The Day The Cowboys Quit, is a historical fiction, based on the cowboy strike of
1883 at old Tascosa in the Texas Panhandle. The strike was the effect of the policies that were beginning to show up in Texas ranching at the time. Small ranchers we’re becoming less and less numerous as the larger ranchers squashed competition through underhanded methods. This book takes place in a time when America was growing and experiencing many changes, especially with regards to businesses.
The large cattle ranches had started to implement many rules which restricted the freedom of the cowboys. Rules such as no drinking, no gambling, no abuse of horses were accepted with little argument. However, there were rules which many of the cowboys objected to. Rules that “forbade the use of a company horse on any private business”(p. 36), or “forbade the keeping of
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individually owned horses”(p. 36) except when the manager gave specific permission. These rules would mean the cowboy would be left to walk except when he was working. Other rules barred visitors from spending more than one nights stay in a camp, ignoring the traditional hospitality that the cowboys used, and was “a direct move to eliminate the unemployed chuckline riders”(p. 36). Another rule “effectively canceled out their right to own cattle anywhere.”, meaning the cowboys could never get into owning their own ranch. These rules were seen as “a little extreme... but if a man don’t like the rules he’s free to go and work someplace else.” However, the large ranches were expanding and soon there would be no place to go and work if you didn’t agree with the rules After learning about these rules, the cowboys realized that with the ranches teaming up on them, it was “time the cowboys done a little teamin’ up of their own.”(p. 36) and begin talking about a cowboy strike. Striking would give the cowboys leverage against the ranch owners, and allow them to fight back against the unfair rules and the loss of the cowboys’ freedom. They wanted to be treated like men, not “towheaded schoolboys”(p.37) Similarly to the companies we talked about in class, such as ford, us steel, and standard oil, the large ranches did not want the workers to organize ”the ranchers don’t want them organized.”(p.37). “They control the politics.”(p.37) the ranchers also had authority over politics because they’d have the cowboys vote for their candidates in elections. They also did not want any of the cowboy’s to have a stock of cattle of their own, as to squeeze out any competition. In a similar approach to Rockefeller’s horizontal integration, as we talked about in class, the big outfits of ranchers tried to “buy out or push out all the little outfits they can”, reducing their competition and increasing their hold on the workers. Once the cowboy’s of two of the major ranches, the Snaketrack and The Nine Bar, had gone on strike, there was a meeting between the owner’s of all the big ranches to come up with a plan to end this. Some wished to simply hang the dissenters. Charlie suggested giving them a little pay raise, however “none of us will stand for being blackmailed or bullied.”(p. 53), they refused to give in to the strike and let the cowboys use their bargaining power. The large ranch owners were also unhappy that charlie was paying a higher wage than them, as they had agreed to pay $25/month, but “Too often a cowboy does not like what he earns on the Figure 4 has gone to join you at the W and received more pay than I was giving him.” The higher wages Charlie was providing to his cowboys caused dissatisfaction on other ranches, and of course those ranches we’re the first to experience the strike while Charlie’s cowboys were still working for him. This is similar to Ford’s method of paying double the standard wage of other factories at the time, leading to much higher worker satisfaction and productivity, and a lower likelihood of striking. These ranchers were much like the factory owners of the north we talked about in class, focusing on their bottom line. Selkirk used his position on the board of a bank that provided charlie a loan, to force Charlie into enforcing the rules that all the other rancher’s enforced. “Charles, the majority of use have agreed to impose the cattle rule.”(p. 55) Selkirk stated. The ranchers working together to get rid of competition and provide their cowboys the bare minimum in compensation and treatment, is very similar to how the factories of the north operated. One of Charlie’s cowboys is caught stealing cattle from a neighboring rancher, after Charlie had refused to instate the rules that the other ranchers had, specifically the one not allowing them to own their own cattle.
After this, Charlie is forced to finally give in and enforce the rules that the other ranchers had agreed on. This led to dissatisfaction and anger among his cowboys. They had decided to strike, the same as the workers of the other ranches. However only about half of them went through with it and actually went on strike.
The cowboy strike in this book has very similar causes to the strikes of the factory workers in the north. As businesses grew bigger and bigger and eliminated competition, they were able to force people to work for very little, and under harsh conditions. In the north they often used their influence in politics to prevent strikes and unions, similarly to the ranchers controlling the sheriffs in almost every county. The transition from cowboys having freedom to just being a wage worker is similar to how skilled workers were becoming less valued in factories as they moved to assembly
lines.
