page_title: Wild West shows
section_title: Influence and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Wild West shows / Influence and legacy
context_page_description: Wild West shows were traveling vaudeville performances in the United States and Europe that existed around 1870–1920. The shows began as theatrical stage productions and evolved into open-air shows that depicted romanticized stereotypes of cowboys, Plains Indians, army scouts, outlaws, and wild animals that existed in the American West. While some of the storylines and characters were based on true events, others were fictional or sensationalized. Native Americans in particular were portrayed in a sensationalistic and exploitative manner. The shows introduced many western performers and personalities, and romanticized the American frontier, to a wide audience.
context_section_description: Western shows generated interest for Western entertainment. This is still evidenced in western films, modern rodeos, and circuses. Western Films in the first half of the 20th century filled the gap left behind by Wild West shows. The first real western, The Great Train Robbery, was made in 1903, and thousands followed after. In the 1960s Spaghetti Westerns a genre of movies about the American Old West made in Europe were common.
  Contemporary rodeos also still exist today, still employing the same events and skills as cowboys did in Wild West shows. Wild Westers still perform in movies, pow-wows, pageants and rodeos. There remains an interest in Native peoples through much of the United States and Europe, including an interest in the pow-wow culture of Native people. Some events are open to outside tourists who are able to observe traditional Native American skills: horse culture, ceremonial dancing, food, art, music and crafts, while other pow-wows are closed events for members of the Native community only.
  There are several ongoing national projects that celebrate Wild Westers and Wild Westing.  The National Museum of American History's Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian Institution preserves and displays Gertrude Käsebier's photographs, as well as many others by photographers who captured the displays of Wild Westing.
  The Carlisle Indian School Resource Center of the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, houses an extensive collection of archival materials and photographs from the Carlisle Indian School. In 2000, the Cumberland County 250th Anniversary Committee worked with Native Americans from numerous tribes and non-natives to organize a pow-wow on Memorial Day to commemorate the Carlisle Indian School, the students and their stories.
caption: Native peoples have a modern pow-wow culture.
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