This nation, turning 100 years old, had no {\em Odyssey}, no
St.~George slaying the dragon, no Prometheus. The emerging American
genius for making a lot of money was a poor substitute for King
Arthur and his knights (although the Horatio Alger myth of rags to
riches was good for a lot of mileage). Without a mythology and set
of ancient heroes to call its own, America had to manufacture its
heroes. So the mythmaking machinery of nineteenth|-|century American
media created a suitable heroic archetype in the cowboys of the Wild
West. The image was of the undaunted cattle drivers living a life of
reckless individualism, braving the elements, staving off brutal
Indian attacks. Or of heroic lawmen dueling with six|-|guns in the
streets at high noon. This artificial Wild West became America's
Iliad.