1900s

Myself, wearing a brown cowboy hat, a green patchwork cowboy shirt, with a red tee underneath reading "Red Dog Saloon" and featuring a cartoon image of a dog, and green courdory pants, standing in front of a museum exhibit wall that has a large image of a bear wearing a pink cowboy hat, and text reading "Imagined Wests If you close your eyes and picture ‘the American West,’ what do you see? A desert landscape? A frontier town and tumbleweeds? National parks and majestic mountains? How about the Kansas prairies, the forests of the Olympic Peninsula, or the Hawaiian Islands? Do you picture a cowboy on horseback? Native Americans? Or the variety of people in Los Angeles or another Western city? This gallery explores the tales we tell about the West, both he ones we call ‘Westerns’ and the wide rage of other stories rooted in the region. Many of our ‘Imagined Wests’ - the places and characters we picture when we close our eyes - come to us through popular culture. Film and television, music and writing, visual art and fashion, performance, and even museums have given us so many Wests. When we mix these stories together, the American West may look different from our first associations. But the West has always been home to a variety of interconnected peoples and the stories we all create here."

The Autry: A Look at the American West, both Real and Fiction

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With a love of westerns, it’s no wonder one of my favorite museums in Los Angeles is The Autry, which is dedicated to the American west. Recently they opened Imagined Wests, an exhibit that showcases how the American West is presented in pop culture. In addition to Imagined Wests, there were a few other interesting exhibits,…

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Close-up of the brooch, a hatchet with "Carrie Nation" embossed on the blade.

Remembering the Hatchet Brandishing Carry A. Nation the Unsung Heroine of Prohibition

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When the majority of Americans think about the era of Prohibition, we think of the roaring 20s, with flappers, speakeasies, and flowing illegal hooch. However, the push for outlawing alcohol started before the arrival of the 20th century, and part of it was spearheaded by a formidable woman, towering at six feet tall, dressed in…

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Myself standing in front of the gallery's title wall, which reads "Poses Figures and Glances"

J.C. Leyendecker: Illustrating American Traditions and Queer Coded Advertisements

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For as long as I can remember I’ve always loved illustration art. Magazine covers in the pre-photography days have always enchanted with me with their idealistic images of seasonal celebrations, illustrated advertisements of rosey cheeked women whose lives are magically made better by whatever they are holding, all of it delightfully charming, while also making…

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The dock of the island, with the large former barracks turned apartments looming above.

More than a Prison: The Gardens, Native American Heritage, and Birds of Alcatraz

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Alcatraz. The Rock. The most formidable prison in the United States. From its early years as a fort, later turned prison, and then the location of the protest that sparked the 1970s Native American Rights Movement, Alcatraz Island is now a National Park that seeks to preserve the history of the island, while also accepting…

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