Was the old West really romantic?

Question

The West as a geographic Region has been viewed as romantic place where new opportunity and “rugged individualism flourished in the latter half of the 19th century.

Anyone care to challenge the notion of this romanticism by looking at the “frontier thesis”, the struggles of farmers, miners and ethnic groups that populated the Great Plains and the Far West?

Answer 1

No it was a tough, dirty place....Not for the faint of heart!

Answer 2

Depends on many things. For the guy that had a mercantile or a shipping company in San Francisco, yeah, it was a great era. I've seen some of the old town sites in very remote reaches of Arizona that only existed about 10 years or so. Usually failed mining towns. Things had to be tough and lonely there. And too, there were a lot of folks that filled every gap in between. I think that's why the old west stories are recounted as individual stories because each was so individual.

Answer 3

As a geographical region yes the Old West was very romantic. I believe it still is today. I just got back from vacation in South Dakota and I can tell you that the landscape still has the ability to inspire. As far as settling the area and facing the hardships described, you would face those hardships or similar ones trying to settle in a new land just about any where.

Answer 4

Sounds like you just outlined a history project? what grade? (grins)

Anything can be seen as romantic by some people.
A visit to venice - romantic
looking at what is really in the water in the canals at venice - not romantic
france- romantic
france how they treat us Americans - unromantic and downright rude.

The old west of course had its romance, time for love and yearning, But it also had the bad side of stuff. Indian wars, plague, pestilence, dustbowl farming, forest fires, railroad tycoons and cattle barons duking it out with the landowners , settles, and the sheep-herders.

I see the old west, the "romance" of it as more a mindset that of the adventurer, of seeing a skyline few have seen before, for proving yourself in an area that as broken alot of people. The quiet outdoors, witht the lions and tigers and bears (oh my) making noise in the distance, knowing, that there is not another soul for 50 miles.

Also, on the basis of romance, look at the romance novels.. You have the daring dashing hansome pirate, you have the evil powerful black knight, you have the daring soldier that saves the person from death.. Strong men (or women) playing strong roles (imagine love at first rape as in the novels), the stero typical old west person was a strong man.. living thru the hardships, eeaking a life out of the rock, working 22 hours a day to keep the cattle going, driving the cattle 500 miles to market.. overall though it is the thought of these men, and not the men themselves that is the romantic part.
Lets look more to the truth:
washing.. If you were rich, you could afford the clean hot water.. for 25 cents, after he finished, 20 cents for the warm, dirty water, 15 cents for cooler dirtier water, all the way down to 5 cents for the dregs of the bathtub.
Health... communicable diseases ran rampant, illness could lock a whole town down because of the threat of spread. Tooth care was next to nothing, so blackened gingivitised teeth were common.
Health, the original doctors were for keeping you healthy, if you could afford it.. If you wanted to have a bullet removed, it was the barber you went to.. he had the sharpest blades in town and was not afraid to use them..
Vitamins and healty upkeep were almost unknown, antibiotics and cosmetic surgery were impossible at the time.
women had as high as a 20% mortality rate for childbirth and almost 1 in 3 children did not survive to their teen years.

It does not sound romantic at all to me.

Answer 5

Rugged would be a much more applicable word than romantic, from what I have read.

We enjoy our modern conveniences and take them for granted, but if you lived out in the country, the best thing you could have nearby was a source of water -- whatever temperature it was when it came out of the ground, and not purified in any way. No toilets and water had to be heated for any kind of bathing. Clothes tended to be homespun and rough, and you'd better not have sensitive skin because lye can be pretty harsh. You had to eat whatever vegetables you managed to get to grow, no matter how puny or worm-eaten they were, unless you had a big farm, therefore big crops, unless they were devastated by insects and/or weather.

You were hot in the summer with no air conditioning and cold in the winter unless you were lucky enough to have a reliable source of heat that everybody could be warmed by.

If you had livestock, they were subject to starvation and disease, assuming nobody stole them.

It was a very difficult life for most people, but on the other hand for a lot of people it was all they knew.

Answer 6

The West was not romantic, but it was a way for people who had very little to make something of themselves. The land back east was all claimed and the land in the west was "free" if you could just survive long enough to prove your homestead with seven years of labor. A lot of people failed, but those who made it did ok.

It also gave a place for the restless to go. Now we have no place for them so they end up in prison. Until we make the major push toward space, the restless factor in our society will continue to be a problem.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

you watch way too much tv or watch way too many movies (about the west). it was cold, harsh, life was way shorter than what we enjoy. women had & raised children at home, without medicine and often lived long enough to bury their small ones. a 20 year old person looked like they were 40 or more. i think we romantize a lot due to the fact we're here & the times were there! we try to relive through dude ranches & read/watch western books & movies that are not the 'real deal'. the best ones i saw are the ones produced & acted by clint eastwood. he celebrates the west but the real west, warts & all. see "pale rider". great movie, wonderful book and depicts the real west, small dirty towns, the mud, the blood & hardships one had to endure.

Answer 9

I don't know about the Old West, but I live in Arizona now, and I have a difficult time imagining it ever being romantic. Sorry, just far to much dust for me.

Answer 10

In literature, books and magazines, in movies and television there is much to glamorize the westward movement. But little mentioned is the Eastward Movement. Many folks who went West eventually returned to the East. It is portrayed in the photograph of a covered wagon with a sign written on the side of the canvas top: "In God we trust, in Kansas we busted". One only needs to walk through cemeteries in the West to see the number of infants and newborns to see how many early deaths occurred to these vulnerable little ones.

Answer 11

Only in Hollywood movies!!! Nothing "romantic" about truly noble and courageous settlers who faced death, starvation, gruelling travel conditions as well as swindlers. Their courage, resourcefulness, tears and laughter opened the West.