“A cowboy lives in a world apart and has since the first herdsman climbed astride a horse, waved his hat and let out a yell, and chased down a stray”( McDowell 5). The cowboy was an American folk hero that many have portrayed like a modern knight, driven to conquer the wilderness and rescue people from evil. The film industry glamorized the cowboy’s life so much that they became known and loved in every community with a theater. The most significant qualities of the cowboy to the American people was their clothing, their real purpose, and abrupt demise.` In the decades after the Civil War and long before there were fenced ranches, ranchers would use the full open ranges of the western United States grasslands to allow their cattle to graze. Whether it was a herd of cows, horses, or goats, there was a propensity for these grazers to wander off into the wilderness. Therefore, a need arose creating an occupation whose title became known as the ‘cowboy’. The job description of this new found career was quite merely to herd cattle and prevent the animals from wandering astray or being devoured by predators. During the 19th century, 20 million cows were thrust into the infamous cattle drive headed to railheads and more extensive ranges to be sold for meat in order to help feed an expanding …show more content…
Many abandoned the profession altogether and became farmers due to this new world snatching the land for other uses other than herding cattle; primarily for expanding towns to meet an ever expanding population. More importantly, the expansion of the railroads, combined with the barbed-wire fencing of rangeland, effectuated cattle drives as unnecessary and