THE PETER TOMASSI ESSAY colt culture: examining representations of the american west in victorian london jacqueline randell, johns hopkins university (2014) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professor Judith Walkowitz and Professor Toby Ditz of the Johns Hopkins University Department of History for their fundamental support and guidance. I would also like to thank Professor Todd Shepard and Johns Hopkins University Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality for awarding this project the Winter Re- search Fellowship. I would like to thank the helpful staff of the Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, the George Peabody Library, the Johns Hopkins University Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, and the University of Delaware Special Collections Depart- ment. This project would not be possible without the inspiration of the late Professor God- frey LeMay of Worcester College, University of Oxford, to whom I dedicate this paper. ABSTRACT In 1851, the Great Exhibition in London’s Hyde Park featured displays of art and technology from across the world. Compared to exhibitions from France, India, and Great Britain itself, the U.S. section seemed unimpressive with the exception of one item: the Colt revolver. Fol- lowing its appearance at the Great Exhibition, the Colt revolver emerged frequently in Brit- ish popular culture and culminated in the appearance of cowboys with revolvers in the late 1880s on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. This paper explores representations of masculinity, white imperial authority, and the American West in Victorian England by tracking the ap- pearance of the Colt revolver in exhibitions, children’s literature, and staged shows. It follows three chronological stages of the Colt revolver: in exhibition culture, in popular literature, and in the Wild West Show. Ultimately, it demonstrates that while the Colt revolver failed in the British marketplace, it thrived in British popular imagination and established figures of the American West in the minds of many Victorians prior to the famed Wild West Show. colt culture: examining representations of the american west in victorian london ketplace, it thrived in British popular imagination and INTRODUCTION established figures of the American West in the minds of many Victorians prior to the famed Wild West “This is the famous Revolver, of which marvelous Show. tales are told in the Western States...” The Colt 1851 Navy revolver, along with the 1860 - Charles Dickens, 1855 Army revolver and the 1873 Single Action Army, or “Peacemaker,” were the most widely used firearms in the American West in the late nineteenth century and oday, Americans own more guns than any oth- they became notorious as the weapons of frontiers- er nation in the world. With more than double man and cowboys.3 The revolver became a symbol of the per-capita rate of gun ownership of the the American West, its characters, and its sentiments; Tsecond and third-ranked nations, the United States it carried these notions across borders — even oceans. is very much an anomaly. Even its former mother By the time Samuel Colt first introduced his revolving- country, the United Kingdom, has a mere 6.2 guns 2 barrel handgun to foreign markets, it already evoked for every one hundred residents. While dramatic, colorful impressions of life on the American frontier. this disjunction probably does not shock many read- Ultimately, the Colt revolver represented the industri- ers, as the Second Amendment holds a firm place in al progress of the United States alongside technologies the hearts of many Americans. But given the cultur- like the McCormick grain reaper and the Newell’s Per- al and political links between the United States and mutation Lock.4 While the English press deemed the the United Kingdom, how did the two nations come U.S. section of the Exhibition unimpressive, especially to diverge so drastically on gun culture and politics? compared to the Indian, French, and English sections, Historians trace the causes of differences in American coverage of Samuel Colt and his revolver left a lasting and English gun cultures back to geography, frontier impression.5 life, and the American Revolution, among other fac- The revolver elicited such a positive reaction that tors. But few stories illustrate the complexity of gun Colt was invited to speak at the Institution of Civil culture more beautifully than the narrative of the Colt i Engineers, where he illuminated his intentions of in- revolver. troducing American-made revolvers to English mar- The Colt revolver, or the gun of the West, entered kets.ii After years of trying to gain proper certification the British cultural imagination with its appearance from the English government, Colt finally opened a at the Great Exhibition in 1851. As an English-made firearms factory outside of London in 1853. While commodity, it disappeared on the British market in the business venture ultimately failed, with Colt clos- 1856, but the real revolver reentered British culture ing his London