Final Paper
The world of dime novels from the 19th century in the United States
is a very rich world full of fantasy, heroes, and villains. The dime novel portrayal of Wild Bill Hickok is very different from the real Wild Bill. This paper has three main objectives. The first is to give background on the phenomenon of these popular forms of entertainment from the 19th century known as dime novels. The Second is to discuss how the Image of Wild Bill Hickok has changed from that of a children’s story book hero in the 19th century to his present image in popular culture. The third objective is to see the contrast between the charter presented in dime novels to the real Wild Bill Hickok.
The origins of dime novels can be traced to June 1860. The first dime novel Malaeska by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens was published by the Beadle and Adams
publishing house. Extremely popular the novel sold around sixty five thousand copies in the first couple of months. The story was that of a Native American woman who fell in love with a white settler. The reason that these dime novels were so popular was because they were much cheaper to produce than many of the hard cover books that were currently in print. One of the reasons why Beadle was able to publish books and sell them for a dime was the advent of new technology, like the new steam roller press, and expanded railroad access for book delivery as well as in the 1870’s the typewriter. These combined along with the dismissal of the hard cover for the book brought the experience of leisure reading for entertainment to a vast majority of literate Americans. Beadle followed up this success with “Seth Jones” This was a series of novels about a young adventurer and was also the favorite story of Abe Lincoln. This story sold six hundred thousand copies and was also translated in to different languages. The peak of dime novels came during the period of the American Civil War. Soldiers from both the confederate and the federal armies enjoyed reading the novels to escape the daily grind of the war.
Some of the most famous authors of these dime novels were Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, horatio Alger, Louisa May Alcott, Horace Greeley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Upton Sinclair, and Robert Louis Stevenson. The majority of these authors went on to become so prominent that they are still studied today, names like Robert Louis Stevenson and Longfellow can be found in many English text books and reading lists. Also notable was Prentiss Ingrahm the author of the first Wild Bill Hickok dime novel entitled The Adventures of Wild Bill – The Pistol Prince. Ingrahm was also responsible for many of the stories on Buffalo Bill. Prentiss Ingrahm was a Confederate soldier during the Civil War and after the war, he became a mercenary. He was a gunfighter in Mexico
, Europe
, and Cuba
for a number of years. After he returned to the United States
, he began to write and he also met in person Wild Bill Hickok as well as Buffalo Bill. Once he had met the two gentlemen, he went on write a novel every week and, in return, he received between $200 and $300 for every story he turned out.
Many of the popular dime novel charters were based on real people: Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, and General Custer. These men were all heroes from the American Civil War. Of the three, Buffalo Bill was probably the most famous story charter in the era of dime novels. Buffalo Bill had shown bravery as a scout during the Civil War, after the war he made a fortune presenting a wild western stage show to crowds of people in the eastern United States
. Wild Bill hickok was another very popular charter in the dime novels he had made a name for himself during the Civil War as a scout. And finally General Custer had been a Calvary
officer during the war however he really gained notoriety for fighting the Native Americans in the Wild West, and dieing at Custer’s last stand. With the changing environment of the United States
dime novels began to loose their popularity around the 1880’s in the United States
and were completely finished by the 1920’s.
The image of Wild Bill Hickok has changed a great deal over time. Hickok is portrayed as a brave and fearless individual with a strong sense of morals and the shot of a marksman in the dime novels. In the dime novel The Pistol Prince Wild Bill shows his moral side when this girl claims to be in love with him and runs to find him and be with him. If he was less virtuous Wild Bill would have taken the girl to be with him even though he was not in love with her. This quote is from when he takes her home “Bill was astounded, for he now saw before him the lovely girl who had so kindly cared for him during his sickness, and who loving him desperately had disguised herself in her twin brother’s clothes, and come to join him. But Bill did not love her, and frankly telling her so, carried her back to her father’s home with him, and there left her.” That quote really shows the morals that Ingraham is trying to instill in to children with this story. Wild Bill is also portrayed as a hero of the American Civil War. He is widely praised for his scouting during the war as well as unconventional tactics he used during the war. This quote from The Pistol Prince shows how good a shot Wild Bill is portrayed as having “Jimmy smiled at his words, paid his thirty dollars, which left him with three in his pocket, and after the Red Legs had shot took his stand and raising his rifle quickly , fired.
The first to start the cheer was Jim Lane himself, who cried out: “By Heaven! The best shot in the three hundred.” “Its an accident; besides, general thar’s two more to be shooted.” Growled Shanghai
Bill. The two more were tehn shot in the same quick way as before, and the bullets found dead center.” Reading the novels in the present day really makes Wild Bill look like a very fictional charter because of the unbelievable things he does. In the novel The Pistol Prince, in the first chapter at the age of eight Wild Bill kills five Wolves in a hand made cage for enough reward money to collect a new pony, a pistol, a rifle, and a Bowie knife. In the novel, he also seems to be portrayed as a perfect gentile man among a group of ruffians. This can be seen with in this quote where Wild Bill is talking to his partners in the Red Leg rangers, Wild Bill speaks clearly in good English, where as his partners talk with many words mispronounced and they sound very rough, uneducated. “To attract attention, when any one shot and did not drive the bull’s –eye, he laughed in a satirical way, until at last one of the Red Legs turned and “Look a heur, boy, you has too much laugh, as ef you c’u’d do better, an’ burn my skins, ef yer hain’t a Red Leg, I’ll bive yer a chance ter shoot.
