Bill Pickett
The Life of the Legendary Rodeo and Wild West Show Performer
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Narrated by:
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Jim Johnston
About this listen
The Wild West made legends out of many men and women through the embellishment of their stories, but it was Buffalo Bill Cody who truly brought the Wild West to life and provided the images that people still associate with the 19th century West today. Though he had a long career that spanned service in the Civil War, trapping, and even a stint with the Pony Express, Buffalo Bill eventually became synonymous with his world-famous Wild West Show. By depicting stereotypical Western scenes like riding the Pony Express, and gunfights between cowboys and Indians, Buffalo Bill became one of the men most responsible for establishing how the public remembered the Wild West, and the show influenced subsequent film and literature. The show also featured several kinds of activities that are still part of rodeos today, including riding bucking broncos, roping livestock, and target shooting.
Almost absent in the perceptions of modern America is the comprehension of African Americans participating so prolifically in the building of the nation. Print fiction idealizing the cowboy life to Eastern readers would not depict what had ignited the war for which so many had an utter revulsion. The black man of the post-war years did not inspire the white spirit so essential for reveling in the old system. The 20th century’s television and cinematic offerings operated on the same drive, and the existence of black cattle workers was all but blotted out. Indeed, many of the modern age are barely aware that an African-American ever “stepped foot on the West bank of the Mississippi River”. No one saw the black cowboy on screen or in print, the two information industries that shaped our perception of America’s westward expansion. Therefore, a collective assumption that they must never have existed at all was nationally internalized.
Willie “Bill” Pickett, an expert rider and ranch hand, concluded that if the dogs could do it, a man could as well. Pickett is credited with the invention of modern “bulldogging”, regularly seen in the modern rodeo as a varied form of calf roping and bull riding. This practice, not a standard feature of ranch life, became Pickett’s answer to recalcitrant cattle after watching the ranch bulldogs subdue and dominate strays. Despite the disparity in size between the two animals, once the canine had locked his teeth onto the upper lip of the steer, the larger creature was stunned into a state of utter helplessness.
Pickett’s perception of the process led him to wonder if a human might not be able to prevail in the same manner by duplicating the dog’s agility. One can only marvel at the dubious display of courage, but Pickett perfected the bulldog’s talent from horseback. Riding alongside the steer, he vaulted onto his prey with a grip on both horns. Twisting the steer’s head upward to the sky, and biting him on the upper lip, the beast was wrestled to the ground. With teeth still gripping the soft tissue, Pickett was able to maintain control while throwing open both hands as entertainment, a 19th century version of “Look ma, no hands”. With such control, he could then simply knock his prey to the ground, despite his diminutive and light frame. Pickett’s paradigm for subduing cattle came to be known among the cowboy community as “kissing the bull”. That this innovation in cattle management did not quickly catch on is understandable, as fellow cowboys were personally put off by the thought of biting a bull on the mouth. For most, a good dog continued to suffice.
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-
Story
To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: He was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.
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Fascinating Tale of Racial Passing
- By Steven Schuster on 06-10-16
By: Karl Jacoby
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Black Wall Street
- The History of the Greenwood District Before the Tulsa Race Riot
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Stephen Platt
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall, Tulsa in 1921 was considered a modern, vibrant city. What had fueled this remarkable growth was oil, specifically the discovery of the Glenn Pool oil field in 1905. Within five years, Tulsa had grown from a rural crossroads town in the former Indian Territory into a boom town with more than 10,000 citizens, and as word spread of the fortunes that could be made in Tulsa, people of all races poured into the city.
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Bombs dropped on Black Wall St. wasn't mentioned.
- By Anonymous User on 05-03-21
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California
- A History
- By: Kevin Starr
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed author, historian, and Guggenheim Fellow Kevin Starr is a professor at the University of Southern California. His extensive knowledge shines through this concise, yet comprehensive, depiction of the most fascinating aspects in California's history. From its colonial beginnings through Governor Schwarzenegger's administration, the Golden State has become a uniquely American phenomenon that has enchanted people with the possibility of a better life.
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Interesting read, until it's not
- By MiamiMe on 03-27-18
By: Kevin Starr
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Cattle Kingdom
- The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
- By: Christopher Knowlton
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The Open Range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades. Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today.
