How Wild Was the Wild West?

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More

Gary Arndt

Education, History

4.7 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The media portrayal of the wild west is filled with gunfights in the middle of the street, bank robberies, and vigilantes. In fact, it is very difficult to find a media portrayal that doesn’t use the wild west as a backdrop for some struggle of good vs. evil and of criminals vs. lawmen. But how accurate is this portrayal? Have Western movies been lying to us? Learn more about just how wild the wild west was and the accuracy of its portrayal in movies on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors BetterHelp is an online platform that provides therapy and counseling services to individuals in need of mental health support. The platform offers a range of communication methods, including chat, phone, and video sessions with licensed and accredited therapists who specialize in different areas, such as depression, anxiety, relationships, and more. Get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/Everywhere ButcherBox is the perfect solution for anyone looking to eat high-quality, sustainably sourced meat without the hassle of going to the grocery store. With ButcherBox, you can enjoy a variety of grass-fed beef, heritage pork, free-range chicken, and wild-caught seafood delivered straight to your door every month. Visit ButcherBox.com/Daily to get 10% off and free chicken thighs for a year. InsideTracker provides a personal health analysis and data-driven wellness guide to help you add years to your life—and life to your years. Choose a plan that best fits your needs to get your comprehensive biomarker analysis, customized Action Plan, and customer-exclusive healthspan resources. For a limited time, Everything Everywhere Daily listeners can get 20% off InsideTracker’s new Ultimate Plan. Visit InsideTracker.com/eed. Subscribe to the podcast! https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The media portrayal of the Wild West is filled with gunfights in the middle of the street, bank robberies and vigilantes.
0:06.0	In fact, it's very difficult to find a movie portrayal that doesn't use the Wild West as a backdrop for some sort of struggle of good versus evil and of criminal
0:14.3	versus lawman.
0:16.1	But how accurate is this portrayal?
0:18.2	Have Western movies been lying to us?
0:20.7	Learn more about just how Wild the Wild West was and the accuracy of its portrayal in movies
0:25.9	on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. When motion pictures started in the early 20th century, one of the first genres to find popularity with the public was the Western.
0:51.0	There were common themes in most Westerns of outlaws and lawmen.
0:54.8	There were depictions of cowboys and Indians.
0:57.2	Scores were settled in the middle of the street by two men staring each other down
1:00.5	to see who was the faster draw. These are just a few of the
1:03.9	tropes which exist in many Western movies and are some of the ideas which have
1:07.3	been propagated about life in the Old West. So if we're going to look into
1:11.2	this let's start by defining exactly what we're talking about when we say the Old West or the Wild West.
1:17.0	There's no set definition of the term, but we're roughly talking about the period from 1850 to 1900 in the region west of the Mississippi
1:26.0	River. Some people might put the start date around 1860 and some may put the end date around 1890
1:32.1	or even 1910.
1:34.1	Most of the area we're talking about for most of this period
1:37.0	were federal territories or had recently just achieved statehood.
1:41.2	These areas had low populations and low population densities. So with that
1:46.0	we can start with the institution which has a central role in most stories of
1:49.7	the Wild West, the saloon. The word Saloon is an Americanized version of the word
	...

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