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Even though the cowboy’s role began to decline in the 1920s, Hollywood movies popularized the cowboy lifestyle with Westerns from the 1920s to the 1940s. These films featured stars like John Wayne, Buck Jones and Gene Autry. American audiences tuned in to see the fictional adventures of the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Will Kane in “High Noon” and “Hopalong Cassidy” on screen. Comic book fans could read about The Black Rider and Kid Colt.

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Wranglers- 15-18 year old boys
Cowboys - 18-26 years old
Cattle Drivers- 26 to 35 years old

Most Cowboys only went on 2 or 3 drives in their lifetime.
- Lasted 3 months long
- Very dangerous

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Cowboys were mostly young men who needed cash. The average cowboy in the West made about $25 to $40 a month.

In addition to herding cattle, they also helped care for horses, repaired fences and buildings, worked cattle drives and in some cases helped establish frontier towns.

Cowboys occasionally developed a bad reputation for being lawless, and some were banned from certain establishments.

They typically wore large hats with wide brims to protect them from the sun, boots to help them ride horses and bandanas to guard them from dust. Some wore chaps on the outsides of their trousers to protect their legs from sharp cactus needles and rocky terrain.

When they lived on a ranch, cowboys shared a bunkhouse with each other. For entertainment, some sang songs, played the guitar or harmonica and wrote poetry.

Cowboys were referred to as cowpokes, buckaroos, cowhands and cowpunchers. The most experienced cowboy was called the Segundo (Spanish for “second”) and rode squarely with the trail boss.

Everyday work was difficult and laborious for cowboys. Workdays lasted about 15 hours, and much of that time was spent on a horse or doing other physical labor.

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a person in charge of horses or other livestock on a ranch.

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a man, typically one on horseback, who herds and tends cattle

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move a herd of cattle from one place to another,

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At the bottom or back of your paper, write down 3 interesting facts. 

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At the bottom or back of your paper, write down 3 interesting facts. 

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1. Many cowboys had been Civil War soldiers, from both the North and the South, and many others—perhaps up to a quarter of all cowboys—were freed ex-slaves. Some cowboys were immigrants from Europe, and others were Mexicans and American Indians.

2. 8 to 12 cowboys could move 3,000 head of cattle along the cattle drives. They might travel 15 miles in a day. Any more than that and the cattle would lose too much weight and arrive too thin. There was also a trail boss and a camp cook along on each drive.

3. Cowboys considered “Cookie,” or the camp cook, the most important person in camp. Sometimes called “biscuit shooters,” “belly cheaters,” and “bean masters,” camp cooks fed the cowboys three hot meals a day, no matter what. One of the cook’s jobs was to note the North Star each night and turn the tongue of the chuckwagon toward it. This way, the drive would know which way to head out the next morning.

4. Cowboys often wore their clothes for weeks without changing. They wore denim jeans with chaps to protect their legs from the thorny branches their horses rode through. Their wide-rimmed Stetson hats protected them from the sun’s glare and also served as a cup—they’d use it to scoop up water for both themselves and their horses to drink. They wore a bandana around their neck, which they could pull up to protect their nose and mouth from trail dust.

5. At night, once the cattle were bedded down and quiet, two men on guard might slowly circle around and sing to calm them. They worried about the danger of stampede from thunder and lightning or other unexpected noises, and singing calmed jittery cows. Sometimes one man would sing the first verse of a song, and the second cowboy would sing the next verse, trading back and forth. Some of the songs American cowboys commonly sang to their cows included “Old Dan Tucker, “Nearer My God To Thee,” “In the Sweet By and By,” and “The Texas Lullaby.” Lucky cows.