
• Research Guide: American Folklife Center Collections: Texas
• Research Guide: Erwin E. Smith Photographs of American Cowboy and Ranch Life, 1905-1912, in the Library of Congress
• Cowboy Reminiscences collected through the Federal Writer’s Project (1936-1940); housed in the Manuscript Division (Note: Some resources may contain outdated and offensive language)
  • Ben Kinchlow – Range Lore and Negro Cowboy Reminiscences before and after 1875
  • William Simon Wall – The Ways of a Cow Camp
  • Nath F. Watkins – Range Lore and Cowboy Reminiscences
  • N. McKinney – Early Day Cowboy Tales and Experiences

Plan a visit to the American Folklife Center reading room to see these cowboy-related collections in person:

• Nevada Folklife Archive, 1980-2017 (AFC 2017/002)
• Charlie Seemann collection of photographs of vaqueros and gauchos, 1985-1986 (AFC 2018/001)
• Nevada Arts Council “Honest Horses” exhibition collection, 1999-2003 (AFC 2014/019)
• Community and material culture in nineteenth century Paradise Valley, Nevada (AFC 1987/047)
• Na mela paniolo: songs of the Hawaiian cowboys field collection (AFC 1991/028)

Library of Congress blog posts about cowboys:
From Folklife Today:

• A Pulitzer Prize for a Cowboy Poet – Stephen Winick (April 24, 2014)
• Colorado Morton Rides Again – Stephen Winick (April 25, 2014)
• Check out this four-part guest series by Carl Fleischhauer on items from the Paradise Valley Folklife Collection
  • Back to Paradise (September 22, 2014)
  • The Ninety-Six Ranch Sesquicentennial (September 29, 2014)
  • The Ninety-Six Ranch Celebrates Its 150^th (October 8, 2014)
  • Saddlemaker Ken Tipton (October 14, 2014)
• The Milk River Wagon Train, 1979 – Stephanie Hall (August 23, 2018)
• Hidden Folklorists: Harry Payne Reeves, the Mysterious Cowboy Singer Daca – Stephen Winick (March 15, 2023)

From other Library of Congress Blogs

• Caught Our Eyes: One Tall Cowboy – Barbara Orbach Natanson (December 6, 2012)
• Honoring African American Contributions: African American Cowboys on the Western Frontier – Ellen Terrell and Sophia Southard (October 16, 2020)
• Screen-Free Poetry: Writing Cowboy Poetry Together – guest post by Karen Wang (April 28, 2021)
• Black Cowboys at “Home on the Range” – guest post by Maria Peña (March 16, 2022)