It is difficult to piece together existing records that describe the migrations of African Americans in the nineteenth-century American West. Efforts to assemble collections of oral histories, images, diaries, and other written documents on the black experience in the Western United States and Canada have proven surprisingly fruitful, however, and the rewarding culmination of such research flourished in the archival images found in this second edition of John Ravage’s Black Pioneers.

Using public and private collections in every western state and in Canada, Ravage has gathered more than three hundred photographs, line drawings, lithographs, stereoviews, and other images. This new edition also adds sections on black entertainers and ranchers, a chapter on the dating of historic photographs and their genealogical significance, as well as an expanded bibliography. All aid understanding of the black frontier experience.

Ravage goes beyond the stereotypical photography of the era, which often reflected white fears and prejudices, to present the works of frontier photographers. Galveston’s Lucius Harper, Denver’s John Green, and the Northwest’s nomadic James Presley Ball all bring life to their subjects and meaning to their presence in the American West. Black Pioneers is a vibrant visual document of the profound influence blacks had on communal and frontier history.

John W. Ravage is professor emeritus of mass media at the University of Wyoming. He is the author of Television: The Directors Viewpoint and Singletree, and the editor of Kenneth Wiggins Porter’s The Negro on the American Frontier.

Foreword by Quintard Taylor
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Moving Westward and Northward
2. Early Imagery
3. Black Westerners in White Mythology
4. Black Photographers in the West
5. Warriors and Soldiers
6. Cowhands and Ranch Hands
7. Women of the West
8. The Adventurers
9. Across the Country’s Interior
10. To the Coast
11. Alaska and the Pacific Northwest
12. “Haole ‘Ele ‘Ele” in Owhyhee
13. Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd
14. Entertainers and Artists
15. Nonphotographic Imagery
Afterword
Appendix. A Short History of Photography: Dating Old Images
Notes
Bibliography
List of Collections
Index