Essay On The Old West Hollywood

Another aspect of the Old West Hollywood glazes over is the difficulty of frontier living. In many movies, living in the West is depicted as easy and carefree. This is an extensive misconception. Settlers in the Old West battled an array of obstacles including the lack of supplies and food, isolation for periods of time, a very limited connection with the rest of the world, brutal weather, and fires. As a result of living in the unsettled West, supplies were sent out very sparingly. Ordering items typically took months to be shipped and received. In an article from PBS, writer Christopher W. Czajka describes the isolation and loneliness of the West stating, “What would now be referred to as a form of clinical depression was not an uncommon …show more content…
Another issue that ranchers faced was establishing a large scale ranch. Signed in 1862 by President Lincoln, the Homestead Act provided settlers with 160 acres of land in the West (History.com). The issue with this act is that there was no room to expand, causing ranchers to graze their herds on the open range. The only downside to free range is the risk of overgrazing. To counter this, ranchers held biannual roundups, which is another common theme in Hollywood’s Westerns. Though Hollywood’s depiction of a cattle drive is slightly dramatic, it is fairly accurate. The invention of barbed wire helped define the settler’s right to land and reduced the amount of free range herds (Hill). There was also the issue of competition between ranchers and their livestock. A great example of this comes from the The Sheepman starring Glenn Ford. The competition in this movie is focused on the type of livestock, not just the ranchers. A sheep farmer moves to a largely cattle town and clashes with a few of the ranchers. This causes the cattlemen to sabotage his sheep herd. In the end it all works out, but this type of discrimination happened in the West, mostly in cattle