IN THE FLESH: AUTHENTICITY, NATIONALISM, AND PERFORMANCE ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER, 1860-1925 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jefferson D. Slagle, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2006 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Chadwick Allen, Adviser Professor Jared Gardner ________________________________ Professor Susan S. Williams Adviser English Graduate Program Copyright by Jefferson D. Slagle 2006 ABSTRACT Representations of the frontier through the early twentieth century have been subject to two sets of critical criteria: the conventional aesthetic expectations of the particular genres and forms in which westerns are produced, and the popular cultural demand for imitative “authenticity” or faithfulness to the “real west.” “In the Flesh” probes how literary history is bound up with the history of performance westerns that establish the criteria of “authenticity” that text westerns seek to fulfill. The dissertation demonstrates how the impulse to verify western authenticity is part of a post-Civil War American nationalism that locates the frontier as the paradigmatic American socio-topography. It argues westerns produced in a variety of media sought to distance themselves from their status as art forms subject to the critical standards of particular genres and to represent themselves as faithful transcriptions of popular frontier history. The primary signifier of historicity in all these forms is the technical ability to represent authentic bodies capable of performing that history. Postbellum westerns, in short, seek to show their audiences history embodied “in the flesh” of western performers. “In the Flesh” is therefore divided into two sections: the first analyzes performance westerns, including stage drama, Wild West, and film, that place bodies on display for the immediate appraisal of audiences. Section two examines text westerns, including dime novels and Owen Wister’s The Virginian, that are constrained to appropriate the conventions of performance to “display” in writing the bodies of their “authentic” western characters. ii Dedicated to Julie, who has read each word more times than it deserved. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Chadwick Allen, for his consistently superb advice, for his patience in reading and discussing drafts, and for his readiness to support every opportunity I sought for support to complete this project. The valuable insight of Jared Gardner and Susan S. Williams led to numerous reassessments of my methodology and development. Lisa J. Kiser, Kyoung-Min Han, Mark Rankin, and Dawn Simmons-Walts provided useful perspective on early drafts that enabled me to fill conceptual and theoretical gaps that had gone unnoticed. The archival work of this project would not have been possible without the advice and energy of the staffs of the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the Rare Books Division and Billy Rose Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library, the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room at the Library of Congress, and Special Collections and University Archives at the Stanford University Libraries. This work was supported by a grant from the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University. Finally, I am grateful to my wife Julie for her support, encouragement, and endless proofreading, and to Everett, Merah, and Cade, for their patience with a father for whom libraries have been a second home. iv VITA November 7, 1974 ............................................Born – Cottage Grove, Oregon 2000...................................................................B.A. English, Brigham Young University 2002 ..................................................................M.A. English, The Ohio State University 2000-2006 ........................................................Graduate Teaching and Administrative Associate, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract.......................................................................................................................... ii Dedication...................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................... iv Vita................................................................................................................................. v List of Figures................................................................................................................ vii Chapters: 1. Introduction: Postbellum America and the Problem of Western Authenticity.......... 1 Section 1: Performing the West 2. Is There a Frontiersman in the House?: Stage Drama and Authentic Performance .. 25 3. The Absolute Fake: Wild West Historiography......................................................... 82 4. The Body Projected: William S. Hart and the Film Western .................................... 134 Section 2: Literary Bodies 5. The Heirs of Buffalo Bill: Performing Authenticity in the Dime Western................ 186 6. “Enter the Man”: Textual Display in The Virginian.................................................. 233 7. Epilogue: Beyond the Limits of Authenticity............................................................ 276 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 284 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 2.1. Promotional poster for Si Slocum (1882), Library of Congress.............................. 80 3.1. “Death of Yellow Hand—Cody's First Scalp for Custer,” illustration from 1885 Wild West program, Buffalo Bill Historical Center Center, Cody, WY; MS6.6.A.1.4.18............................................................................................... 127 3.2. “Death of Yellow Hand—Cody's First Scalp for Custer,” illustration from 1887 Buffalo Bill's Wild West program, Buffalo Bill Historical Center Center, Cody, WY; MS6.6.A.1.6.34. ..................................................................................... 128 3.3. “Death of Yellow Hand—Cody's First Scalp for Custer,” illustration from 1888 Buffalo Bill's Wild West program, Buffalo Bill Historical Center Center, Cody, WY; MS6.6.A.1.8.21. ..................................................................................... 129 3.4. “Je Viens,” Buffalo Bill's Wild West poster (1889), Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY; P.69.442....................................................................................... 130 3.5: “Prairie to Palace,” Buffalo Bill's Wild West poster (1910), Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY; P.69.21. ........................................................................... 131 4.1. William S. Hart as Bowie Blake in The Devil's Double (1916), Library of Congress. ......................................................................................................................... 181 4.2. Publicity photograph of William S. Hart (February 1918), Library of Congress... 182 4.3. Publicity photograph of William S. Hart (March 1920), Library of Congress....... 183 6.1: “By his side the girl walking and cheering him forward.” Arthur Keller illustration in Owen Wister, The Virginian (New York: Macmillan, 1902) facing title page. ......................................................................................................................... 270 6.2: “‘For my sake, she begged him, ‘for my sake.” Arthur Keller illustration in Owen Wister, The Virginian (New York: Macmillan, 1902) facing page 476. ........ 271 vii 6.3: “‘I promise to make your little girl happy,’ he whispered.” Arthur Keller illustration in Owen Wister, The Virginian (New York: Macmillan, 1902) facing page 357. ......................................................................................................................... 272 6.4: “The Rescue.” Arthur Keller illustration in Owen Wister, The Virginian (New York: Macmillan, 1902) facing page 101. ................................................................ 273 6.5: “The Virginian,” promotional poster for Owen Wister and Kirke La Shelle's stage drama (1904): Library of Congress................................................................. 274 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: POSTBELLUM AMERICA AND THE PROBLEM OF WESTERN AUTHENTICITY So, lament it though we may, the Frontier is gone, an idiosyncrasy that has been with us for thousands of years, the one peculiar picturesqueness of our life is no more. We may keep alive for many years yet the idea of a Wild West, but the hired cowboys and paid rough riders of Mr. William Cody are more like “the real thing” than can be found today in Arizona, New Mexico or Idaho. Only the imitation cowboys, the college-bred fellows who “go out on a ranch” carry the revolver or wear the concho. The Frontier has become conscious of itself, acts the part for the Eastern visitor; and this self-consciousness is a sign, surer than all others, of the decadence of a type, the passing of an epoch. The Apache Kid and Deadwood Dick have gone to join Hengist and Horsa and the heroes of the Magnusson saga. - Frank Norris1 The final touchstone of . genuineness is the human body itself. -Richard Dyer2 At the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, stands a billboard advertising the Buffalo