McCarthy’s plot is built around a teenage boy, John Grady, who has great passion for a cowboy life. At the age of seventeen he begins to depict himself as a unique individual who is ambitious to fulfill his dream life – the life of free will, under the sun and starlit nights. Unfortunately, his ambition is at odds with the societal etiquettes. He initiates his adventurous life in his homeland when he futilely endeavors to seize his grandfather’s legacy - the ranch. John Grady fails to appreciate a naked truth that, society plays a big role in his life than he could have possibly imagined. His own mother is the first one to strive to dictate his life. “Anyway you’re sixteen years old, you can’t run the ranch…you are being ridiculers. You have to go to school” she said, wiping out any hopes of him owning the ranch (p.15). Undoubtedly Grady is being restrained to explore his dreams, as the world around him intuitively assumes that he ought to tag along the c...
Through the period of 1865-1900, America’s agriculture underwent a series of changes .Changes that were a product of influential role that technology, government policy and economic conditions played. To extend on this idea, changes included the increase on exported goods, do the availability of products as well as the improved traveling system of rail roads. In the primate stages of these developing changes, farmers were able to benefit from the product, yet as time passed by, dissatisfaction grew within them. They no longer benefited from the changes (economy went bad), and therefore they no longer supported railroads. Moreover they were discontented with the approach that the government had taken towards the situation.
In 1938, the Chavez family lost their farm due to the Great Depression. They were forced to relocate to California and become migrant workers. Chavez was distressed by the poor treatment that migrant farmworkers endured on a daily basis. His powerful religious convictions, dedication to change, and a skill at non violent organizing cultivated the establishment of the United Farmworkers (UFW). It was also referred to as “La Causa” by supporters and eventually became a vital movement for self-determination in the lives of California's farmworkers. The astounding nationwide lettuce and grape boycotts along with public support revealed the atrocities of California agribusiness and resulted in the first union hiring halls and collective bargaining for migrant workers. The details of the childhood of Cesar Chavez and how they would later shape his actions are a vital aspect of this book and the establishment of the farm workers movement.
Ever since he was a sixteen year old boy, Grady longed to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps into becoming a cowboy. He lives life according to the code which is valuing honor and loyalty. He loves the ardency in horses and the cowboy lifestyle. Grady also valued the ardency that was in his grandfather. He was raised on his grandfather’s ranch, which his mother sold after his grandfather’s death. After the ranch was sold Grady felt the need to move because he no longer felt an attachment to Texas while still trying to be faithful to the cowboy code, so he went to Mexico to find what went “missing” in his hometown.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.
...er and roam. In this vast land uninhabited between the United States and Mexico, John Grady encounter three men. “The man studied his eyes in the firelight” (McCarthy 281), looking for truth and honesty. This is who John Grady wanted to be. “Men of the country” (McCarthy 281). This was John Grady’s dream, his quest, laid out physically in front of him, but a struggle is created from the dream-like image of these men and the reality of becoming these men, although, John Grady has yet to reach this point. As the curtains close, John Grady rides off into the sunset, into vast plains, searching for the ideal qualities of a cowboy he will never find because of the unrealistic nature of his fantasy. For John Grady to live the dream, conflict between reality and fantasy leads to pain, suffering and darkens, forcing John Grady on a never-ending search for his fantasy.
In reading “All the pretty horses” by Cormac McCarthy, we are introduced to the protagonist John Grady Cole. At the beginning of the story, John Grady is attending his grandfathers funeral in the ranch that he now shares with his mother. John Grady Cole, grew up in world where being a cowboy meant freedom and a ever growing relationship with the one thing he cared about more than anything… horses. The story seems to unravel in the early 1950s when the old west began to evolve to the new ways of the west and the definition of what made a man a cowboy increasingly blurred. As the story evolves, it becomes evident that the selling of his grandfather’s ranch leaves Grady feeling adrift and incomplete. Henceforth, he deicides to set foot on his own and find a new place to call his home. We see that the loss of his grandfathers ranch and the passing of the old west he knew, serves as a reflection of how John Grady’s character attempts to maintain this cowboy lifestyle that he witnessed growing up . John Grady Cole’s character tough young, serves as a hero in his journey of becoming a man. Combined with his passion and idealistic mentality, his love for horses and the open plains of Texas/Mexico sets him off into new adventures. Realizing that each scenario encountered paves the way towards a journey of harsh reality, this story serves as one of growth and the passionate search of the old cowboy life. Grady sets out on a journey to Mexico with his comrade Rawlins riding off into the sun with hopes of finding a new home; they rode in hopes of regaining their sense of beloning.
