Macalester College DigitalCommons@Macalester College History Honors Projects History Department 4-25-2018 A Pirate, A Cowboy, and A Bank Robber Walk into a Bar… And Undergo a Study in Historical Romanticization Brian Fox Macalester College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/history_honors Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Fox, Brian, "A Pirate, A Cowboy, and A Bank Robber Walk into a Bar… And Undergo a Study in Historical Romanticization" (2018). History Honors Projects. 25. https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/history_honors/25 This Honors Project is brought to you for free and open access by the History Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. A Pirate, A Cowboy, and A Bank Robber Walk into a Bar… And Undergo a Study in Historical Romanticization Brian Fox Advised by Professor Katrina Phillips History Department Honors Project April 25, 2018 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………… 1 “Festival of Conviviality” or “Hostis Humanis Generis”: The Problem of Piratical Progreſſiviſm………………………………………………………………………… 8 Riding, Roping, Romanticization: Cowboys as Dangerous American Symbol……………. 53 “I Like Baseball, Movies, Good Clothes, Fast Cars, Whisky, and You”: Robinhooding Depression Era Bank Robbers………………………………………………………. 85 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………… 129 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………. 139 1 Introduction Pirates, cowboys, and bank robbers may not seem to have a whole lot in common. There isn’t a strong temporal or geographic connection, and whatever two of them have in common, they seem to leave the third out. In truth, the real connection between these three is my own childhood.