Cowboys in U.S. History

In American history a cowboy is seen as a heroic figure. A man that seeks justice and is very courageous. He rides horses carries a gun everywhere he goes,  and fights of Indians. In many western movies they give prime examples of what a cowboys was romanticized as; usually very good looking, always go the girl, that sort of thing. But in reality the cowboy was a very low paid working class man that spent his days herding in fields. This character was derived from the Mexican vaqueros. His job was to protect his herd and not much more. Cowboys rarely saw opportunities for improvement in their work. They were pretty much sentenced to a lonely life with cows for friends.

The image of the romanticized cowboy was put into the world so when you think of the west you think of this magnificent character and everything was hunky-dory and the good always won.  The historical reality of the west was that it was very hard to find work for a while. There were a lot of immigrants taking jobs that a lot of Americans set out west to have. There was an over population of Chinese at first and they use this as a way to cover up the problems. The farmers had a hard time adjusting to land with the different landscape and at first the economy struggled. So people needed something to look up to, so the romanticized version of the cowboy was born.

What made the American cowboy idealized was the fact that people needed something to look up to, to have something to put faith in. With all the failing jobs and struggles people were going through. Once this image became known many books were published of this romanticized version of the cowboy. One of the first movies with sound came out about a cowboy and this image took of in the U.S. People seek to have someone to look up to and when the west was struggling, and this heroic image came about it gave the people something to take their minds of the bad things.

Chapter 15 Reflection

I did not know a lot about the Post-Civil war at all. I knew there was segregation after the civil war, that even though blacks were free, they were not equal.I didn't know how it became that way or why, but I was eager to learn. I didn't know anything on the Reconstruction of the South, and I didn't know the separate Amendments.  I have never really been into history so I never really cared that much about it. In our first section of study we have done a lot with comparing it to present day politics and events, so it has made learning it a lot more interesting. I think that's why it is important for people to learn about our nations history, because history repeats itself and if we don't know about the past there is no way we can learn from the mistakes that were made. In America people pride themselves on living in a place where everyone is free and I think it is beneficial to the people of America to know how that came to be and to be able to pride ourselves on being a strong country.

In this unit, a topic that really stood out to me was the Tim Crow Law's. I already knew the basics about segregation, for instance, where blacks could or could not sit, where they were allowed to be, and their rights. I didn't know a lot about the legal things about it and why it was excepted. Now I know how the "laws" came to be and how they enforced them. The literacy tests and Plessy verses F
Ferguson where how whites enforced the laws and how they were able to get around the 14th and 15th amendments. After learning about the Tim Crow Laws I understand the challenges had to face after slavery and the hard journey they have had to take to get to where they are now.