Welcome everyone to the final event of whats been a terrific three days. You start to plan these things and you think well have this person and that person. There was this moment when we started to put the program on to paper and said they have 36 different speakers on this thing and it became exceeded our expectations certainly and so thank you to everyone for all the terrific presentations. So thanks, very much. And this wont be the last you will have heard from the gathered scholars. We are going to compile and edit a new volume in our William F Cody series on the history and culture of the american press. So all of the presenters are invited as they know to submit their work for consideration for this volume and all the rest of you are invited to purchase and read that volume when it comes out. So stay tuned. Its a great pleasure to introduce tonights key note speaker. Paul andrew hutten is an american cultural historian. Hes an Award Winning author. Hes documentary writer and television personality. He serves as a distinguished professor of history at the university of new mexico and as we all know hes published quite widely in both scholarly, academic venues and popular magazines and hes reached a very large audience through that kind of work. His work has been recogs in recognized far and wide and a sixtime winner of the western Heritage Award from the western Heritage Museum for his work in both print and film. Its his book that jeremy mentioned that received the billingten prize from the organization of american historians. The evans biography award and a spur award. But hes also the editor of several books we have on our shelves. Western heritage, round up. The custer reader and soldiers west. As well as a 10volume eye witness to the civil war series that he did in the 90s. He started in many ways reaching and shaping western historical scholarship when he was an associate editor at the historical quarterly and editor of the new Mexico Historical review. Now he has written several short films, dozen of Television Documentaries and appeared upon, if this is to be believed, over 300 Television Programs on major networks, Public Television and Cable Networks as well. You may have known or seen the work that he did behind the scenes as a historical consultant on ron howards film, the missing. He also worked on john fabros cowboys and aliens. And most recently on Gavin Oconnors jane got a gun. Hes been very active as a public historian making an imprint on programming at museums by guest cureating kpints, on everything from the alamo, the custer legend, davy crocket and billy the kid. The latest book was published by crown in may. And it was recognized with a 2017 western riders of america spur award for the best nonfiction. But coming up through western history, my academic career came up during the time we just saw reflekted in the various toasts that we had. The heady era of the new western history, old western history range wars. And you know, paul hutten served as the executive director of the western History Association from 19 to 2006. So, you know, when we think of davy crocket, we have a popular image in our mind. But we think of the loan ranger, its going to be played with more. When we think of james bond, its got to be sean connery. When you think of the western historian, you think of paul hutten. So its my great plesher to speak to tom to speak to us tonight. I know its just so calm and to think of me and sean connery the same way. Its really my wife does. Not. I want to thank the Buffalo Bills center of the west. I want to thank jeremy and his excellent staff. This really has been the marvelous three days. The only thing ive really learned as ive aged is how little i know and being round all these bright Young Scholars this week has certainly shown me just really how little i know about something i thought i knew everything about. Its this wonderful new work and exciting new work. As a historian, one of the things that makes you get up in the morning and after hearing the nintroduction, i understand why im so tired. But i certainly appreciate so much all that they are doing to bring about new insights but also to discover new material. We were shown all kinds of new material and his show this week thats absolutely astonishing to me. So, thank you all for educating me this week. I dont know if im going to educate you this night. The story im going to tell is a familiar one but i sort of thought that schematically i might be able to pull together here is the last speaker. Some of the things weve been talking about this last week and put buffalo bill in perspective and let me start doing that by telling you a personal story because weve been getting calls this week as well. The of course you know were here because its the centennial of Buffalo Bills death, william codys death, in 1917, the year of my mothers birth. And then in 1968, 51 years later i first visited this wonderful institution in company with two of my high school chums, steve hor witz and we had just graduated from Short Ridge High School in indianapolis. And we had dons volkswagen bus and simon and garfunkels america ringing in our ears. And we went out in search of america. Im still looking. Well, the boys were anxious to get to the clime ax of our trip, the final destination, the really golden dream at the end of the western rainbow for all young men. Las vegas, nevada. But i would not be a party to the trip unless we visited first the black hills, then the little big horn battle field and then here to cody, wyoming to this museum. And they reluctantly agreed to that and they were perhaps not as delighted as i was by this institution in 1968 but they pretended to be charmed. Well, its now been 49 years since i made that journey. 