A new exhibition opening later this month at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West shares posters that were used to advertise the Wild West show in the late 19th and early 20th century.
One of the posters, called “The Great Train Hold-Up and Bandit Hunters of the Union Pacific,” depicts a train robbery, where a bunch of outlaws blow up a safe using dynamite to get the money.
Buffalo Bill Museum Curator Jeremy Johnston says in this version of the poster, a woman is seen participating in the robbery.
“The controversy over the female bandit is interesting. Some audience members did not want to see women being outlaws, even though there’s this history through the American West of women taking on more masculine roles – characters like Calamity Jane or Pearl Buck, who were taking on roles as freighters, stagecoach divers or outlaws,” he said.
Johnston said train robberies, like the scene depicted in the poster, were reenacted with real locomotives in the arena for several years in the Wild West Show. The show presented historical scenes and myths of the American West.
