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Cowboy
Cowboy, name given during the Revolution to lawless marauders who pillaged neutral territory and were supposedly favorable to the English. Those who favored the rebels were known as Skinners. Both figure in fiction about the Revolutionary War, particularly Cooper's The Spy. The term “cowboy” has since been applied, particularly in the West, to cattle herders, and there are distinctive cowboy ballads and tall tales. Popular romancing about the cowboy dates back to dime novels and other pulp fiction beginning in the 1870s, preceding infrequent realistic reminiscences like A Texas Cowboy (1885) by Charles Siringo. Owen Wister's The Virginian (1902) became the classic handling of the type, far surpassing in popularity the literary works of writers who had more experience of cowboy life, such as Andy Adams's The Log of a Cowboy (1903) and E.M. Rhodes's Good Men and True (1910). The mythology of the masculine and heroic cowboy has been continued in a large body of fiction from the time of Clarence E. Mulford (Hopalong Cassidy, 1910), Zane Grey (Riders of the Purple Sage, 1912), and Max Brand (Destry Rides Again, 1930) to modern paperback publications of Louis L'Amour. The works of these authors and others in their vein have been further popularized in numerous film versions by stars who have included William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and John Wayne. Cowboys have also been the subject of television programs.
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James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Cowboy." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Cowboy." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-Cowboy.html James D. Hart and and Phillip W. Leininger. "Cowboy." The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 1995. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O123-Cowboy.html |
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cowboy
cowboy Originally, a lawless marauder. The name was first applied to some pro-British gangs in the USA during the American War of Independence, who roamed the neutral ground of Westchester county in New York state (their Revolutionary counterparts were ‘skinners’). By the 1870s, a cowboy described a herder of cattle on the Great Plains. The cattle industry spread across the Great Plains from Texas to Canada and westward to the Rocky Mountains. The introduction of barbed wire to fence in ranches rapidly encroached on the open ranges, and by 1895 railway expansion had made trail-driving uneconomical, and cowboys settled to work on the cattle ranches.
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"cowboy." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "cowboy." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-cowboy.html "cowboy." A Dictionary of World History. 2000. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-cowboy.html |
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cowboy
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"cowboy." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "cowboy." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-cowboy.html "cowboy." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-cowboy.html |
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cowboy
cowboy
•sandboy • bellboy • rentboy • playboy
•pageboy • lifebuoy • tomboy
•ballboy, tallboy
•cowboy • houseboy
•doughboy, hautboy, lowboy
•homeboy • toyboy • schoolboy
•bootboy • newsboy • busboy
•choirboy • paperboy • attaboy
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Cite this article
"cowboy." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "cowboy." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-cowboy.html "cowboy." Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes. 2007. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O233-cowboy.html |
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