Mulford and Bower: Myth and History in the Early Western

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 1981 Mulford And Bower: Myth And History In The Early Western William A. Bloodworth Jr. East Carolina University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Bloodworth, William A. Jr., "Mulford And Bower: Myth And History In The Early Western" (1981). Great Plains Quarterly. 1875. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1875 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. MULFORD AND BOWER: MYTH AND HISTORY IN THE EARLY WESTERN WILLIAM A. BLOODWORTH, JR. With the exception of commentary on Owen was a box-office staple), the Progressive Era Wister and The Virginian (1902), surprisingly was the breeding ground of the western. little has been written about popular western To understand the western in its early period novels published before world War 1. 1 Yet of development, we should direct our attention it was writers following in the wake of The away from Wister's high-toned novel, the end Virginian's popularity who really developed product of fifteen years' work with western and defined the mass-audience western of com materials, and restrain our urges to leap into mercial prospects and formulaic content. B. M. the purple landscapes and raging passions of Bower, Clarence Mulford, William McCleod Zane Grey. Two other writers, among the first Raine, and Charles Alden Seltzer prepared the to capitalize on the market Wister created, will way for the later and greater popularity of Zane serve our purposes better. These are Clarence Grey, whose books first became best-sellers Edward Mulford, who created Hopalong Cas between 1912 and 1917; for the prolific pro sidy, and B. M. (Bertha Muzzey) Bower, the ductions of pulp writers like Max Brand after only woman to become an important writer of 1918; and for the rise of the western fUm in westerns. Beginning from quite different points dustry. Although the early 1920s may be the -Mulford's stories born out of his juvenile first period when American interest in the fascination with dime novels and Bower's out popular western reached obsessive proportions of her own experience in the West-the two (Grey was then a regular feature on best-seller writers developed large readerships and pro charts, pulp publications like Western Story duced essentially formulaic novels with con Magazine were in full flower, and W. S. Hart siderable speed and facility. When Douglas Branch wrote The Cowboy and His Interpreters in 1926, he named both Mulford and Bower William A. Bloodworth, Jr., is an associate (along with Rame and Seltzer) as "aristocrats professor of English at East Carolina Univer of cow-country fiction" on "the seventy-five sity. He is the author of Upton Sinclair (1977) cent shelves.,,2 and several articles on the literature of the Both common and contrasting features of American West. Mulford and Bower are the subject of this 95 96 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1981 essay. In their exploitation of the western as a larities are what we would expect: an interest source of comedy and their emphasis on themes in ranch life, the use of working cowboys as of community rather than true individualism, main characters (even in romantic plots), the they share qualities of innocence and nostalgia occasional appearance of eastern types for the reflecting the optimism of the Progressive Era. sake of contrast, a sense of western geography Beyond these shared qualities, Mulford and as simultaneously harsh and grand, and a good Bower demonstrate an essential choice between deal of factual attention to such matters as myth and history, a fork in the road of Ameri cattle branding and bronc busting. Somewhat can popular culture, that faced the western unlike The Virginian, novels by Mulford and during its first decade and has shown up fre Bower feature not only cowboys but also cows. quently in the later landscapes of the literary Yet as William Savage points out in his study of West. the cowboy hero, no one has ever portrayed the cowboy both "accurately and interestingly at the same time.,,4 Evidence for this fact in Mul COMEDY AND COMMUNITY ford and Bower lies in their most significant Especially when paired together, Mulford similarities: a perception of the West as a stage and Bower serve well to illustrate the develop for comic action and an emphasis on collective ment and themes of the popular western be rather than individualistic social order in the tween The Virginian and world War I. To begin West. It took style and theme, of rather specific with, both were prolific writers. Mulford pub kinds, to make the cowboy a regular feature of lished six novels between 1906 and 1913, popular adult fiction. Bower fourteen between 1904 and 1916. Each Humor is an essential element-perhaps the continued to write after these years-Mulford essential element as far as popularity was con publishing his last novel in 1941 and Bower cerned-in virtually every book published by active until her death in 1940-but their essen Mulford and Bower. Both writers, but Mulford tial styles and audiences were established long in particular, relied on humor of dialogue and before world War 1. 3 Furthermore, between character. Their cowboys are funny; they josh 1902 and 1916, both published western fiction endlessly with one another and poke fun from almost exclusively, and both used the same Mexico to Montana. In Mulford's Bar-20 Days characters and setting for different novels. (1911), when Hopalong Cassidy and his side Mulford invented Hopalong Cassidy and the kick Red Connors are on the verge of extinc Bar-20 Ranch in West Texas; Bower's fame tion at the hands of renegade Apaches, we find grew out of her Flying U Ranch in north out that "no matter how desperate a situation central Montana and its "Happy Family" of might be, [HopalongJ could find in it some cowboys. In other words, Mulford and Bower thing at which to laugh. He laughed going into were formula writers, users of conventions danger and coming out of it, with a joke or a rather than literary innovators, who had a clear pleasantry always trembling at the end of his understanding of what their readers most appre tongue.,,5 "Chuckles and cowboy lingo," to ciated. That Mulford was a man who believed quote an advertising blurb, became more im in the values of male companionship and portant to Mulford in his later books than in Bower was a woman who felt some identity his early ones, but even in such a novel as The with her female characters may be an added Orphan in 1908, his cowboys are hardly the reason for paying attention to this pair of popu grim, silent type; when a gang of them turn up lar writers. for a meal at the sheriff's house, "a perfect Although it is the differences between Mul babel of words" ensues as "the cowboys burst ford and Bower that finally stand out, their into a running fire of jokes, salutations, and stories, taken together, indicate the general comments.,,6 Bower's westerns also emphasize appeal of early westerns. Many of the simi- the verbal cleverness of cowboys, particularly MULFORD AND BOWER 97 when it has a tongue-in-cheek flavor. In Flying than the individual. At one point in The Com U Ranch (1914), when the main character ing of Cassidy (1913) Red Connors describes stumbles into the bunkhouse after having been the unity among the Bar-20 cowboys: "People trussed from neck to knee with his own rope by have called us clannish, an' said we was a 'lovin' a couple of irate sheepmen-and thus resem bunch' because we stick together so tight. bling a giant cocoon-his closest friend quietly We've faced so much together that us of th' old observes, "I sure do hate to see a man wearing bunch has got the same blood in our veins. funny things just to make himself conspicu We ain't eight men-we're one man in eight ous." 7 As this example indicates, Bower's different kinds of bodies."l1 This group spirit humor often extends beyond dialogue to a is endlessly exemplified in the novels. Most playfully presented situational irony. In fact, significantly, Mulford's West lacks characters her best-known novel, Chip of the Flying U like Wister's Judge Henry or the feudal order (1906), is a kind of extended shaggy-dog story implied in The Virginian's careful distinctions in which the sexual identity of a Dr. Cecil between ranch owner, foreman, and cowboy. Grantham, a woman, remains a secret to the Bower likewise draws upon an equalitarian title character until the final pages of the story. cowboy paradigm, although her novels often The humor in these early stories provides a allow outside social forces and historical change genuine contrast to later westerns by other to conflict with the male community of the writers whose work conveys a deeply serious bunkhouse. Her commitment to group values mood or an ever-present sense of danger. No explains several features of her fiction: the where in Mulford or Bower, for instance, can identification of the Flying U boys as a "Happy we find a tense, brooding character like Buck Family"; her willingness to make protagonists Duane in Zane Grey's Lone Star Ranger, who out of many members of that family; and suffers from a "haunting visitation .

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