The lack of government intervention was causing major issues and uprisings throughout the 1900’s. Places like Packingtown took advantage of the limited regulations enforced by the government and tried to maximize their profits. This led to many problems for the workers in the factory and the meat consumers. First of all, there were very long working hours. A typical day at that time consisted of a
For many Americans, the image of the cowboy evokes pleasant nostalgia of a time gone by, when cowboys roamed free. The Cowboy is, to many Americans, the ideal American, who was quick to the draw, well skilled in his profession, and yet minded his own business. Regardless of whether the mental picture that the word cowboy evokes is a correct or incorrect view of the vocation, one seldom views cowboys as being black. The first cowboy I met was from Texas and was black. After he told me that he was a cowboy, I told him that he had to be kidding. Unfortunately, I was not totally to blame for my inability to recognize that color has nothing to do with the cowboy profession; most if not all popular famous images of cowboys are white. In general, even today, blacks are excluded from the popular depiction of famous Westerners. Black cowboys were unheard of for almost a century after they made their mark on the cattle herding trade, not because they were insignificant, but because history fell victim to prejudice, and forgot peoples of color in popular depictions of the West and Western history.
The period in American history between 1900 and 1920 was a very turbulent one. Civil unrest was brewing as a result of many pressures placed upon the working class. Although wealth was accumulating at an astonishing rate in America, most people at the lower economic levels were not benefiting from any of it. Worst of all for them, the federal government seemed to be on the side of the corporations. Their helpless situation and limited options is why the coal strike of 1902 is so important.
Thousand of families flooded to California just so they could feed their families, but by showing the treatment the landowners show to these families, or lack thereof, Steinbeck points to the fact that they don't even plan on letting them eat, and that money is the only thing they're really worrying about. When explaining to his family that Jim Casy had gone on strike because of the poor wages, Tom says, "Yeah. What we was a-doin' was breakin' strike. They give them fellas two an' a half cents." Pa responds, "You can't eat on that." When their outlook gets so desperate, the first priority is to feed their families and hope for better times. By showing these small, seemingly insignificant, noble acts, Steinbeck shows the determination of these families to press on. The poor wages set by the landowners show that they, the landowners, care nothing for the families even in their destitution. With such low wages set, the landowners are alienating these poor families and giving reason for hostilities. This form of alienation demonstrates that these landowners plan on keeping every penny they possible can. With lower wages paid to more workers, things get done quicker while the rich can keep their pockets lined.
The horses are kicking, jumping, bucking, frightened by the loud pop of the fireworks and woohing of the crowd. A black broncho had fallen rolling in fear on the hard and cold ground. A beautiful white mustang is rearing up, fighting the restraint of a lead rope clutched tightly in two cowboys’ hands. They try vigorously to escape the hands of the cowboys. A thick cloud of dust surrounds them, flying up in their eyes, blinding them from their vicinity. This was Jack's chance, his chance to win. It is the 4th of July, 1935 and the Wild Horse Race is taking place. Each man wanting the same thing, victory. Being in such depressing times they all need a little boost of spirits in their lives. This was a way of showing that they would not let the times they were in get the best of them. Men from all over the county came to compete in this race. The cash prize was small, but in their position everything counted to them.
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
In the book there is some physical and social limitations placed on the working-class. For example Crook he is an african american and he is crippled because when he was little he got kicked in the back by a horse. For these reason he is isolated away from the other people that work on the ranch. It impacts the class because it helps the go and look for companionship even though back then it was not okay for african americans to talk to white people because of their skin color. In addition Candy another worker that lives on the ranch lost his hand. He lost it in the machine while working on the ranch. For this reason he thinks they only keep him around because he got hurt their but when he can’t do no more work he is gonna have to leave. They
The day the cowboys quit was written by the late Elmer Kelton, who is a native of Texas. He grew up on the McElroy Ranch. After Graduating from Crane High School he went to attend the University of Texas, where he earned a B.A. degree in journalism. He went on to write over 40 novels, and published over more than 50 years. The day the cowboys quit was one of eight books to receive the Spur award from Western Writers of America. The Day the Cowboys Quit is about the backdrop of the Great Canadian River Cowboys Strike of 1883; a strike against large ranches on the Texas high plains, when the encroachment of an Eastern corporate mentality drove freedom-loving cowboys to drastic measures. The Cowboys strike mainly took place in Texas Panhandle. The Canadian River is tributary of the Arkansas River. At about 906 miles, it started in Colorado and went through New Mexico, and across the Texas Panhandle.