Jan 18 2022 42 mins 3
On this episode, Ryan is joined by Mark. A. Lause, Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati and author of The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots, and Class Conflicts in the American West (Verso, 2017). Taking its title from a major strike led by ranch hands in the Texas Panhandle in 1883, the book traces the broader history of post-Civil War labor radicalism and third-party insurgency in the American West. Lause discusses this under-explored history and touches on topics like the criminalization of “mavericking” (the branding of unbranded calves, a way for cowboys to start their own herds); the ideological function of violence in the Old West; the idea of turning Fredrick Jackson Turner “on his head”; and the continued relevance of rural and Western populism in imagining alternatives to the two-party political system in the U.S. Lause also introduces us to colorful historical figures like “Broncho John” Sullivan, an American cowboy radical enough to impress Eleanor Marx Aveling (Karl’s daughter) when they met at a Wild West show in 1886. For more on Broncho John, “a different kind of Western hero,” see also Lause’s profile at LAWCHA, the blog of the Labor and Working-Class History Association.
