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Article Excerpt
Introduction
The story of the American frontier is a foundational myth. It both reveals how Americans view themselves as 'Americans' and informs the actions they take on a local and global stage (Slotkin, 1992, p. 10). Like all national (hi)stories, it is a dynamic myth, adapting to the demands of an age and the psychological needs of those who would tell the story as their own. It is a story that first began to be told in the eighteenth century, and one that took on particular importance in the late nineteenth century when Frederick Jackson Turner (1994) first read his paper, 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History', to an audience of nearly 200 historians gathered in Chicago during the World's Columbian Exhibition:
Up to our own day American history has been in large degree the history of colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development. (p. 31)
But it was another figure of that time, William Frederick 'Buffalo Bill' Cody, who popularized the story of the frontier. Born in Iowa territory in 1846, William Cody was many things--a frontiersman, civilian scout, Pony Express rider and hunting guide. He did not become a well-known public figure, however, until the early 1870s when pulp novelist Ned Buntline transformed Cody into the legendary hero, Buffalo Bill. The dime novel press was a key force in fostering national and international interest in the West (Kasson, 2000, p. 201), and 'More dime store novels were written about "Buffalo Bill" than any other western character' (Sorg, 1998, p. xiii). Had Buffalo Bill remained merely a colorful character in dime novel fiction, then the history of the West may have been remembered very differently than it was for much of the twentieth century.
But Cody was an entrepreneur. Recognizing the public's appetite for narratives of western settlement, especially those involving clashes with Indian 'savages', he embraced the image of Buffalo Bill and 're-created himself as a walking icon' (White, 1994, p. 11). In 1883, Cody launched a carnivalesque arena show known as Buffalo Bill's Wild West, which blended his life experiences with the exploits of his mythic alter ego, Buffalo Bill, into a master narrative of the frontier. 'Fact' and 'fiction' became indistinguishable (Slotkin, 1992, pp. 81-82). Although the images of the frontier it presented were highly selective, dramatized, and romanticized, 'the Wild West ... seemed like an invitation into living history' (Buffalo Bill Museum, 1995, p. 31). A renowned storyteller and showman, Cody 'never referred to his Wild West as a show' (White, 1994, p. 7), and audiences in the United States and Europe saw the Wild West as a serious attempt to tell the history of the West (Slotkin, 1992, pp. 67-68). By the time it ended its run in 1913, 'Buffalo Bill was the most famous American of his time' (Tompkins, 1992, p. 179) and he 'typified the Wild West to more people in more parts of the world than any other person' (Lamar, 1977, p. 230).
In telling the story of the frontier, Buffalo Bill's Wild West 'defined the quintessential American hero' (Buffalo Bill Museum, 1995, p. 28) and brought 'the essence of the American West to the world' (Treasures, 1992, p. 8). With its dramatic images of untamed lands and cowboy heroes, frontier mythology is distinctly Anglo and 'American' in character, for as Will Wright (2001) asserts, the White 'cowboy represents the American idea, not just American history' (p. 2). Over the past half century, both the stories of the frontier and the key sites in which those stories are told have changed, but the frontier myth has remained a vital part of US national identity (Wright, p. 10). To gain a richer understanding of how the frontier myth is constructed in contemporary US culture, we turn to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC) and more particularly the Buffalo Bill Museum (BBM). The BBM is, we believe, especially well suited for examining memory, myth, and their intersection, both because of its significance as a museum of Western history and its particular connection to Buffalo Bill.
