Home on the Range an Educator’S Guide
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C. Russell, Cowpunching Sometimes Spells Trouble (detail) 1889 Home on the Range An Educator’s Guide Mary Burke, Sid Richardson Museum, with Diane McClure, Art Specialist Design by Laura Fenley, Sid Richardson Museum Intern © 2004 Sid Richardson Museum, Third Edition © 2009 Home09_10_2010.indd 1 9/10/2010 1:53:18 PM Home on the Range Page numbers for each section are listed below. Online version – click on the content title below to link directly to the first page of each section. For an overview of the artworks included in this booklet, see Select a Lesson – Image List, page 30. Contents Introduction to Home on the Range 4 Sid W. Richardson 6 The Museum 10 Fredric S. Remington 12 Charles M. Russell 14 Timeline (Artists, Texas, U.S. History) 16 Select a Lesson – Image List 30 Lesson Plans 32 Student Activities 52 Teacher Resources 62 2 Home on the Range Sid Richardson Museum Home09_10_2010.indd 2 9/10/2010 1:53:18 PM Sid W. Richardson Sid W. About the Educator’s Guide This Educator’s Guide is a resource for viewing and dialogue containing questions to direct classroom The Museum interpreting works of art from the Sid Richardson Museum discussion and engage students in their exploration in the classroom environment. The images included in the of the artworks, background information about Guide have been selected to serve as a point of departure the artists and the works of art, vocabulary, and for an exploration of the theme of the cowboy way of life. suggestions for extension activities • Student Activities – activities that can be used to The background materials (timelines, biographies, complement classroom discussion about these (or bibliography and resources) are appropriate for educators other) artworks The Artists of all levels. The Lesson Plans are designed for elementary • Bibliography – sources used in the development of teachers and satisfy several state-mandated goals for Fine this Guide and suggestions for further reading on the Arts, Language Arts and Social Studies, but can be adapted artists or topics for other grade levels and disciplines. Written in the form of • Teacher Resources – related historical background, a dialogue, the Lesson Plans are designed to aid students in strategies for making personal and meaningful their exploration of the works of art. connections with works of art, and recommended Lesson Plans web resources The Guide includes: • Sid W. Richardson – a biography, including a timeline This Educator’s Guide is designed to help you and your of the life of oilman, philanthropist and collector Sid students explore the artworks in the Sid Richardson W. Richardson Museum. For further information about education resources • The Museum – operating hours, location, and at the Museum, contact the Museum’s education department Student Activities contact information at [email protected] or 817.332.6554. • The Artists – biographies of artists Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, with a timeline of events in the artists lives, as well as events in Texas and American history • Lesson Plans – color images, each with a suggested Teacher Resources Teacher Home on the Range 3 Sid Richardson Museum Home09_10_2010.indd 3 9/10/2010 1:53:18 PM Home on the Range Introduction The lyrics of the song “Home on the Range,” and the images included in this guide take us to a mythical time and place in American history: O give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play, Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, And the skies are not cloudy all day. To Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, and many other Americans, the cowboy symbolized all that was good about the American way of life. Frederic Remington had great admiration for cowboys, Remington, The Sentinel 1889 maintaining that cowboys “possess a quality of sturdy, sterling manhood which would be to the credit of men in any While the cowboy is generally viewed as an American walk of life. I wish that the man-hood of the cowboy might original, his roots were firmly planted south of the Rio come more into fashion further East.” Grande in Mexico. More than four hundred years ago, Spanish settlers brought the first domesticated horses and Russell, like Remington, admired cowboys. It was his dream cattle to South America. The animals flourished in the wide- to go west, and when he arrived in Montana in 1880 at age open spaces, and Spanish ranches soon spread across sixteen, his first job was that of a sheepherder. In 1882, he northern Mexico. Ranchers taught the indigenous people secured a position as a wrangler, a job he held for eleven how to ride horses and handle cattle on the open range. years. Russell depicted