Buffalo Bill probably did more than anyone else to instill the image of the cowboy in the popular imagination. Up until that time, the late Nineteenth Century, cowboys were looked upon as crude laborers, the way some people today might view longshoremen or factory workers. By the turn of the Twentieth Century, however, the cowboy had become a figure to be admired, and the makeover was largely because of Buffalo Bill--before Tom Mix, before John Wayne, and before Clint Eastwood.
His vehicle was the Wild West Show--a circus, essentially, which instead of clowns and lion tamers, had ropers, bronco riders, and other elements of the modern rodeo. Earlier versions had been simple plays featuring Cody and other colorful figures such as Wild Bill Hickock, playing in such cities as Chicago to introduce people to that slice of prairie life. After doing this for others for a while, Cody broke out on his own, and around 1882, he expanded upon the concept by creating a full-scale spectacle. His company included horses, cattle, elk, and buffalo, as well as real, live Indians like Sitting Bull, and top markswoman Annie Oakley, whom the Native American dubbed Little Sure Shot.
The Wild West Show performed throughout the country for decades in places such as Denver and Chicago and New York. Part theater and part living history museum, it gave city people a sense (romanticized though it may have been) about what life was like out on the plains.
But it was not just Americans who were learning about cowboys and Indians. Cody eventually took his winning formula overseas. In 1887, he brought his troupe to England to perform for Queen Victoria at her Golden Jubilee. A couple of years later, he took the troupe onto the European continent, traveling to France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, even the Vatican, where troupe members were blessed by Pope Leo XIII.
Of course, as often happens with a successful American enterprise, it wasn't long before Buffalo Bill had a competitor, and one from within his own ranks. The man went by the name of Pawnee Bill. Born Gordon Lillie, Pawnee Bill acquired his Western moniker largely through his work among the Pawnee Indians, whom he taught for a while before joining Buffalo Bill's show. During his period with Cody, Pawnee Bill met and married a woman named May Manning, and the two of them eventually went off and started a show of their own.
