A fascinating look at the myth and the man behind it, who, in just a few short years transformed himself from a skinny orphan boy to the most feared man in the West and an enduring western icon.
The latter half of the 19th century saw the "golden age" of the American cowboy; newly-built railroad lines made it easier to transport cattle from the western plains to the east coast, where they could fetch top dollar. As these photos reveal, a cowboy's life was a hard one, but living freely on America's western frontier nevertheless appealed to thousands of men.
These photos were taken across the American West between the late 1800s and the early 1900s.
Martha Ballard was a midwife and mother in Maine following the American Revolution.
The influential musical pioneers from Appalachia whose recordings lifted spirits during the Great Depression.
The story of Native peoples’ valiant resistance to expulsion from their lands and the extinction of their culture.
Robert Moses fueled some of the most ambitious -- and controversial -- public works projects ever conceived.
Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright built a flying machine that made its first flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903.
An African American minister whose dream of ending racism galvanized millions of Americans in the civil rights movement.
The legendary tale of Emeline Gurney, who - as the story goes - sold an illegitimate child at the age of 14 only to marry him at a later age.
A central figure in the narrative of how the west was won, Wyatt Earp and his story became an American legend. Part of the Wild West collection.
