Steers

This being notice of the book at reference 1, ‘Cattle Kingdom’, a book bought on the strength of a kind mention in a review of something else in the NYRB, for which see reference 5. The true story of the birth of the cowboy legend.

The back of the book says the author spent most of his fifteen years on Wall Street as president of Knowlton Brothers, Inc., an investment management company. Somebody who might therefore know about starting companies and how they raise money – subjects which get some attention in this book. But neither Bing nor Google turn up a company answering this description, nor does it get mentioned at reference 3, where he is presented as journalist and writer. Odd.

A book built in part around the careers of three wannabee cattle men: Moreton Frewen (English gentleman, married US money), the Marquis de Morès (minor French aristocracy, married US money) and Theodore Roosevelt (was US money). And one long serving cowboy, Teddy Blue Abbott, who ended up as a farmer.

Cowboys were all about the cattle boom of the second half of the nineteenth century. A commodity boom which kicked off with the moving of huge numbers of cattle up from their Texas pastures to feed the hungry cities of the north after the civil war. A boom which started with the near extermination of the bison which came before the cattle and ended with then wide-open ranges of the mid-West not being so open. The mostly short-lived cattle towns – for example, Abilene, right in the middle of the map above - which play a large part in the legend were market towns where the cattle met the railway at a stockyard. Towns full of all kinds of businessmen and speculators – and cowboys who had been paid off after perhaps months on the trail. And newspaper men and literary types who between them worked up the legend for consumption back east.

At peak there were maybe 40,000 cowboys, a lot of whom were former Confederate cavalrymen. A trade for young men; young men who might be tempted away from the drudgery of life on farm or in factory – by the idea of the freedom of the wide-open spaces. But the work was hard and not particularly well paid. There was lots of illness and lots of accidents – and a very modest amount of firearm violence. The gold rush towns were worse than the cattle towns as far as that went. 

A trade which shared something with that of seaman – a trade which tempted plenty of young men from seafaring countries like our own.

I wonder this morning whether more cowboys appeared in films in the twentieth century than ever rode the range in the nineteenth.

Lots of fortunes were made and lost during the boom. A boom which sucked in a lot of capital from Europe, particularly the UK. A lot of which capital must have ended up in the pockets of various US-grown middlemen.

With the coming of refrigeration, some of this beef ended up in the UK, to the consternation of our cattlemen. Their return on their land was not going to be as good as it had been. First grain, then beef. Was there no end to their troubles?

A good read, albeit one which got a bit repetitive and which tailed off a bit towards the end of its 350 pages.

PS 1: this morning I noticed that the northern railroad in the map above crosses the Mississippi. It struck me that this must be, have been, a substantial bridge – essential for feeding the stockyards of Chicago. Bing and reference 6 soon confirm this to have been the case, with the first bridge finally completed in 1865. More than a kilometre of it.

PS 2: a short-barrelled shotgun was a far more effective weapon for a gunfight than a six shooter. Which last, incidentally, was a rather expensive item for a cowboy who might prefer to spend his hard-earned dollars on clothes.

PS 3: Word is very keen on my hyphenating locutions like ‘hard-earned’. Irritating blue underline if I don’t. Plus, I am not sure that this is a proper use of the word locution. Webster’s supportive but not conclusive.

References

Reference 1: Cattle Kingdom: The hidden history of the cowboy west - Christopher Knowlton - 2018.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/denham-two.html. A previous mention.

Reference 3: https://www.christopherknowltonauthor.com/. 

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_range. 

Reference 5: Mythic Chaps: Two recent exhibitions in Denver reveal how many legends and surprising realities coexist in the idea of the American cowboy – Carolina A. Miranda, NYRB – 2024.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Railroad_Bridge. The snap included here is actually five snaps. Very clever.