Real life vs Legend

Rsmith_77

Rsmith_77

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Jun 4, 2010
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Since this is the traditional forums, I guessing this is the best place to ask this.

Now we all know Hollywood makes changes wherever it sees fit to make the stories more interesting. But I wonder, All the legends tell of the cowboys, Mountain Men, Explorers and adventurers carried largish fixed blades (maybe Bowie style, maybe not). But as this forum has brought to many of our attention that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers (in the US at least) really only carried slip-joints. We've all read Carl's stories about his father and grandfather and we all know that these hard use slippies worked for them.

So my question is, did our ancestors always use slip joints and hollywood/novels/legends change that to something we find more exciting? Or did they in fact carry larger fixed blades. Legend would have it that in the wild west a fight with outlaws or indians could break out at anytime and knife fights occasionally broke out. But does reality come anywhere near the legends...or is it just hollywood?

If they DID in fact carry large fixed blades for whatever reason, when did that start to change? And any thoughts as to why the change from fixed to slippy occurred. I suspect that most farmers and soldiers would have carried slip joints just for convenience, but i wonder about the explorers etc

sorry, rather a large burst of questions there, but anyone with any knowledge would be appreciated and thoughts/comments from folks are always interesting to read as well.

Ryan
 
Lots of good books out there that cover what those on the "frontier" carried. For example, a cowboy usually carried a stock yard knife (stockman) and kept a fixed blade in their saddle roll. Mountain men carried a big butcher knife or skinner, not the bowie knife that everyone placed in their hands. If some could get them, they carried clasp knives. Knife World has had lots of good articles on what people "back then" carried. If you get the chance, check out Knife in Homespun America, lots of great fixed blades that were improvised blades made from what one could scrounge up around the farm etc.
 
My opinion is that the Mountain men carried more than one knife. They had the big knife (skinner or bowie style) and also a smaller knife for general use and eating. any pictures show the big knife shoved in their belts but stories talk of the smaller or even the boot knife for general use.
Look at the Scotish knives with the big one in a sheath with a smaller and fork in that same sheath.
 
I imagine that people back then, like now, had a certain number of knife knuts, with most of the great working masses just getting some simple cutting tool that did the job. The Bowie knife was an over rated short lived item, dying a quick death once Sam Colt's repeating handgun came out.

Most of the mountain men were on a financial venture, and cost of gear was important. Most used from what I've seen in the museums I've been through, seems to be simple thin bladed butcher knives from I. Wilson, IXL, and later the John Russell company Green River knives. For the price of one Bowie, three skinning knives could be purchased. Something for a working trapper to think about.

On the frontier, I also think the working man, be it farmer/homesteader, cowboy, or a townie like a dry goods store operator, hotel keeper, shoe maker, gunsmith, blacksmith, barber, or whatever, just carried a pocket knife. Anything more was just not needed. The last thing a cowboy or any mounted person wants on his hip is a sheath knife that may impale him if a skittish horse throws him. The working cowboy had no need of anything more than a pocket knife. And certainly some poor immigrant homesteader from Germany, Russia, Ireland, or Sweden, didn't splurge too much on a knife. A simple single blade design like a sodbuster would be a good contender.

Even going back to the Civil War, the big bowie's were tossed aside after a few marches. Not needed, but with all other stuff they carried, it was a PITA that got tossed pretty quick. I saw an article once on the wounds in the civil war, and an astoundingly small percentage were from knives, or bayonets. The museums around here at Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, and other Civil War sites all have some one and two blade jacks in the case. Some rusted very bad, found on the battle field with metal detectors, but still recognizable as a simple pocket knife.

I think if you could hitch a ride in a time machine, and take a walk through Dodge City in 1880, you'd find a surprising amount of people not carrying a firearm or large knife. But there will be a zillion pocket knives of one and two blade designs. The town mayor or banker may even have a nice pearl Sheffield knife in a vest pocket.

Hollyweird has distorted a heck of a lot of history.

Carl.
 
hrm, i suspected real life would be "exciting" so I am not overly surprised

on a related note, wonder what the native americans carried, hollywood would tell us tomahawks and small (4-6) blade fixed blades either of stone or later, metal
I'm guessing that this too is hollywoodization of reality?
 
I've commented before, on the ironic fact that Texas has outlawed Bowie knives. I didn't fully understand why, especially considering the Bowie's legendary status in the home of the Alamo. But, I finally read that it happened in the years just folllowing the civil war, I think. I would've assumed, as with most restrictive knife laws, that it had been enacted sometime in the 20th century. But even back in the late 1800s, the Bowie was apparently implicated in too many violent incidents & fights. So, even back when men were truly MEN, they thought the Bowie to be just a bit too much, in Texas at least.

Edited to add:

Apparently, the Bowie knife was also dimly viewed in other parts of the South, going as far back as the 1830s. Here's a quote from Wiki (linked below):

"The deadly reputation of the Bowie knife led to it being banned in many areas of the American South during the late 1830s. In 1837, the year after Bowie’s death, the Alabama legislature passed laws imposing a $100 transfer tax on 'Bowie' knives and decreeing that anyone carrying a Bowie knife who subsequently killed a person in a fight would be charged with premeditated murder. Mississippi prohibited it as a dueling weapon, and in 1838 Tennessee legislators attempted to ban its sale altogether.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowie_knife#Legal_status
 
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It's hard to know with any certainty what types of knives were really favored by those in the past. Obviously some used folding knives, while others chose fixed blades. But I do know that this country is still relatively young, and immigration played a large part in its history. It's not hard to imagine that many of those immigrants used knives that were familiar to them (i.e., knives from their countries of origin). A knife's utility cannot be denied and because they are relatively small and compact it is not hard to imagine a knife being one of the few treasured possessions an immigrant might bring with him. I've seen evidence of this in Michigan and Wisconsin. A lot of Scandinavians settled in that area and many people own a old puukko that was a grandfather's or great-grandfather's old companion.