It is difficult to contest the importance of the BBHC as a key site in the construction of public memory regarding the 'Old West.' Composed of five internationally acclaimed museums (The Buffalo Bill Museum, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, The Plains Indian Museum, The Cody Firearms Museum, and The Draper Museum of Natural History), the Center encompasses over 300,000 square feet, making it the largest history and art museum between Minneapolis and the West Coast. Once described by author lames Michener as 'The Smithsonian of the West' ('Buffalo Bill', 2001, p. 4), the BBHC 'is widely regarded as this country's finest western museum' (Visitor's guide). Although the whole complex certainly deserves analysis, the Center's size and complexity constrain what can be adequately addressed in one journal paper. More importantly, Buffalo Bill and the museum dedicated to his life provide the authorial voice for the entire Center and activates the central narrative of the frontier in constructing a national identity. Therefore, our analysis focuses on only the Buffalo Bill Museum, which establishes the narrative form of the Center and addresses many of the rhetorical issues raised by the BBHC as a whole. Based on its rhetorical invitations to collective memory and national identity, we argue that the Buffalo Bill Museum privileges images of Whiteness and masculinity, while using the props, films, and posters of Buffalo Bill's Wild West to carnivalize the violent conflicts between Anglo Americans and Native Americans.
In order to illustrate this claim, we first briefly outline the history of the museum itself. We then chart the material and symbolic ways that history museums function as rhetorical invitations to collective memory and national identity. Third, we move to an analysis of the Buffalo Bill Museum and to the specific ways it privileges Whiteness and masculinity, and carnivalizes the violent colonization of the West. Finally, we reflect upon what an analysis of the BBM suggests, not only about the construction of a particular nationalized myth, but also about the roles that White masculinity and carnivalized violence play in that myth.
The Building of the Buffalo Bill Museum
Although we do not wish to perpetuate an intentional fallacy, briefly tracing the history of the Buffalo Bill Museum and Buffalo Bill Historical Center can help clarify the ideological and economic forces that shaped the construction and function of the museum. The Buffalo Bill Museum started as little more than a local institution. Housed in a small log building designed as a replica of William Cody's TE ranch house (just outside of Cody, Wyoming), the museum was an odd collection of Buffalo Bill and Western memorabilia, taxidermied animals, historic firearms, the putative scalp of Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hair, and a display of locally produced art (Nicholas, 2002, p. 449).
From the very beginning, however, the founders of the museum had national aspirations. By 1924, sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (an heir to significant fortunes) had purchased better land for the museum (adjacent to the original Buffalo Bill Museum and site of the current complex), built a Buffalo Bill memorial sculpture (The Scout), and transported it to Cody using her own money (Bartlett, 1992, pp. 46-53). Her initial gift was valued at $50,000. However, this gift was dwarfed by the support of William Robertson Coe, who became the institution's most important Eastern supporter (Bartlett, 1992, pp. 117-118). Born and raised in England, Coe believed that Americans took their traditions for granted (Nicholas, 2002, p. 450). Coe focused his attention and considerable financial resources to educate Americans in these traditions, and he saw the Buffalo Bill Museum as a powerful site for this pedagogy. Located in the heart of the Wyoming, a state that Coe believed was still 'fresh with the pioneer spirit' (quoted in Nicholas, 2002, p. 452), the Buffalo Bill Museum could 'tell the deep cultural stories about the West' (Nicolas, 2002, p. 459). Further funding for building the Buffalo Bill Museum itself came through the sale of Buffalo Bill commemorative rifles built by Winchester, which was owned at the time by John Olin. On the market in the late 1960s, the rifles were priced at $129.95 with $5.00 per rifle going to the BBM. Revenue from the sales of the rifles totaled approximately $825,000, enough to build the BBM wing of the Center. [1]
This short history of the funding and the building of the Buffalo Bill Museum raises three important issues. First, by the late 1950s and 1960s, the BBM was designed as an educational institution, a purpose that is reflected today in the institution's mission statement: 'The Buffalo Bill Historical Center is a museum that educates the public by advancing knowledge about the American West through acquiring, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting collections' (J. Hedderman, personal communication, March, 8, 2004). Second, supporters' interests in the museum were primarily national, not local, in scope. The museum was designed to attract audiences from across the nation, and the representations in the museum narrate a story of national significance. [2] Finally, the museum's location in Wyoming was and is crucial both to its pedagogical mission and its growth into a nationally recognized institution (Nicholas, 2002, pp. 439, 449). As Bartlett (1992) asserts, 'the Historical Center is devoted to the history of the American West, and perhaps no other...
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