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Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982

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Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982 is a multi-format collection that presents documentation of a Nevada cattle-ranching community. The collection documents the work and life of the family-run Ninety-Six Ranch and its cowboys, known in the region as buckaroos. People, sites, and traditions in the larger community of Paradise Valley, home to persons of Northern Paiute Indian, Anglo-American, Italian, German, Basque, Swiss, and Chinese heritage, are represented. Most of the collection was created by the Paradise Valley Folklife Project, undertaken by the American Folklife Center from 1978 to 1982.

Postwar United States, 1945-early 1970s
Contemporary United States, 1965-present

American Life Histories, 1936-1940
California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties, 1938-1940
FSA/OWI Photographs, 1935-1945
Map Collections, 1500-2004
Voices from the Dust Bowl, 1940-1941

Read More About It! - A bibliography
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress
Folklife Sourcebook: A Directory of Folklife Resources in the United States
Folklife and Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques
A Teacher's Guide to Folklife Resources for K-12

For help with search words, see the Buckaroos in Paradise, 1945-1982 Subject Index. A Glossary provides explanations of terms found in the collection. For an overview of topics covered in the collection, see Topics.

For help with search strategies, see Finding Items in American Memory.

No special viewers are needed to see the images in this collection. The collection contains audio and video. You can search descriptions and see a still clip of each film without special viewers. However, to play the actual film and hear sound recordings, you will need special viewers. For help with viewers, see American Memory Viewer Information.

Most of the multimedia material in Buckaroos in Paradise dates after World War II. The collection documents Ninety-Six Ranch, a family-run ranch in Paradise Valley, northern Nevada. Contained within the collection, however, are essays on the early history of the ranch with historic photographs and a few sound recordings recalling the early days, covering the period from 1863 through World War II.

1) Ethnic Groups and Immigration

Lunch, 1978, by Carl Fleischhauer

Search on Native American, Basque, Chinese, Italian, or German to find pictures and audio recordings related to the different ethnic groups who settled Paradise Valley. How did the make-up of Paradise Valley's inhabitants change over time? How does this relate to this history of immigration in the United States in general?

Harobed (detail), 1978, by Richard E. Ahlborn

The several videos and audios describing changes in haying technology and labor in the 1940s and 1980s tie into the subject of the modern American economy, particularly the impact of scientific and technological change on workplace and productivity and the changing composition of the American workforce. See also the essay Haying, Irrigating, and Branding: Tradition and Innovation, which describes the different ranching activities and how they have changed during the twentieth century. Many other examples of the old vs. new methods of doing things exist in the collection, and the combination of still photos and videos offer a chance to see, rather than just read about, items used by ranchers. Students can look at the technology and listen to and read the special terms used by ranchers.

Use these materials to talk about how industrialization changed peoples's lives over the course of the twentieth century. Compare the way tasks were completed in the "early days" of the ranch versus more recent times. How many people did it take to run the ranch in the early part of the century? How does that compare with the 1970s, when the interviews here were done? What has that meant for the individuals who performed the various tasks?

The combination of primary and secondary sources available in this collection contribute to a teacher's ability to use Buckaroos in Paradise for classroom exercises in historical thinking. Like most "Folk life" collections, Buckaroos in Paradise offers a rich first-person perspective on daily life, which can complement textbook instruction.

1) Chronological Thinking

Storage Building with Cellar, 1981, by Carl Fleischhauer

The Bunk Houses and Line Cabins section of the Views of a Western Way of Life Special Presentation outlines the history of ranchers's dwellings in northern Nevada. Students can read this article and pull out specific words for more in-depth searching in the collection: for instance, adobe, granite, and mobile home. (Many, though not most, of the pictures that students will find will include some information about the construction date of the buildings.)

Using the information from the article and the pictures they find, students can present a chronology of homes and bunkhouses in northern Nevada. This can be an online presentation or, by printing out the pictures, a paper or display presentation. Examine the influences – environment, social factors, economy, technology – that contribute to the differences in house types.

