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are the major defining genre of the American film industry, a eulogy to the early days of the expansive American frontier. They are one of the oldest, most enduring and flexible genres and one of the most characteristically American genres in their mythic origins ....

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.... in The Last of the Mohicans (1992)), Francis Parkman's The Oregon Trail (1849), Samuel Clemens' (Mark Twain) Roughing It (1872), Bret Harte's short stories, and other mythologies (tales of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Jim Bowie, Gen. George A Custer, Calamity Jane, and outlaws such as the James Brothers, the original Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Billy the Kid). Westerns are often set on the American frontier during the last part of the 19th century (1865-1900) following the Civil War, in a geographically western (trans-Mississippi) setting with romantic, sweeping frontier landscapes or rugged rural terrain. However, Westerns may extend ....