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!z1EqmnNb22 08/28/11(Sun)06:51 No.4900955
File1314528691.jpg-(726 KB, 932x772, 1900morningfrockloungexl9.jpg)
 >>4900940
That's
something you could debate for a while. There aren't any hard dates,
because it didn't just start or end one day particularly. Really, it's
defined by imagery and the partly lawless atmosphere more than anything.
Revolvers and wide brimmed hats have been around as early as the
1840's, so you could consider the first activities of the Texas Rangers
to be around the first time you might recognize an "old west" type of
setting. Generally I consider it starting during and after the civil
war, so roughly 1860. The high period of the west would be the 60's,
70's, and 80's. By the late 1890's the west was a lot like the east, and
the lawless element had declined pretty seriously. Of course, the
imagery still remains, so it still looks like the old west, and you do
have some pretty rough events going on in Oklahoma and the Texas border
until 1912 or so. The Mexican Revolution also stirred things up and
helped keep alive the lawless sort of environment for a little longer.
I'd say it's officially over by 1920 and the end of the Mexican
Revolution, but by that point it had long been out of its heyday for a
while.
Things were always nicer at west than people realize,
especially by the 1870's and 80's, which is the high point of the old
west. Tombstone, which was all the way out in Arizona, had frequent
shipments of clothing from paris, an ice cream shop, and by 1880,
working electricity. A good number of western towns actually had
electrically lit mainstreets complete with marquees and streetlights.
Folks were also not nearly as dirty as is commonly though. In town,
people had regular access to bathing, and though it was a societal norm,
some people are recorded as bathing as often as once a day. In some
places your more concerned members might clean up two or three times a
week. Not to mention there were operating laundry services. So the old
west was certainly wild, but not quite as dirty as people might imagine. |