51 years from the time of Buffalo Bills death to the time i made the journey, 49 years now since i did that and my point to you is just how short our history as a nation is. And how an institution like this and what were trying to convey is in fact a connection point, something that connects us to americans living past. And it is alive and dictates so much of our actions. Whats the old joke . People who dont know the past are have to repeat it and of course the curse of historians is they do know the past and have to watch the country repeat it over and over. And over. And if you live long aenough, you get to see it repeated again. I used to watch days of our lives. They just repeat the same plots over again. So sad. New people, same story. William f cody was a man seemingly trapped in a distant past. Yet, he was one who cared desperately about an onrushing future for himself, for his family, his business. And for his nation. He was progressive in his politics. He favored votes for women long before Woodrow Wilson got along to supporting it and he was, for his time and place incredibly enlightened on questions of race and quality. He had lived the american dream. He had risen from abject poverty to incredible wealth. He had been fauned over by queens and kings, captains of industry. And at the time of his death, he was the living symbol of what it meant to be an american. President Theodore Roosevelt described him thusly, an american of americans. He embodied those traits of self reliant hardihood who arel for the well being of our nation. He was liking the nation he came to symbolize though, a bundle of contradictions. Paradox has been the word used. Contradictions works as well. He was a hunter who became a conservationist. He was a friend to the indian who was famous as an indian fighter. He was a rugged frun tear. A living art fact of a pioneer cast playing out his role in a world of telephones, motion pictures, automobiles, airplanes, sky scrapers and finally at the very end, world wars. Now codys life, 1846 to 1917 spanned a period of astonishing change and he participated in much of that change. His father was a fight to keep slavery out of kansas and as a teenager, he fought in the civil war. He road for the pony express. Hunted buffalo for the railroad. Where he earned his nickname. Scouted for the army. Won the congressional medal of honor. Took the socalled first scout for custer. And celebrated dual war bonnet hat. As it was really known. Creek in 1876 and took a final curtain call on his western adventures. At the time of the terrible tragedy at wounded knee. That fight though at war bonnet creek, which there is only one casualty, that fight is the defining episode of his life. And i want to talk about it for it was in many ways a moment, an incredible moment simply frozen in time. Where western reality and the frontier myth, the topic im going to talk about tonight came together. But first a little context. Just to set the stage of how we got to war bonnet creek. One of the my favorite movies is the custer legend, a western legend is proven to be entirely false and covered up and protected by Army Officers and the final line in that film, which is so powerful is correct in every detail about a famous painting of custers last stand and let me just say this painting too is correct in every detail. Nothing is correct in that painting. Many serious scholars, who spent a considerable part of their lives debating points such as this have placed the birth of the western at 1823 with the publication of james coopers novel, the pioneers. Now some grumbled the more enduring, last of the mohicans deserves that spot of honor. The point is well taken. But others argue that the tales of captain john smith and pol pocahontas are and the marvelous adventures written on daniel boone are the true origin point for the western story. Which is ultimately the story of america. Flow are those who give all credit to the talented harvard dude who came out here where we are and he captured the imagination of the world with his 1902 novel the virginiaen. It was him who turned the american cowboy and that was an epitaph. And its still used that way sometimes. Cowboy, foreign policy, cowboy diplomacy. But when you said cowboy, you meant a wild, rowdy, uncontrollable element in your society. While suddenly he makes the cowboy into an american centaur. Im looking add you, professor warren. He is so hes always so riverive riveted by my comments. Its like the kid in class that pretends youre his favorite professor and of course hes always on his phone facebooking while hes in your class. I took professor warrens phone away from him before we began work. It was wister who turned the american cowboy into a national symbol. Albeit with considerable help. William f cody and of course from the cowboy president himself Theodore Roosevelt. All cowboy president s go to harvard. Well, this debate has found expression among my class of people. In the endless but sometimes tiresome argument over fredric jackson turners thesis. Now turner saw the American National character and thus american exceptionalism. As an out growth of the frontier experience. His critics have been many. These days its like the premier of star wars. Just line them up around the block. His critics argue that frontier was but one of many forces that shaped our nation and of course you cant argue with that. The argument though is one between process and place. With the strongest modern interpreters sometimes referred to by people like me as the rebel. Led by professor Patricia Nelson limerick. Of the university of colorado, professor warren is just a fellow traveller with her. But when you go to yellow stone and you see the packs, shes the leader. The leader. Well, this is exactly the same debate in historical circles that you have between cooper and owen wister. Where does the story begin . Well, it doesnt matter where the story begins, i would argue. Its this rich and varied literary history, this rich and varied historiography, central to our understanding of our schbls and you start when youre a kid. And youre always looking for your identity and of course many of us never get there but nations do that too and were looking for our identity and we hope were not like some of the other nations that were familiar with. We want to be so special. And its always been this way. In the 1820s americans were in search of an identity that might unite them as a people. Who were we . 