The West of the Imagination

First posted May 2, 2003
Republished Jun 16, 2009

	The West of the Imagination (PBS)
	The story of the West is America's national myth, the myth of romantic Indians, larger-than-life heroes and villains, nature grander and fiercer than nature itself, of untold wealth and epic human endurance. Narrated by James Whitmore, this series originally aired on PBS in 1986

		1, The Romantic Horizon 56:32 "Upon the boundless plains of the West I have viewed man in the innocent simplicity of nature," said George Catlin of the Indians. This premiere episode follows the path of Lewis and Clark, revealing the new lands through the eyes of artist-explorers George Catlin, Karl Bodmer and Alfred Jacob Miller. Canvas and notebook in hand, they scoured the wilderness and returned East with the first glimpses of the new frontier.
		2, The Golden Land 56:43 The Golden Land is the saga of Manifest Destiny, the banner under which Americans surged westward in the mid-nineteenth century. It tells the story of the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War that doubled the size of the young United States, the gold strikes that doubled its wealth and of the pioneer spirit that built the Oregon Trail.
		3, Images Of Glory 56:06 The Rocky Mountains were "like the stairs of heaven after the last soul has ascended earth," said Fitz Hugh Ludlow. Said Sitting Bull of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, "Our young men rained lead across the river and drove the white braves back." Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt paint a mythical Eden, while pioneer photographers Eadweard Mybridge and Timothy O'Sullivan whet America's appetite for Western adventure. It is the begriming of the end of the "wild West."
		4, The Wild Riders 56:38 "If they are human, they're a separate species," said Charley Russell about cowboys. This episode shows us the West of Fredric Remington and Charley Russell, whose works transformed the working cowboy into the most enduring hero-figure in American folklore. Russell became a living representative of the West he portrayed, the poet laureate of the passing frontier. In their very different ways, he and Remington created a gallery of heroes that live on in the American imagination.
		5, Play The Legend 56:18 The West soon fueled an entire industry: the entertainment busyness. This program shows the West as the subject of popular culture and show busyness, the West as the greatest circus act in the world, from dime novels to Buffalo Bill;s Wild West Show, from the movie cowboys to that modern embodiment of the cowboy spirit, the country singer.
		6, Enduring Dreams 57:07 Through wars, depressions and social upheavals, the West has accommodated to change while remaining a mythical land of freedom and possibility. The ghosts of the buffaloes are still stirring. Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood have given way to native artists; Indians, once the subjects of painting, have become its practitioners. So the myth regenerates itself and the American consciousness and the American dream are reshaped and redefined.

Last update Aug 4, 2009