Humans & Horses in the American West:
Online Primary Sources

Updated: April 19, 2017

Site History:

1. Revised for Humans and Horses NEH Seminar, Texas Tech Univ. summer 2018, revised March 2017.
2. Revised for HI 491 Humans and Horses in History, NCSU senior seminar Spring 2015.
3. Supplemental to HI 491 on the American West, NCSU senior seminar Spring 2009.
4. Supplement to a special issue of Journal of the West, 46:2 Spring 2007, on "Teaching About the West."
5. Revised for HI 491J Spring 2006, Ranch and Frontier Life in the American West.
6. Created for NCCAT "Cowboy Life and Legend" Seminar, June 6-10, 2005, Cullowhee, NC.

Just for Fun: All work and no play. . .

1. Picture to the right courtesy the National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration. It shows the 2008 participants in Western Writers of America Writers' Panel (Lubbock, Texas). Johnny Boggs, president of the Western Writers of America, on the left. Novelist [and WWA president 2012-14] Dusty Richards next to Boggs. The late Elmer Kelton, who died in 2009. Kelton was voted by the WWA as the best western novelist ever, seated. Yours truly in the gray hat (neither a white-hat hero nor a black-hat villain).
2. Videos from the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and the Western Folklife Center
3. A Cowboy and Old West Sampler
4. Lazy S Ranch Scenes Take a ride around the Cowboy Professor's Virtual Ranch
5. Lazy S Ranch HQ
6. Essays by Dr. Slatta Examples of popular, not scholarly, historical writing.
7. Wyman Meinzer's Photographs of West Texas, Music by Doug Smith Enjoy a photgraphic/musical tour of real cowboy country.
8. Enjoy Sons of the San Joaquin singing "From Whence Came the Cowboy" This musical history of North and South American cowboys, penned by Jack Hannah, was inspired by my book "Cowboys of the Americas." The group includes Joe, Jack, and Lon Hannah.
9. Dixie Rock does homage to the West: "Fire on the Mountain" by George McCorkle (Marshall Tucker Band)

   Pedagogical Background for Constructionist History

10. Turning a Draft into an Essay
11. Suggested books for western history book reviews Also read about how to how to identify and navigate a scholarly monograph. We favor primary sources in our historical research, but when you use secondary sources, THEY MUST BE SCHOLARLY!!
12. A constructivist approach to history
13. So you want to study and do history! Here's how.
14. Using Primary Sources on the Web American Library Association
15. Making Sense of Evidence History Matters
16. Colorado Digitization Program A variety of sources and approaches to using primary sources
17. NARA Digital Classroom Great suggestions on using historical documents in the classroom. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
18. Library of Congress Resources for Teachers
19. Duke University Libraries Guide to Boolean Operators and Other E-Research Techniques
20. Slatta's Guidelines for Evaluating Internet Sites

    Historical Background: Secondary Sources and Finding Aids

21. Slatta, Western frontier life in America World Book Encyclopedia contribution
22. Slatta, Cowboy Life and Legend Online Guidebook Short chapters on a variety of cowboy topics. Be certain to check out the section on "Primary Sources and Memoirs about Cowboy Life."
23. Parallel Histories: Spain, the United States, and the American Frontier
24. Comparative Frontiers Bibliography compiled by Richard W. Slatta
25. West Web, hosted by Catherine Lavender
26. National Day of the Cowboy (July 23) website Explore their links to a good range of western cultural organizations and sites.
27. Cowboy and Cowgirl Links
28. WWW-Virtual Library, The American West Lots of links. See Topical links to people, family life, photos, etc.

29. Archives to the Ken Burns's PBS Program, "The West" Click on various time periods to access documents.
30. Nevada History in Maps
31. eGranary Digital Library Additional Resources A list of scholastic journals and electronic resources that are available online via the worldwide web
32. Animals in History Bibliography
33. Horses in History: A Bibliography, 2009
34. Search the index of Montana The Magazine of Western History from 1951-2012

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    NCSU Resources: Require university account and ID
35. NCSU D. H. Hill Library Resources, primary and secondary
36. D. H. Hill Library Resources Page Click on databases. Use LexisNexis Academic to find recent popular magazine and newspaper accounts.

First-hand Accounts

[Photo right: Frontier research--not for the faint of heart.]
See also topical section below on Latinos, Native Americans, Women.

