June 12, 2001
The Old West: Was It Built by Cowboys or Directors?
The Autry Museum of Western Heritage is always an interesting field trip. It contains both actual artifacts of the 19th Century American West and of media depictions of it.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

The Autry does a good job of dealing with the question: Where does the real American West end and the media Old West begin?
We considered such odd trends as the Singing Cowboys of the 1930s-50s in light of the cross-media possibilities.
The gallery winds around in roughly chronological fashion. By the 1950s, singing cowboy stars are beginning to conquer a new medium, television.
Westerns on TV and elsewhere also opened the possibililty to merchandising of shows and characters.

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