2) Historical Analysis and Interpretation

Two audios, Losing Jobs to Mechanization and Reducing the Need for Labor on the 96 Ranch discuss the changes brought by mechanization from the perspective of a laborer and a ranch owner and demonstrate how decisions are made, as well as the repercussions of those decisions. Les Stewart, owner of the ranch, discusses his own reaction to changes in ranch life in the audio The Ninety-Six Ranch, Diversification, and the Future.

Use these materials to complement a U.S. History study of the post-World-War-II era. Students can hold a debate on the pros and cons of federal land management. Or, they can research the current life in Nevada and other farming and ranching communities. What have technological and policy changes meant for people living in northern Nevada? How is one individual, like Les Stewart, affected by the important changes around him?

3) Historical Research Capabilities

Exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution (detail), 1980, by Carl Fleischhauer

Background information about the Paradise Valley Folklife Project provides an introduction to specific methods of historical research used in this project. Older students can use the guidelines in the Library of Congress publication Folklife and Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques, to begin their project. Students of all ages can photograph, interview and videotape their fellow students, and gather data about the classroom and school. The goal will be a "snapshot" of your school or community at this time.

Students can answer such questions as:

• What happens in a typical day at your school?
• What do students like most about their school? What do they like least?
• What different ethnic groups are represented in your classroom?
• What do students eat and wear in your school?

Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada contains nearly 70 sound recordings and films, along with two essays that provide context for collection users. Teachers will find that this collection especially rich for teaching listening and interviewing skills to students at all grade levels. (NOTE: you may need special "viewers" on your computer to access the sound and film recordings; see Viewer Information if you run into problems.)

1) Expository Writing

Saddle Repair, 1980, by Carl Fleischhauer

Students can search the sound recordings on working (make sure that "Search on Audio Collections ONLY" is selected from the first pull-down menu) to find two or three recordings of people describing their own work experiences (for instance, "I Just Needed to Work" and "I Was Born in Kermit, Texas," both of which are interviews with workers on the Ninety-Six Ranch). Then have them write short essays contrasting the content of the recordings and the Working section of Buckaroos: Views of a Western Way of Life.

2) Interviewing

Have students read Carl Fleishauer's essay discussing the circumstances of one of the folklife research team's interviews of rancher Les Stewart, from which many selections in the collection are drawn, in "Interviewing Leslie Stewart." Then have them search on 81/05/09 Leslie Stewart for video recordings of Stewart from that interview. (May 9, 1981 is the date it took place.)

Margie Purser Interviews Fritz Buckingham (detail), 1982, by Carl Fleischhauer

• Was the person at ease while being interviewed?
• Did any interruptions come up during the interview?
• What did the student learn from the interviewee, or from the experiencing of conducting the interview?

• What makes a good interview?
• What preparation on the interviewer's part was helpful to making the interview go well?
• What are some of the problems that come up while interviewing?
• Did you learn anything that surprised you? What?

3) Spoken Word and Regionalism

The interviews in this collection all took place at the Ninety-Six Ranch, and what we know about regionalism suggests that the people there would all sound similar. And yet in fact when listening to the recordings, several distinctive accents emerge: Martha Arriola, born in Germany, sounds very different from Stanley Smart, a Northern Paiute Indian. Smart in turn has a different accent than Les Stewart, a white man who was born in Nevada.

Do a search on any of the individual names above to find sound recordings and photographs. Is there anything similar in the ways these people talk? What's different? What are some of the similarities and differences in the ways people talk in your own school, town or city?

Make tape recordings (video or audio) of people speaking in your school. Analyze the differences and similarities in their accents, and in the words (or language) they use. What causes differences (for instance, age/generation, place of birth)? Have students come up with a list of words that they think of as regionalisms: things said in your part of the country that are not used commonly other places.