13 colonies . How do we get together . How do we become one of many . North and south accomplished that by looking to the west. Frontier america suddenly became respectable in literary circles with the success of the leather stocking tales. The hunters of kentucky celebrating the prowess of kentucky and militia men at the 1815 battle of new orleans apologies. But we elect president s because they shoot english people. Im a historian. I can only speak the truth. I tell my students theres a beautiful thing about the british. They unite all peoples everywhere around the world. India, africa, russia, germany, france, the United States, weve all shot at them. Because theyre always in somebody elses neighborhood telling folks how to behave. And then they get them svls in trouble and they get all shot up and build beautiful statues in london which we pay lot of money to go visit. Its a very clever technique. Nevertheless, that song, the hunters of kentucky helped to sweep Andrew Jackson into the white house and border dramas as they were called in those days. Stories such as nick the woods and the lithochb west which was a play based on the life of davy crocket became all the rage on eastern and european stages in the 1830s and 1840s and the rise of jackson, other western political figures including the legendary crocket himself symbolized the political and cultural shift from the east to the west. Which i always cheer for. No offense to the eastern friends. But sinls weve already done in the british, why not just continue . Timothy flint, the best selling biography, davy crocket at the alamo. And the romance surrounding the great migration to oregon which was immortalized by one of americas first great historians of course a western historian. Frances parkman, harvard. By the way the professor limerick and professor warren, that is harvard, not yale but i went to indiana university, so what do i know . Thank you, thank you all very much. Good basketball. Well, anyway, they all served to change the frontiers but sustained by the guardians of American Culture as a dangerous symbol of anarchy into the very idealation of the evolving national character. Where daniel boone or kit carson or pushing west on the oregon trail, thats the america. Thats this new human thats come on to the planet from so many different places. Well, a gastly civil war tore all this asunder. A great westerner, the grandson of one who followed daniel boone up the comberland gap and into kentucky and redeemed the dream, restored hope to the country. And Abraham Lincoln to the homestead act and the Transcontinental Railroad that he sponsored created a new transmississippi west and stet all in motion. And out of this story, out of the new west, a new epic arose. This story united the divided nation, north and south. Forever cemented a National Identity now for a richly diverse people. Because folks were coming after the civil war from everywhere. You want to know who you were when you got to this country . Read a buffalo bill novel. Its right there. Doesnt matter that youre from poland. Doesnt matter youre russian memory. No, dizzant matter that youre an italian. Its a buckskins, cowboy hat. And it helped people unite. A fresh generation of heroes emerged to be celebrated in the popular dime novels that horrified parents and literary critics alike. Now we had the gun fighting lawman, wild bill hick, the scout, buffalo bill, the indian statesman, sitting bull. Calamity jane and from them came a story rich in romance and boundless optimism, yet also burdened, even while i was being told with nostalgia for vanishing past because even as it played out t was over, over in an instant. Buffalo bill cody who had lived the reality of the western story as a Civil War Soldier put it all into of course the grand extravaganza and he took it on the road. His wild west inthralled two generations of americans and people around the world. Created the cliches and conventions followed by writers and film makers that were to follow him. Now, cody was a true child of the american frontier. And he was a person who grew up in the very environment that he was now celebrating. It was the third born in scott county iowa on february 26th, 1846 and William Fredric was the third child of isaac and mary cody. Isaac moved the family to the fs where he became prominent advocate for free soil. He didnt want slavery extended into kansas for whatever reasons. When he was give thing a antislavery speech in september of 1854, he was pulled from the platform and stabbed by pro slavery men and although he recovered, one election to the free soil legislature, he was continually plagued by his wounds, finealally dying in mar 1857. With family in financial straights after his fathers death, young billy cody went to work for the company of Alexander Majors and william rus russell. They contracted with our government. Because he was trying to take spotlight off tensions by having a war against the mormons in utah who werent obeying the government quite as well as they needed to. And so majors and russell supplied the supply wagon to keep that going. On this trip during the socalled mormon war of 1857 this young kid, cody struck up a friendship with james butler wild bill hick cog and when they initiated the short lived pony express in 1860, cody briefly served as a writer and hickock also worked for the express. Cody quit the express company and joined the band of kansas jayhawkers praying on neighboring missouriens. He was anxious to get some free horses from missouri. They had good horses over there. They felt no pains of conscious, stealing from missouriens. I dont know whats the matter with me. Ive been to missouri. Its very well. Cody readily admitted these were not his best days. Glbtered upon a dislute a