many of those early experiences These Indian cow herders were called vaqueros, from the as a young cowhand, and became known as the “Cowboy Spanish word vaca, for cow. Vaqueros drove the first herds Artist.” It was said that he recognized the ties that bound of cattle north into Texas in the early eighteenth century. the men of the West, as evidenced in these words, “In the city men shake hands and call each other friends but its the By the Civil War, millions of long-horned cattle roamed the lonsome places that ties their harts [sic] together and harts Texas plains. After the Civil War, demand for beef grew [sic] do not forget.” and it was the cowboy’s job to drive the cattle north to rail stations hundreds of miles away. 4 Home on the Range Sid Richardson Museum Home09_10_2010.indd 4 9/10/2010 1:53:19 PM Several nineteenth century events had a profound impact on the cowboy. In 1867, the Kansas Pacific Railroad reached Abilene, Kansas, and it became the primary shipping point for Texas cattle on their way to eastern and northern markets. By the year 1869, the transcontinental line joined the east to the west. Without railroads, the cattle boom might never have taken place, but the railroad also proved to be the undoing of the cowboy. As the rail network expanded, the length of the cattle trail shrank, and herds only had to be taken a few miles to the nearest slaughterhouse, where they were killed and loaded onto rail cars bound for the north and east. In 1875, barbed wire was introduced to the western plains, bringing an end to the open range. Then, in 1886 – 87, two major blizzards devastated the plains, dealing one of the Russell, The Bucker 1904 worst blows to the cattle business. Hungry cattle, unable wrote to his wife, Eva, “Shall never come west again. It is all to reach the grasses beneath the snow, began to devour brick buildings - derby hats and blue overhauls - it spoils my everything within reach. Many cattlemen lost as much as early illusions - and they are my capital.” ninety percent of their stock. Yet the myth of the cowboy is still being celebrated. The The film and television industry usually portrayed the romantic vision of an open range, clear blue skies, tranquil cowboy as a white man. In reality, cowboys (and cowgirls) nights, and the self-reliant cowboy summons us today, just represented a diverse heritage: Mexican, Anglo, African as it appealed to Charles Russell and Frederic Remington. American, and Native American. If we are to believe the images depicted in film, cowboys spent much of their time The images in Home on the Range invite discussion chasing bandits, battling Indians, and swinging open tavern about several aspects of the cowboy life as portrayed in doors. A cowboy actually had a dirty, sweaty job which Remington’s and Russell’s Old West: the rollicking action of consisted of sitting in a saddle from ten to fourteen hours a a bronc in Russell’s The Bucker, the day-to-day challenges day, herding cows, rounding up strays, branding calves, and in Russell’s Cowpunching Sometimes Spells Trouble, the driving the herds to market. fine craftsmanship of saddle, vest and chaps apparent in Edward H. Bohlin’s parade gear, and the vaquero heritage By the late nineteenth century, Remington lamented that the evident in Remington’s The Sentinel. cowboy way was coming to a close. In the year 1900, he Home on the Range 5 Sid Richardson Museum Home09_10_2010.indd 5 9/10/2010 1:53:19 PM Sid W. Richardson Untitled photo of Sid Richardson on a horse education in the schools that his hometown offered. He Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Photography Collection, Special attended both Hardin Simmons and Baylor University from Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Arlington, Texas 1910 - 1912, but found it necessary to leave school and enter the business world when he could no longer afford the tuition. Richardson’s first job was that of an oil scout, then later an oil well supply salesman and lease purchaser. Subsequently, he formed a partnership in the oil business with his friend, Clint Murchison, amassing a fortune in 1919 - 1920. In the 1920s, Richardson’s fortunes rose and fell with sharp oil market fluctuations. Then, in the early 30s, with a small investment and support from friends, he struck it big in the Keystone Field in West Texas, turning his oil business into a booming success. With his fortune established, Mr. Sid, as his friends knew him, was able to indulge his interest in cattle and horses, acquiring large ranching operations both in Texas and Oklahoma. A lover of fine animals, Richardson raised registered Quarter Horses and Santa Gertrudis cattle on his ranches. His favorite riding horse was Dude, a big paint that came to him at the call of his name.