Seeking Pleasure in the Old West

by David Dary

Book Overview

"Pioneering Americans of the nineteenth century did not merely rush for gold, lust for land, and thrust aside the West's original inhabitants. These mountain men, cowboys, homesteaders, and cavalry troopers played nearly as hard as they worked, exploiting to the hilt what little leisure they could steal from their labors. Nor did they only carouse--drink, gamble, and womanize--as the West's fiction might suggest. They were spectators at bull and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0700608281
• ISBN13: 9780700608287
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Finding Pleasure in the Old West

This is an interesting book regarding how Indians, explorers, trappers, soldiers, miners, and pioneers filled their leisure hours. It was well-written and well-researched. A writer would be able to turn to it for ideas for their own writing.

Chillin' In The Old West!!

Great book...Great subject...Great writing...Lots of info....The author sets out his goal in the intro and he follows through...Very well organized....I liked the parts about the old Monte games and other card games....More illustrations for the card games would have been cool....This is a good book to have lying around your mountain cabin to read by the fire on a snowy day

What we did for fun . . .

The title of this book may seem misleading to readers looking for accounts of bawdy behavior on the frontier. Social historian David Dary doesn't pretend that church picnics were the height of fun in the Old West, but much of what his book describes are innocent pastimes. While saloons, brothels, and so-called pleasure palaces do get their mention, the book is chiefly a compendium of simple leisure activities and forms of entertainment. Organized by chapter somewhat roughly by social groups (mountain men, Indians, emigrants, soldiers, cowboys), locations (along rivers, along railroads, in mining areas), and regions (Southwest, Northwest), the book imposes a kind of order over a vast encyclopedia of loosely related information. There's no grand theme, thesis or narrative holding it all together, so casual readers can dip into the book wherever impulse takes them without getting lost. I particularly liked the chapter on soldiers, which briefly summarizes the campaigns of the Army of the West and the establishing of forts during the 19th century. Because the focus is on the passing of time between the waging of war (against Mexico, against the Indians), we get a different picture of military life than is the norm in history books. I enjoyed the accounts taken from the journals of soldiers and officers' wives of simple pleasures taken in the pristine wilderness of the prairie and of social events like theatricals, concerts, Fourth of July celebrations, holiday feasts, and dances organized for entertainment at the forts. Familiar with cowboy culture, I found less that was new to me in the "Cow Country" chapter, but Dary provides a snapshot of this extensive subject that represents it fairly. His speculations on the rise and evolution of singing cowboys, particularly on the cattle drives, is interesting. Snippets of song lyrics help to illustrate this oral tradition. The book's many photographs and illustrations complement the text well, although the limitations of early photography often required subjects to be stiffly posed. The physical spontaneity that's an essential part of many forms of pleasure eludes the camera. Thus, for instance, there are numerous photos of men playing cards. Altogether the book represents a heroic effort to assemble a picture of a vast subject. The value of this book is less in the overall generalities and more in the specific details, especially in the excerpts from journals and other documents where pleasures taken are vividly described.

A real bargain!

There's a LOT--and I mean a LOT--of content here for the price! Mr. Dary has managed to cover a surprisingly broad range of Old West life far beyond what you could ever imagine from movies, TV, or novels--or even other books on this same topic. Full of black-and-white photos, although it reads a bit academic in style. If your purpose is research, the price for this book is money well-spent. You won't be disappointed.

An entertaining and enlightening look at our ancestors.

(Note: This review was written for the hard-back edition of the book.) March 28, 1999A must read for anyone interested in learning about how our nineteenth century ancestors living on the American frontier sought to bring pleasure into their lives. The book's strongest point however, is also its weakest, as Dary attempts to address the entire spectrum of frontier society but, unfortunately, falls short. He fails to mention some of the so-called "fringe" elements of society that existed on the frontier long before the arrival of the waves of settlers from the east. Although there are entire chapters on the early explorers, mountain men, and Indians, little, if any, mention is made of the French-Indian mixed-blood settlements that already existed along the Missouri River and its tributaries such as the Kansas River. He also fails to address the pleasures sought by the black populace that started spreading westward after the Civil War. There is also only brief mention of the Chinese population that helped build the railroads and were present in just about every frontier town.Despite these shortcomings, Dary's descriptions of pioneer life are fascinating. The simple things that bought pleasure to our ancestors are difficult for our modern society to understand. Perhaps Dary's most salient point is saved until the very end when he stresses how the pioneers created their own entertainment that almost always required active participation on their part and which usually involved the participation of others. He contrasts that with our society in which "pleasure providers" tell us what is pleasurable and what isn't. He then leaves it to the reader's discretion whether these changes are for the better or worse.