“ef yer takes ther prize, I’ll pay yer put –up dust an’ ef yer don’t, I’ll take the hickory ramrod O’ my rifle an’welt yer nigh ter death.
“Does yer shoot on my tarms?”
“I will, and beat you too,” was the quiet response”
That quote really shows the light into which Ingraham is trying to portray both Wild Bill and the people around him. He seems like the perfect archetype of what a 19th century hero should be, as opposed to what today’s hero would look like. Today’s hero is more of an anti-hero, they usually end up doing the right thing however most of the time very reluctantly. An example of a modern hero/anti-hero would be Han Solo from Star Wars or Stone Cold Steve Austin from wrestling. These are people who do the right thing, but are not completely virtuous. They are shown as more human. Hero’s from the 19th century seem more pristine, they are completely moral. This makes them seem much less realistic. This is the type of hero Wild Bill is made out to be in the dime novels. Another interesting thing about the dime novel portrayal of Wild Bill is the idea of him as an Indian hunter. In the 19th century it was widely accepted you were a hero for chasing and killing Indians. If this kind of material was to come out today for children it would be considered horrible and deemed an act of trying to teach racism. To think that something like that went in to making someone a hero is the complete opposite of the rest of the virtures bestowed upon Wild Bill by Ingraham. Of course in the novel the Indians or “red-skins” are portrayed as bloodthirsty savages trying to rob stage coaches, so they were summarily killed. In the present day popular culture there is not much evidence of Wild Bill at all. In fact the only major reference to Wild Bill Hickok is the present day portrayal in the HBO television series “DeadWood”. In the show he is not portrayed as a hero or a gentile man but as a drunk who is lazy and gambles too much. Even though he is portrayed as a drunk he also seems like a fallen hero in the respect that he still sees right from wrong and he still sticks up for those who cannot help themselves. In one particular episode, he and another individual rescue a little girl from a group of murdering bandits. Wild Bill then acts as the girl’s protector until he is ultimately killed. The television show reveals how vulnerable Wild Bill is at the end of his life, and it is a huge contrast to the way in which he was portrayed in the Dime novels written in the 19th Century. Interestingly enough in “DeadWood” Wild Bill does not take kindly to people roughing up the Indians. In one particular episode Indian raiders are framed for robbing a wagon and a bounty is set for the heads of any Indian tribesmen. When a bounty hunter comes back with the head of an Indian boy it is Wild Bill who takes the head away from the hunter and brings it back to the tribe in a respectful manner. This shows the deeper contrast between what was considered heroic in the 19th century and what is considered heroic today. On the exterior the Wild Bill of the 19th century seems like the perfect hero, however he participated in the genocide of the Indian nations. The Wild Bill portrayed in “DeadWood” however did not look like a hero and was not virtuous like the novel charter. He did in the end though turn out to be the more heroic of the two and also seemed more real.
There is a huge amount of contrast between the real Wild Bill Hickok and the fictional charter written about in the dime novels. In real life Wild Bill Hickok was born as James Butler Hickok, he was born in Illinois
in 1837 on May 27th. He began his professional life at the age of twenty one as a peace officer in Kansas
; in 1861, he joined the Union Army and held a number of odd jobs for the army until he became a scout for both Generals Sherman and Custer. After the war, he became a marshal in Kansas
and, then for a short time, he was an actor in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. He got married in 1876 in Cheyenne
to Agnes Lake Thatcher. In that same year he went to the town of Deadwood
and was shot in the back and killed by Jack McCall. In life, Hickok was paranoid he refused to walk on the sidewalk and slept with crumpled paper on his floor in case someone wanted to sneak in to his room and kill him. In the dime novels he is portrayed as the perfect hero never scared, he was a perfect shot with a gun. In the Pistol Prince when he was only fourteen years old Wild Bill is shunned by a tavern owner who subsequently gets his child stolen by a grizzly bear and then Wild Bill must save the baby and vanquish the grizzly bear with only two pistols. Once he accomplishes this magical feat the fourteen year old boy brings the child back to the patents and forgives the father for his earlier slight against his charter. This is completely adverse to the charter of the real Wild Bill who was a very vain and arrogant man. The real Wild Bill might have saved the child, however after that he would have made the tavern owner feel really bad about himself and not have forgiven him.
The dime novels of the 19th century were a wonderful form of entertainment. They also showed children values that adults wanted their children to have. There are many good examples of this through the novel Wild Bill, the Pistol Prince. It shows Wild Bill to be a virtuous American patriot who is brave, smart, and a great shot with a gun. This novel also shows how things can be different depending on time. In the novel it is considered heroic that Wild Bill Kills Indians, because at the time that was what the United States
government was doing and it was acceptable. At the present time however this is considered by most people as unacceptable, many Americans conceder the Indian wars of the Wild west to be very dark chapters in American history. With all of that in mind this paper shows the great disparity between the perceived ideas gathered from this dime novel and the real Wild Bill Hickok.
