Cowboy Mystique

According to William W. Savage in The Cowboy Hero "As a representative of an occupational group, [the cowboy] has received perhaps more attention than any other worker in the world...."

The cowboy became an American hero because he was needed. The cowboy became a model of excellence, a paragon of strength. The ultimate American hero possessed many remarkable qualities, among them great dexterity, strength, and endurance enhanced by a reputation for honesty, integrity, geniality, humility, sensitivity, and other goodly qualities, reinforced first by the "wild west shows" and later by movies and television.

According to Lynn Jacobs in Waste of the West, "Nearly the antithesis of his fictional counterpart, the real-life, historic average American cowboy was a sad spectacle. He was a scraggly, dirty man with tattered clothes. When not doing mundane ranching chores, he spent his time drinking and smoking, playing cards, and generally doing little one could call exciting. A hundred years ago America was no more impressed by a cowboy than by a railroad employee or shopkeeper - cowboying was just another profession."