American culture Archives - The Gale Review

‘Little Sure Shot of the Wild West’ – The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley

October 3, 2023November 3, 2020 by Gale Ambassadors

Annie Oakley takes a shot in front of a crowd.

│By Eloise Sinclair, Gale Ambassador at Durham University│

In July 1889, Mr. Russell Harrison, the son of US President Benjamin Harrison, visited Buffalo Bill’s Wild West encampment. He was welcomed with a spectacular breakfast of “clam chowder, baked beans with a flavor of savory pork, corn bread, custard pie and ice cream”. After which, he was taken for “a ride in the famous Deadwood Coach,” and gifted with a 5-cent piece. This was no ordinary 5-cent coin – a hole had been pierced through its centre by one of Annie Oakley’s bullets. I first learned about the celebrated sharpshooter Annie Oakley and the role she played in providing the West with an identity during a trip to the National Cowgirl Museum in Texas, a visit which left me eager to learn more. By using Gale Reference Complete, a package of digital resources available at Durham, I was able to explore a range of documents detailing her life and legacy.

An American Summer’s Dream

October 4, 2023October 31, 2019 by Gale Ambassadors

│ By Megan Bowler, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool │

America – a country of tradition, devout patriotism, sport fanatics and Chick-fil-a. Like Thanksgiving, 4th July, the Superbowl or Maryland’s infamous Turkey Trot, summer camps are arguably an integral part of American culture. This summer, bright-eyed and enthusiastic, I hopped on a plane and travelled a little under four thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean to YMCA Camp Letts to enjoy my own summer camp experience. Interested in exploring the history of this cultural phenomenon, and the way in which it has been conceived by others, I used Gale’s primary source archives and found personal narratives printed in twentieth-century newspapers in which the authors reminisce about summer camps. Camp counselling is a truly rewarding role; one that has been fulfilled and enjoyed by many likeminded young adults for decades. With these documents, I have been able to plot trends and identify similarities between my recent summer experience and the memories of those who were camp counsellors over fifty years before me, tracing the continuities and shared experiences of this uniquely-American tradition – one of which I now feel a part.