- Christian
 
This question is pretty much a matter of fact in American history. If one really wants to know about it, one should read up on it. My only suggestion is one should use multiple sources with documented historical fact. Older photos and images depicting American Indian tribes and mountain men such as Jim Bridger and the like is highly recommended.



Best,
Anthony
 
Many Indians and Frontiersmen did indeed carry tomahawks, they were often used in battle as well as for other tasks.

To add to Jackknife's comment about Dodge City, some years ago, the Washington DC mayor made a contemptuous remark to the press about firearms, how HIS city wasn't "Dodge City". So the mayor of Dodge City responded the next day, showing how, even in it's heyday, Dodge City had something like 1/10th or 1/100th the murders (per capita) that Washington DC has in the present time. While there certainly was some shooting back in those days, there was also a strong moral ethic and sense of fair play and justice. I suspect a lot of things have been blown out of proportion in order to sell dime novels, magazines, books, and movies...
 
Archaeology is a good way to learn about the material objects actually used in the past. You might be interested in the Steamboat Arabia Museum, with its displays of the excavated contents of a frontier steamboat's cargo from 1856, preserved in the mud of the Missouri River.
209fv9i.jpg
 
sodak said:
Many Indians and Frontiersmen did indeed carry tomahawks, they were often used in battle as well as for other tasks.

To add to Jackknife's comment about Dodge City, some years ago, the Washington DC mayor made a contemptuous remark to the press about firearms, how HIS city wasn't "Dodge City". So the mayor of Dodge City responded the next day, showing how, even in it's heyday, Dodge City had something like 1/10th or 1/100th the murders (per capita) that Washington DC has in the present time. While there certainly was some shooting back in those days, there was also a strong moral ethic and sense of fair play and justice. I suspect a lot of things have been blown out of proportion in order to sell dime novels, magazines, books, and movies...
Click to expand...

My parents are both native Kansans, and their parents spent most of their lives in Kansas. My Grandmother (Dad's mom) lived in Dodge City for a long time, and was once asked by someone who'd obviously (and unfortunately) believed everything they'd read or seen in movies or on TV about Dodge City, if she'd ever met or seen Matt Dillon. I'm not kidding.
 
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Berkley beat me to it, that picture of the Arabia knives speaks volumes about the types of pocketknives sold on the frontier in the 1850s. It is my impression that with the earlier mountain man culture, the primary fixed blade was a skinning knife or butcher knife. That's the tool that they would have used in their daily work.
 
Berkley said:
Archaeology is a good way to learn about the material objects actually used in the past. You might be interested in the Steamboat Arabia Museum, with its displays of the excavated contents of a frontier steamboat's cargo from 1856, preserved in the mud of the Missouri River.
209fv9i.jpg
Click to expand...

Cool. I see I really need to get over this fear of carrying Wood Handled slip joints because I get the knives I work with rain and snow soaked at times. :D
 
sunnyd said:
This question is pretty much a matter of fact in American history. If one really wants to know about it, one should read up on it. My only suggestion is one should use multiple sources with documented historical fact. Older photos and images depicting American Indian tribes and mountain men such as Jim Bridger and the like is highly recommended.

Best,
Anthony
Click to expand...


Superdave1 said:
Yup, one's imagination is not a reference source....
Click to expand...

Yes, i know imagination is not a reference source, and yes, I am sure that the historical record is out there. But I wasnt having much liuck with my online research. So I thought I would post here and see if I couldnt see if there were folks that could direct me at any online articles or sources. I am tracking down (or attempting to) some of the books someone posted up earlier.
 
Berkley said:
Archaeology is a good way to learn about the material objects actually used in the past. You might be interested in the Steamboat Arabia Museum, with its displays of the excavated contents of a frontier steamboat's cargo from 1856, preserved in the mud of the Missouri River.
209fv9i.jpg
Click to expand...

Yeah that is really an interesting batch of knives isnt it? I wish I could say I wasnt surprised by what's pictured, but I kinda am :p
 
sodak said:
Many Indians and Frontiersmen did indeed carry tomahawks, they were often used in battle as well as for other tasks.

To add to Jackknife's comment about Dodge City, some years ago, the Washington DC mayor made a contemptuous remark to the press about firearms, how HIS city wasn't "Dodge City". So the mayor of Dodge City responded the next day, showing how, even in it's heyday, Dodge City had something like 1/10th or 1/100th the murders (per capita) that Washington DC has in the present time. While there certainly was some shooting back in those days, there was also a strong moral ethic and sense of fair play and justice. I suspect a lot of things have been blown out of proportion in order to sell dime novels, magazines, books, and movies...
Click to expand...

Many of these dime novels where actually created during the time of the "cowboy" in an effort to glamorize the life style. I have studied the gilded age and can say that the expansion of settlers westward was largely fueled by propaganda and the myth of the "cowboy". Hollywood films and characters like Rooster Cogburn draw as much from novels written as early as the 1860's as they do from the imaginations of the twentieth century.
 
Backwoodsman listed the contents of a deceased "mountain man", it seems like he was either a salesman or a mountain man that really planned ahead. I don't have the article in front of me, but I remember him having dozens of folding knives, possibly for trade, and a few "trade knives". His "personal kit" had a few folding knives and butcher knives. There are a lot of books out there, and Knife World back issues can be gotten at gun and knife shows pretty easily.
 
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