Mythmakers of the West : Shaping America's Imagination

by Murray, John A.

• ISBN13: 9780873587723
• ISBN10: 0873587723
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-01
• Publisher: Natl Book Network

Summary

From the exploration of Lewis & Clark to the epic western of John Ford, Murray provides readers with a unique and entertaining tribute to the legends and dreamers who shaped America's imagination.

Table of Contents

Preface	vi
Introduction Lighting Out
The American West as Mythic Province	1	(10)
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Visual Artists and the Landscape of Legend	11	(38)
Images of a Vanishing People	14	(2)
George Catlin
The Pantheistic Sublime	16	(4)
Albert Bierstadt
Thomas Moran
The End of Something	20	(3)
Frederic Remington
Charles Russell
The Taos Society of Artists Inside the Gates of Eden	23	(3)
Across the High and Wild	26	(3)
Carl Rungius
Visions and Revisions	29	(3)
Maynard Dixon
The Search for One Pure Image	32	(4)
Ansel Adams
Edward Weston
New Directions	36	(3)
Imogen Cunningham
Inner Landscapes	39	(2)
Georgia O'Keeffe
Native Son	41	(4)
T. C. Cannon
Radiant Darkness	45	(4)
Russell Chatham
Of Films and Fable
Motion Pictures as Mythmakers	49	(20)
Eden Invaded	51	(3)
John Ford
John Wayne
The Big Sky on the Small Screen	54	(2)
Television Westerns
Innocence Betrayed	56	(3)
Marilyn Monroe
The Pursuit of Justice	59	(3)
Clint Eastwood
Heroes and Anti-Heroes	62	(3)
Robert Redford
Requiem for the Past	65	(4)
Kevin Costner
The Light of the Western Stars
The Western Writer as Fabulist	69	(42)
Paradise Found	72	(2)
Lewis
Clark
The Birth of the Literary West	74	(4)
Washington Irving
Francis Parkman
How It Was	78	(6)
John Bourke
O. O. Howard
Cochise
Geronimo
The Comic West	84	(2)
Mark Twain
Last Light Breaking	86	(3)
Theodore Roosevelt
Nature's West	89	(2)
John Muir
O Pioneers!	91	(3)
Willa Cather
Mari Sandoz
Days in the Field	94	(2)
Mary Austin
Pulp Fiction	96	(2)
Zane Grey
The Realistic Southwest	98	(2)
John Steinbeck
West of the Hundredth Meridian	100	(4)
A. B. Guthrie
Wallace Stegner
Mother Nature's Son	104	(3)
Edward Abbey
Yesterday and Today	107	(4)
Larry Mcmurtry
Music, Sweet Music
Popular Song in the Service in Myth	111	(32)
The Romance of the Cowboy	113	(3)
Ballads
Laments
As Free as the Wind Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys	116	(2)
The Dark Side of the Dream	118	(2)
Woody Guthrie
The Power of Optimism Buddy Holly and the Crickets	120	(3)
The Fat West as Creative Wellspring Pacific Coast Music	123	(1)
Los Angeles: Endless Summer	123	(7)
San Francisco: Somebody to Love	130	(2)
Seattle: Purple Haze	132	(2)
Rocky Mountain High	134	(3)
John Denver
The Outlaw Life	137	(2)
Willie Nelson
Down by the River	139	(4)
Selena
A Country of the Mind
The Province of the West in Popular Culture	143	(21)
The Call of the Wild	145	(3)
Folk Legends
Exodus to the West	148	(3)
Mormonism
Visions of El Dorado The Fred Harvey Company and the Santa fe Railway	151	(2)
Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys	153	(3)
Dude Ranches
The Selling of the West Commercial Advertising	156	(3)
The Transcendent Landscape Arizona Highways	159	(2)
``Get Your Kicks, on Route Sixty-Six!'' Route 66	161	(3)
Afterword Only the Earth Endures	164	(4)
A Chronology of the West	168	(6)
Selected Bibliography	174	(3)
Index	177