1. Library of Congress Digital Collections Documents, photographs, interviews, and more. See also links to individual collections below.
2. Louisiana: European Explorations and the Louisiana Purchase
3. American Journeys "eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later."
4. Lewis and Clark Expedition
5. Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
6. Oregon Trail Archive Diaries, memoirs, period books
7. Trails of Hope: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869
8. Chronological listing of Mormon Overland Travel, 1847-1868 Click on a specific company to locate journals and other primary sources.
9. Library of Western Fur Trade Historical Source Documents Diaries, Narratives, and Letters of the Mountain Men
10. Eyewitness accounts of life in the Old West Wide variety of topics

    State-specific Sources

11. Digital Horizons "an online treasure house of thousands of images, documents, video, and oral histories depicting life on the Northern Plains from the late 1800s to today."
12. South Dakota Digital Archives Photos, manuscripts, government collections
13. "California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900
14. Online Archive of California covers virtually any topic in California history
15. Nebraska Studies Select a period from the timeline, click on a topic. You may also search for primary sources, including photographs.
16. Nebraska Prairie Settlement: Photographs and Family Letters
17. Kansas Memory
18. KanColl Search the Kansas collection for 19th-century books and other voices
19. Kansas Heritage A variety of sources on Kansas history and culture
20. Oklahoma Digital Collections (Documents & Images), including Native American
21. Oklahoma State Historical Society
22. Texas State History Association
23. Southwest Digital Collections, Texas Tech Univ.
24. History Link: History of Washington State Click on Search (upper righthand corner), then use the People's History link for primary sources
25. Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982
26. Columbia River Basin Ethnic Heritage Archives (CRBEHA) Excellent tutorials on primary sources, coverings ethnic groups in the Columbia River Basin. Link courtesy of Troy Reeves
27. Subject Guide to the Colorado History Society collection Link courtesy of Ray Wrabley

    Everyone should be able to find relevant materials from the following general collections. Use keywords to locate information and images.

28. Photos and Documents at the Beineke Collection, Yale University
29. Digital Collections at the Bancroft Library, Berkeley
30. American Life Histories from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 WPA Project Use keywords to search these oral interview transcripts. Hear about ranch life firsthand.
31. American Memory Collections (Library of Congress) A list of the types of materials accessible appears below. Most of the topics listed on the browse index (Advertising to Women) have material about the American West.

    Books & Other Printed Texts

    Manuscripts

    Sheet Music

    Maps

    Motion Pictures

    Photos & Prints

    Sound Recordings

32. Digital History 600 documents on Mexican American and Native American history and culture, and much more
33. Memoirs, journals, letters, reports and images from "New Perspectives on THE WEST" (PBS)
34. Eyewitness to History: The Old West
35. Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA): Cornell University
36. American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920: American Memory project "comprises 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States"
37. Frontier sources from American Memory project
38. Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
39. Additional primary sources for a wide range of topics

    By Type of Source:

    Periodicals, Printed Sources

40. Harpweek Online version of the 19th-Century popular magazine, 1857-1912. Searchable by type of story, including ads. Access via NCSU Library page.
41. Colorado Newspapers Link courtesy of Ray Wrabley
42. 19th-Century Utah Digital Newspapers
43. Making of America: Search 19th-Century Magazines
44. Patent information for Glidden barbed wire
45. Wyoming Tales and Trails See "Tales" section on the left side of the page.

Music

46. Music databases and periodicals at NCSU See American and World Music Collections--searchable by keyword
    
47. WPA California Folk Music Project A multi-format ethnographic field collection that includes sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians.
48. Academy of Western Artists
49. Western Music Association
50. 20th Annual Music and Poetry from the 2004 Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Elko, Nevada
51. Cowboy Music Links
52. More Cowboy Music Links
53. Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection

    Radio, Film, TV

    3 late 1930s films starring America's only black singing cowboy, Herb Jeffries

54. The Bronze Buckaroo (Herb Jeffries, Artie Young, Rolie Hardin, 1939)
55. Harlem Rides The Range (1939)
56. Two Gunman From Harlem

    Other Films

57. Western Classic Movies
58. Western and other types of films
59. Radio Lovers: Old Radio Westerns Shows include American Trail, Death Valley Days, Frontier Town, Gene Autry, Gunsmoke, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Tales of the Texas Rangers, The Town Crier
60. Western Programs on Radio and TV
61. Western films from the silents to spaghetti
62. On May 9, 1961, in a speech before a meeting of television executives, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton N. Minow derided television programming as a "vast wasteland." He condemned senseless violence, as in Westerns, mindless comedy, and offensive advertising.
63. Radio Days

Paintings

64. Western Art Museums
65. THE ILLUSTRATING TRAVELER: ADVENTURE AND ILLUSTRATION IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 1760-1895 A Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Exhibit
66. Treasurenet Historical Images Collection images from the Civil War and the American West
67. Search the National Museum of American Art collections (Smithsonian)

