Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show
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Biographers have long disputed whether Cody was a hero or a charlatan. In fact, the savvy entertainer encouraged the dispute by mingling fictional exploits with his not inconsiderable achievements to construct the persona of an ideal frontiersman. At the same time, his show provided a means for rural westerners, including cowboys, cowgirls, and expecially Lakota Sioux Indians, to claim a new future for themselves by reenacting a version of the past.
