Wild West in London: Buffalo Bill Cody and Anglo-american Cultural Relations
Open Access
Author:
Ryan, Conor Lennon
Area of Honors:
History
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Tobias Heinrich Albert Brinkmann, Thesis Supervisor Catherine Wanner, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Buffalo Bill William Cody Wild West London Anglo-American Cultural Relations Queen Victoria Mark Twain
Abstract:
After many years of cultural antagonism, the late nineteenth century saw a marked shift in the relationship between American and British culture. American contempt for British nobility changed to admiration, and British feelings of superiority over Americans were replaced by feelings of kinship.
William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s tour of England in 1887 brought these changes of national cultural sentiment to the forefront of both American and British consciousness. Cody and his production, “the Wild West,” were met with nearly universal critical and popular success in Britain. A British culture, which had consistently upheld feelings of superiority toward American visitors and culture, gave Cody’s performances, and even Cody himself, a reception atypical of most American visitors. This reception of Cody, an American hero whose ethos matched the essential American archetype of the frontiersman, marked the beginning of mutual cultural respect between both the British and Americans, which would reach prominence in the twentieth century.
