Synopses & Reviews
In his introduction to THE AMERICAN COWBOY, Bob Edgar speaks of a “farsighted
fraternity”—the photographers such as Belden, Huffman, Koerner,
Smith, and Kendrick—who recorded images of cattle drives, frontier towns,
roundup camps, cowboys on the range, chuck wagons, and horses and cattle.
They probably knew that they were recording for posterity both a dramatic and
emotive period in history and a changing country, in this case the cattlemen’s
frontier, which existed from the end of the Civil War to the early part of the twentieth
century.
Through selections from museums and state historical society collections,
THE AMERICAN COWBOY puts together a stirring series of images that capture the
movement of life on the range. Now, as our frontier extends itself into a new
millennium with disparate concerns, THE AMERICAN COWBOY offers an evocative
message of “a dream and a forgetting, a chapter forever closed.”
Review
"An entertaining... account of actual cowboys and their experiences (with) very solid photo reproductions. His selection of photographs works quite well with the essay."--
Library Journal"This is a wonderful book and a must for anyone who collects cowboy photo books."--Cowboy Magazine
"The American Cowboy puts together a stirring series of images that capture the movement of life on the range. That this way of life no longer exists lends additional poignancy."--Log Home Design
"These black-and-white photographs capture the ruggedness of the Westernlifestyle and the men who lived it."--Mountain Living Magazine
"This history is not of some great epic, but a realistic record of a way of life as "gone with the wind" as Southern tales of cotton and tobacco plantations."--The News (Southbridge, MA)
About the Author
BOB EDGAR is an historian, archaeologist, and the curator of The Museum of the Old West at Old Trail Town in Cody, Wyoming.