The last he ever sent to William F. Cody, and arguably the most poignant, dated January 9, has done so. It had been widely reported that Buffalo Bill was then on his deathbed and the cable reads:. How Koolah old pal.
Burke, John M. Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace. Edited by Chris Dixon.
On April 12, , a little more than three months after this telegram was dispatched, John M. He had been admitted to Providence Hospital, Washington D. Both declared the frontier over. In another telling comment on the ironic counterpoint of the two men appearing at the same time and in the same place as the Great Colombian Exhibition White observes:. Each claimed to be an educator, a historian — to represent in his story an actual past. The stories they told were not so much invented although there was some of that as selected from the past, with the authors erasing images that did not fit.
Such selectivity was necessary, for the past itself is not a story; it is the raw material from which we make coherent stories, not all of them factual. Telling the story of Buffalo Bill was an endeavor whose proportions extended well beyond the Wild West. Burke was the obvious candidate to author the work.
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For the new biography, Burke was able to draw on the autobiography as a key source, recasting much of its material to fit even more directly the myth of the American hero conquering the western frontier. These revisions, together with copy that he had previously penned for various programs, and new material that he wrote relating to more recent events such as those at Wounded Knee in , were brought together with testimonials that he had garnered from prominent military figures. Since its first publication in , Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace has only officially appeared in one subsequent edition, although some of the material was reused by Burke for later Wild West programs.
This new University of Nebraska Press edition of Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace, will, therefore, make the full text and original illustrations of this crucial primary source more readily available whilst providing in the notes background information on both the literary sources on which Burke has drawn, and the historical events and characters mentioned in the work. These annotations serve to contextualize the narrative within the scope of the scholarly discussions of William F.
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They also indicate where further published material is available. All such further material referenced is listed in the bibliography. On one hand, then, using Buffalo Bill as an author was already an established way of conveying a brand rather than attributing authorship. Cody in , formally marks the transition and reinforces the idea that the persona had succeeded the person, and the representation the original, in the intervening decade.
In this context, what exactly does authorship mean, when material blurs the conventional boundaries between historical personage William F.
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Cody and celebrity persona Buffalo Bill? Both productions are authorized by the figure of Buffalo Bill, whether exclusively authored by him or not. In a variation on contemporary publishing terminology, The Wild West in England might best be described as an authorized autobiography. This formula reframes the question of ultimate authorship by recasting it as just one part of a process of mythmaking.
Editor’s Introduction to Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace
In general outline, Story of the Wild West seems to suggest a standard historical narrative that was popularized just a few years later by historian Frederick Jackson Turner. The story line progresses forward in time and further west in space through each successive legendary figure. Turner, Frontier and Section , He emphasizes continuity over difference tying American and European histories together by redirecting the grand narrative of American expansion in its final stage as he heads east to England.
Behind the words in his letter to Cody, Twain probably appreciated the contradictions inherent in finding Americanness in London. But the Wild West in England does not reflect a similar consciousness.
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Upon his return to the United States in the spring of , Cody found that his star had risen. It is an account of how the idea of the frontier was packaged, sold, and centralized within a broader account of American character. The Wild West in England literally concludes Story of the Wild West and provides a fitting end for this sweeping account of frontier heroism. It transports the performance of American nationalism to an international stage.
In addition to the cast of hundreds, and the menagerie of elk, deer, buffalo, cattle, and horses, the show employed an army of workers to build the 20, seat arena and encampment to house performers and stock.
Hundreds of tons of soil were shipped in to recreate a western landscape in the arena. We find a correspondence between commerce and culture in a later episode, wherein Cody uncovers new evidence of an ameliorating spirit between America and Britain: It was a real revival of trade for the booksellers who sold thousands of volumes of Cooper where 20 years before they had sold them in dozens. On the one hand he can be seen as a forerunner of Cody and Twain, for that matter.
His works imagined the American frontier for a generation of readers. He also left the United States to pursue his career in Europe. But, unlike Cody, he found his relationship to his native country had only become complicated by his time abroad. Cooper found himself and his political sympathies called into question by the American press and he would struggle throughout his career to be seen as an authentic American literary voice.
Cooper, like Walter Scott, was a writer of historical romances; Scott established the tradition and Cooper followed in his wake. Scott would always provide the frame of reference for Cooper because the American wrote in the period of perceived cultural dependence.
Cody, also a promoter of historical romances, uses the episode to claim a specific kind of cultural influence. Cody had effectively exported American frontierism as a nationalist ideology where others had failed to do so. By invoking the Leatherstocking books, he identifies in Cooper a cultural genealogy that he purports to transcend. The whole court party rose, the ladies bowed, the generals present saluted, and the English noblemen took off their hats.
It was a great event. We felt that the hatchet was buried at last and the Wild West had been at the funeral. Like The Wild West in England it invokes the British monarchy in order to advance a particular version of American identity. The British press reported the event quite differently, with a much less demonstrative Victoria simply acknowledging the respectful salute of the performers. The Wild West Show has done more to stimulate Americanism among the republicans who travel abroad, and to inculcate respect for Americans, as Americans, among foreigners, than has ever been accomplished by our ministers at the European courts.
Yet the connexion is not really very remote. Exhibitions of American products and of a few scenes from the wilder phases of American life certainly tend to some degree at least to bring America near to England. They are partly cause and partly effect. They are the effect of increased and increasing intercourse between the two countries. Affairs of state notwithstanding, one effect of this and similar assessments, was the enhancement of an increasingly potent Buffalo Bill mythology.
In addition to expanding the arena in which these events played out, the narrative positions Cody in the public eye as both agent and object. Cody repeatedly invokes and, at times, cites at length newspaper reports of his performance. The Wild West in England exhibits Cody as a media celebrity; his selective references to the London Illustrated News , the Sporting Life , and Punch , among others validate his own triumphalism.
Cody, The Wild West in England. Edited and with an introduction by Frank Christianson Lincoln: Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace. Edited by Chris Dixon. This text is under a Creative Commons license: European journal of American studies. Contents - Previous document. University of Nebraska Press, , pp.
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