Karen R. Jones— “I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should just go ahead and be one.” This phrase, popularly attributed to Calamity Jane, is strewn across the twenty-first-century internet, emblazoned on T-shirts, striding out across coffee mugs, and hollering provocatively from wall posters. It
Robert M. Utley— Billy the Kid and Ned Kelly lived and died at roughly the same age and roughly the same time, the middle of the nineteenth century. Though they never actually met, imagine, if possible, a meeting between the two outlaws. Granted, they lived and died half a world
Jack O’Malley— Art of the American Frontier: From the Buffalo Bill Center of the West by Stephanie Mayer Heydt collects nearly 250 full color illustrations of the art of the frontier. Everything from portraits of cowboys from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the art of native tribes, and
Who exactly was Geronimo? The legendary Apache fighter is one of the most famous American Indians in history, but his public image has changed dramatically through the years. In his latest book, Geronimo, historian Robert Utley tries to solve the mystery of this persona, questioning the validity of the impressions
“I like to think of the way people encounter pictures in books—by themselves, in quiet, at length.” —Robert Adams Joshua Chuang, Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Yale University Art Gallery and co-organizer of the traveling retrospective exhibition of the work of Robert Adams, writes on the gallery’s publication history
On a surface level, Pekka Hämäläinen’s Comanche Empire exposes and defends an overlooked narrative in American history. His book tells the story of the Comanche people, from their first mention in the ledgers of a Spanish colonial official in 1706 to their decimation by famine and an expanding United States
Paul VanDevelder is a featured author on Smithsonian.com’s History and Archeology page this week, giving readers a sneak peek at his new book, Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire through Indian Territory. His latest post sets the scene on what the tribes called “The Great
In Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism, Heather Hole examines the artist’s relationship with the American West. Hartley’s connection to the West increases to this day as MetroActive, an online weekly newspaper based out of California’s Silicon Valley, favorably reviewed Hole’s recent book. The reviewer
Yesterday “The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950” opened at the Los Angeles County Musuem of Art. This is the first exhibition to explore in depth the development of modernism in the American West. Although this movement has traditionally been associated with the East Coast, pioneering artists such as Ansel Adams