Rootin', Tootin'....Shootin'? Cowgirls with Guns

What's more iconic than a Hollywood cowgirl?  Is she a myth, or does she have some basis in fact?  For a time, since about the 1920s, the idea was floated that cowgirls, like the unicorn, may never have existed.  This rumor was traced back to an anonymously written piece in a midwestern newspaper claiming that real women in the American west wouldn't have been caught dead forsaking their petticoats to ride around roping heifers.  Since then, historians, documentarians, and ethnographers have worked to correct that misperception.

Dale Evans (with gun) & Roy Rogers

According to Teresa Jordan (Cowgirls: Women of the American West ), the definition of cowgirl is, "women who work outside, on ranches, or in the rodeo on a regular basis."  Cowgirls are not typically ranch wives who work primarily in the home.  Jordan says they can also be from the long tradition of mother-daughter ranching teams, or wives who ranch as equal partners to their husbands.

Another student of cowgirl history, Mary Lou LeCompte (Cowgirls of the Rodeo: Pioneer Professional Athletes), also gives a strong argument for rodeo riding cowgirls being the first female pro athletes widely accepted by the public.  Rodeo cowgirls also intersect the Hollywood representation of cowgirls in the movies, because they were hired by producers to do any riding or stunts for female actors in Westerns.

All of this, of course, is very interesting.  But the main issue for our Girls with a Gun blog is did any of these cowgirls pack heat?  Turns out, not many of them did, which is why handling a gun was not central to the above definition of cowgirl.  This comes as a little bit of a surprise, because none of us imagines the iconic cowboy without his six-shooter.

This is not to say that there are not a few outstanding examples of real Wild West girls with guns.  Everyone interested in cowgirls knows about the singular career of Annie Oakley as a trick-shot markswoman in Buffalo Bill Cody's traveling wild west shows of the 1860s.  Outlaw women of the same period like "Bandit Queen" Belle Starr, while strictly speaking were not cowgirls, were also known for shootin' things up.  Belle was in the top criminal class of the time by virtue of hanging out with uber hoodlums like Jesse James and the Younger brothers.

Show biz was a home for both real and make-believe performing cowgirls.  Hollywood films eventually superseded earlier representations of cowgirls found in wild west shows, wide circulation tabloid newspapers like "The Police Gazette," and "penny-dreadful" cheap novelizations.  Most of the cowgirls in film were either singers, like Dale Evans, or trick riders like Reno Browne and Nell O’Day.  Dale Evans, strangely enough, made a killing licensing her name along with partner Roy Rogers to toy gun manufacturers in the 1940s and 50s.

But in a mirror of real life, cowgirls with guns were mostly of the desperado variety.  Donna Matrazzo, producer of the documentary "Reel Cowgirls,"  tells us that cowgirls occupied the "in betweens" of our changing consciousnesses about the social rolls of women.  Matazzo says, "Cowgirl characters might be soft and feminine in one scene ... yet audacious, quick-witted and bold in another."  Screen cowgirls would often be mediators in disputes between dueling men, even if they had to pull out a gun themselves to settle things.

Girls with a Gun Blog had much fun reviewing Western genre films about cowgirls toting guns.  We recommend checking out "The Quick and the Dead" (1995) where Sharon Stone as a gunslinger faces off in a duel.  Also look up "Bad Girls" (1994) with Drew Barrymore and friends as  prostitutes turned gun-happy outlaws.  Last but not least, treat yourself to the unbelievably campy black and white "The Dalton Girls" (1957).  From it we have the absolutely hilarious and perfect clip of one of the Dalton gals serenading her gun!