    Photographs

68. Photographs of the American West from the National Archives, 1861-1912
69. Historic E. E. Smith photographs from the early 20th century Amon Carter Museum, Ft. Worth, TX
70. Gallery of the Open Frontier by University of Nebraska Press
71. Library of Congress daguerreotypes, 1839 to 1864
72. History of the American West, 1860-1920 Photographs from the Collection of the Denver (Colorado) Public Library
73. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection Do topical searches
74. South Texas Border, 1900-1920 Photographs from the Robert Runyon Collection
75. Search Photographic Images at the Denver (CO) Library
76. Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920 Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections
77. Virtual Exhibit of "Like a Cowboy: Images in Politics, Prose, and Reality" National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Click on the links at the very bottom of the page.
78. Photo Archive Links
79. Wyoming Tales and Trails
80. Scrapbook kept by American illustrator, James E. Taylor (1839-1901) A professional artist, Taylor’s newspaper illustrations served to popularize stereotypes of the Western frontier during the post-Civil War years.
81. Photo Archive, Univ. of Utah Library
82. Photographs of today's cowboys and cowgirls You can also use this site to search for other subjects, such as windmill, ranch house, horse, etc.

Poetry

83. Rod Miller, "Does Slant Rhyme with Can't?" Views on the rhyming controversy in cowboy poetry.
84. Wyoming Cowboy Poetry Archive
85. Cowboy Poetry
86. Agricomm Cowboy Poetry See links. Scroll toward the bottom of the page to read the poems.
87. "Git Along, Little Doggerel" by Sara DavidsonNew York Times Magazine, January 15, 1995, pp.38-39.

    Advertising, Statistics

88. Advertising, UC-Davis
89. Duke University Advertising Archive
90. Another point of access for the Duke collection
91. Harpweek Online version of the 19th-Century popular magazine, 1857-1912. NCSU login required. Searchable by type of story, including ads. Also accessible via NCSU Library page.
92. US Census Do keyword searches for your topic. Also search for "historical."
93. Statistical Abstract of the US PDF versions of this annual publication, going back to 1878
94. Government Documents at D. H. Hill Library, NC State U.
95. Advertising Links from the University of Texas at Austin

    By Social or Ethnic Group:

    Women

96. Temperance and Prohibition Movements Look for roles of women in these movements.
97. Emma Goldman Papers fascinating life (1869-1940, deported from US in 1919) of a feminist leader
98. National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame Ft. Worth, TX
99. Women and Social Movements
100. Jewish Women's Archive
101. Native American Women
102. American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States
103. Votes for Women (National American Women Suffrage Association

     Hispanic/Latino

104. The March of Portolá and the Log of the San Carlos, 1770 by Zoeth S. Eldredge & E. J. Molera (1909) The authors describe the first settlement of Monterey by the Spanish, and the surveying of San Francisco Bay.
105. Hispanic Music and Culture from the Northern Rio Grande
106. Living Voices,Voces Vivas audio files of interviews with Hispanics

     African American

107. Documenting the American South UNC online collection
108. Voices From the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories Search for terms like cowboy, ranch, cattle, etc.
109. Born in Slavery: Transcripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-40
110. Blackpast.org -- scholarly treatments of many topics A few primary but mostly secondary sources.
111. African-American Mosaic: Western Migration and Homesteading in Nicodemus, Kansas, 1870s
112. African Americans in the Old West Timeline and brief vignettes (secondary source for reference)
113. See also the Herb Jeffries films under Radio Film TV above.

     Native American

114. Native American Oral Histories
115. Native American Life
116. National Archives Catalog wide-ranging materials, including Native Americans
117. Powwows
118. Navajo Weaving
119. Avalon Project at Yale Law School great variety of political and legal documents
120. Images of Native Americans Paintings, Posters, Photographs
121. Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784-1894 Laws and Maps
122. Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Photographs
123. The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis
124. Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties
125. Chickasaw History (Oklahoma)
126. American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
127. Indians Peoples of the Northern Great Plains
128. Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce Pacific Northwest
129. Native American Documents Project federal Indian policy
130. Edward S. Curtis Photographs, "The North American Indian"
131. Frontier Photographer: Edward S. Curtis
132. Living Voices, Voces Vivas audio files of interviews with 40 Native Americans
133. National Museum of the American Indian Washington, DC

     Chinese

134. Central Pacific Railroad Photo History Museum
135. Harper's Weekly See "The Chinese American Experience"
136. Chinese in California, 1850-1925
137. Museum of the City of San Francisco
138. USC Archival Research Center history of Los Angeles, including the Chinese community

     Canadian

139. Alaska and Western Canada Collection, the University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections
140. Canada's Digital Collection
141. Early Canadiana Online
142. Canada: our roots

     Additional Finding Aids for Western Collections

     Research help; most materials are not be online.
143. Collaborative Digitization Program's Heritage West
144. Digital Collections hosted by University of New Mexico Libraries
145. Rocky Mountain Online Archive
146. Guide to Primary Source Repositories University of Idaho Libraries Special Collections and Archives
147. Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, TX Link courtesy of Tug Wilson
148. Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA) Link courtesy of Troy Reeves
149. American Heritage Center University of Wyoming

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