factory in 1856, his revolver contin- through tales of the American West in children’s mag- ued to be an object of fascination in English popular azines and pennysavers as a symbol of masculinity, in- culture in the years following its showcase, emerging dividualism, and freedom. Finally, in 1887, the revolv- frequently in English children’s fiction to accompany er emerged as a star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, cowboys, rangers, and figures of the American West.6 which brought hundreds of sharpshooters, cowboys, London-published magazines and pennysavers and Native Americans to London’s streets. This thesis depicted images of the wild American frontier, replete explores representations of cowboys, masculinity, and with scenic landscapes, wooden towns, and rowdy sa- the American West in Victorian England by tracking loons.iii Moreover, they began describing characters the appearance of the Colt revolver in exhibitions, ii Samuel Colt said, “the British Government, too, sensibly impressed with the children’s literature, and staged shows. It demonstrates importance of placing in the hands of their troops arms of this construction, that while the Colt revolver failed in the British mar- have taken off the prohibition against importing firearms—in favor of Colonel Colt—for the first time in its history; and now, arms made in America are i Historians refers to Tom Diaz, Making a Killing, the Business of Guns in sent to England free of duty, to compete with the manufacturers of Sheffield America (New York: The New Press, 1999); William B. Edwards,The Story of and Birmingham,” “Extracts From an Address Given in London by Colonel Colts Revolver: The Biography of Col. Samuel Colt (Harrisburg: The Stackpole Samuel Colt: Institution of Civil Engineers, November 25, 1851. Company, 1953); Joyce Lee Malcolm, Guns and Violence: The English iii London-published fiction that depicts iconic landscapes of the American Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), To Keep and Bear West before 1887 includes: “The Frontier Lily,” The Champion Journal for Arms: the Origins of an Anglo-American Right (Cambridge: Harvard University the Boys of the United Kingdom, Vol. 2, No. 60 (1878), Nineteenth Century Press, 1994); Peter Squires, Gun Culture or Gun Control? Firearms, Violence Collections Online, first accessed Jan. 12, 2014; “Tales of the Wild West,” and Society (London: Routledge, 2000); Martin J. Wiener, Men of Blood: The New Boys’ Paper, Vol. 41 (1887), World of the Child: Two Hundred Years Violence, Manliness, and Criminal Justice in Victorian England (Cambridge; of Children’s Books. University of Delaware Library Special Collections Cambridge University Press, 2004). Department, first accessed Jan. 19, 2014; “My Frontier Angel: An Episode 7 columbia university journal of politics & society that we now associate with the West such as overland These boys’ weeklies regularly featured tales of the wagon travelers, Native Americans, sheriffs, and the American West, and many stories depicted images of infamous American cowboys.iv In these tales of hero- cowboys yielding Colt revolvers. The third section of ism and adventure, cowboys were typically armed with this thesis studies the reaction of the British press to a bowie knife, a rifle, and a revolver for defense against the Wild West Show, which reveals that the Colt re- Native Americans, wild buffalo, and bandits roaming volver, the gun of the West, had cemented notions of the frontier.v Whereas frontiersmen used their rifles the American West in the British popular imagination for long-distance hunting, the lightweight semiauto- prior to Buffalo Bill’s arrival on British soil. matic revolver was ideal for duels and close-range self- defense. The revolver was a necessary mechanism of LITERATURE REVIEW power in a land where towns were separated by miles This thesis engages with multiple areas of his- of plains or deserts and legal authority depended on torical inquiry, from the history of technology to exhi- the speed of one’s horse and one’s skill with a revolver. bition culture and children’s literature. It traces how a For the boys of Victorian London, this landscape was piece of technology links disparate domains of history strikingly different from the broad streets of the West from the nineteenth-century industrial market to the End or the crowded alleys of the East End, and the Great Exhibition, to English children’s literature, and, cowboys about whom they fantasized were vastly dif- finally, to the world of live entertainment and the Wild ferent from any character they encountered in Lon- West Show. This thesis does not attempt to argue that don. Far before the most famous cowboy of the time the Colt revolver instigated a full-blown Americaniza- walked the streets of London himself, the cowboy tion of British culture. It does, however, contend that character had been cemented in the minds of English the Colt revolver played a key role in representing the boys from years of reading dime novels and pennysav- American West in British culture that led up to the ers.