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Disappointing - Author has an Agenda
- By McMullen on 09-19-21
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Striking Distance
- Bruce Lee & the Dawn of Martial Arts in America
- By: Charles Russo
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In the Chinese calendar, 1964 was the Year of the Green Dragon. It would be a challenging and eventful year for Bruce Lee. He would broadcast his dissenting view before the first great international martial arts gathering and then defend it by facing down Chinatown's young ace kung fu practitioner in a legendary behind-closed-doors, high-noon-style showdown. The Year of the Green Dragon saw the dawn of martial arts in America and the rise of an icon.
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Needs a direction
- By Dave R. on 11-13-18
By: Charles Russo
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Seth Bullock
- A Captivating Guide to Deadwood’s First Sheriff Who Tamed This Wild West Town and Was Later Appointed US Marshal by Theodore Roosevelt
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Deadwood, 1876: a notorious little mining town in modern-day South Dakota that was a hive of criminal activity. Thieves, drunkards, prostitutes, and murderers ran rampant among its booming streets. There were over 300 murders in this town during the first year of its existence. When Wild Bill Hickok was brutally shot and killed at point-blank range in the back of the head, it was obvious that someone had to rise up and save the town of Deadwood from itself.
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Enjoyable
- By DM on 05-19-21
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American Serengeti
- The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains
- By: Dan Flores
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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America's Great Plains once possessed one of the grandest wildlife spectacles of the world, equaled only by such places as the Serengeti, the Masai Mara, or the veld of South Africa. Pronghorn antelope, gray wolves, bison, coyotes, wild horses, and grizzly bears: less than 200 years ago these creatures existed in such abundance that John James Audubon was moved to write "it is impossible to describe or even conceive the vast multitudes of these animals".
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Could have been great, but
- By An Amazon Buyer on 08-29-18
By: Dan Flores
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Ghosts of Gold Mountain
- The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad
- By: Gordon H. Chang
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would be pushed to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory.
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Very inspiring, educational, and enlightening!
- By Amazon Customer on 06-25-19
By: Gordon H. Chang
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Billy the Kid
- The Endless Ride
- By: Michael Wallis
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859-1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. With the Gilded Age in full swing and the Industrial Revolution reshaping the American landscape, "the Kid", who was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the New Mexico Territory at the age of 21, became a new breed of celebrity outlaw.
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Disappointing
- By MJTCPA on 07-30-11
By: Michael Wallis
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Native American Tribes: The History of the Blackfeet and the Blackfoot Confederacy
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 1 hr and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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They call themselves "Niitsitapi" ("Original People"), but in the United States, they are known as the Blackfeet. In Canada, they are known by their more particular band names, one of which is Blackfoot, but regardless of the name, they are a tribe of Native American peoples ("First Nations" in Canada) who, until the modern time period, lived in small, decentralized bands and hunted the bison on the northern Great Plains.
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Excellent History of the BLACKFEET
- By Joseph Potter on 09-14-23
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Made in America
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
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Bryson Not Reading Makes For a Rare Fail
- By John on 02-28-14
By: Bill Bryson
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With Amusement for All
- A History of American Popular Culture since 1830
- By: LeRoy Ashby
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 33 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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With Amusement for All is the first comprehensive history of two centuries of mass entertainment in the United States, covering everything from the penny press to Playboy, the NBA to NASCAR, big band to hip hop, and other topics including film, comics, television, sports, and music. Paying careful attention to matters of race, gender, class, economics, and politics, LeRoy Ashby emphasizes the complex ways in which popular culture simultaneously reflects and transforms American culture.
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So Much Fun!
- By Paul on 11-28-13
By: LeRoy Ashby
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The Other Slavery
- The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
- By: Andrés Reséndez
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as Andrés Reséndez illuminates in his myth-shattering The Other Slavery, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors, then forced to descend into the "mouth of hell" of 18th-century silver mines or, later, made to serve as domestics for Mormon settlers and rich Anglos.
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overall a good book
- By Paola V. Hidalgo on 01-23-17
By: Andrés Reséndez
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Murder at the Mission
- A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West
- By: Blaine Harden
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1836, two missionaries and their wives were among the first Americans to cross the Rockies by covered wagon on what would become the Oregon Trail. Dr. Marcus Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding were headed to present-day Washington state and Idaho, where they aimed to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. Both would fail spectacularly as missionaries.
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Good history; wanted more indigenous perspective.
- By Anonymous User on 07-06-21
By: Blaine Harden