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Origins 241 toured the northeast and midwest, the Wild West show was in rapid decline. Motion-picture drama and outdoor locations were more profitable. For live performances the Old West had become little more than a cultural storehouse of nostalgic memory to spice circus acts and thrilling spectacles. Origins One possible influence on Cody’s Wild West was the exhibition of Plains Indians which P. T. Barnum arranged for his ‘‘Congress of Nations’’ in his New York Roman Hippodrome arena in late 1874. Barnum had displayed several small groups of Indians in the museum Lecture Room as early as 1843, and published Life and Adventures of the Indian Chiefs, Warriors and Squaws, of the Winnebago Tribe, now exhibiting at Barnum’s American Museum, New York in 1863, perhaps profiting from interest aroused by the Minnesota Sioux uprising of 1862. He had proposed a much more ambitious show in his 1869 autobiography. Such schemes were not uncommon—John P. Clum presented ‘‘Wild Apaches’’ in St. Louis in 1876. In his letter to Mark Twain, Barnum explained that the Indian-Mexican battle was sandwiched between Amazon chariot races and an English fox hunt. It is possible that Cody saw it during his stay in the city for his winter theater season or during the brief tour of the Congress of Nations through eastern cities before Barnum dissolved the company. Selected Letters of P. T. Barnum, ed. A. H. Saxon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 190. Bridgeport, 19 January 1875 My dear Clemens, . . . I give a scene called Indian Life on the Plains wherein scores of Indians of various tribes appear with their squaws, pappooses, ponies, and wigwams travelling as they do in the Indian territory. They encamp, erect their wigwams, engage in buffalo hunts with real buffaloes, give their Indian war dances, their Indian pony races, snowshoe races, foot races against horses, lasso horses and other animals, and both Indians and squaws give the most amazing specimens of riding at full speed. The Indian camp is surprised by Mexicans, and then ensues such a scene of savage strife and warfare as is never seen except upon our wild western borders. The first ‘‘autobiography’’ of ‘‘Buffalo Bill,’’ building on his dime-novel fame, appeared in 1879. A decade later, Cody’s ‘‘camp-fire chats’’—probably ghost-written by ‘‘Arizona’’ John Burke, the Wild West’s publicist—was sold at the show’s ticket booths. Before beginning a narrative of his life, Cody explained the grander meaning of frontier expansion. Story of the Wild West and Camp-Fire Chats, by Buffalo Bill (Hon. W. F. Cody.) A full THE WILD WEST SHOW 242 and complete history of the renowned pioneer quartette, Boone, Crockett, Carson and Buffalo Bill. Replete with graphic descriptions of wild life and thrilling adventures of famous heroes of the frontier . . . (Philadelphia: Historical Publishing, 1888), v–vi, 694–95. I have sought to describe that great general movement westward—that irresistible wave of immigration which, arrested for a time by the Alleghenies, rose until at last it broke over and spread away across mountain, stream and plain, leaving States in its wake, until stopped by the shores of the Pacific. The evolution of government and of civilization, the adaptation of one to the other, are interesting to the student of history; but particularly fascinating is the story of the reclamation of the Great West and the supplanting of the wild savages that from primeval days were lords of the country but are now become wards of the Government , whose guardianship they were forced to recognize. This story is one well calculated to inspire a feeling of pride even in the breasts of those whose sentimentality impels to commiserate the hard lot of the poor Indian; for, rising above the formerly neglected prairies of the West are innumerable monuments of thrift, industry , intelligence, and all the contributory comforts and luxuries of a peaceful and Godfearing civilization; those evidences that proclaim to a wondering world the march of the Anglo-Saxon race towards the attainment of perfect citizenship and liberal, free, stable government. Cody described how the idea of the Wild West evolved, after his winter triumphs on the stage, and gave no credit to his one-time partner, William Frank ‘‘Doc’’ Carver. In May 1883 Cody joined Carver in Omaha in the Wild West, Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition, billed as ‘‘reality eclipsing romance,’’ with ‘‘Many Types of the Pioneers and Vanguard of Civilization,’’ and ‘‘Representatives of the rugged...

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