Title:
How People Like Levi Strauss Put Their Mark on the
American West
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
Many men and women helped to shape popular images of
the American West. Some of these people can be seen
in a show at the National Portrait Gallery in
Washington, D.C.
FRANK GOODYEAR: The individuals who you see pictured
along this wall are all important players in that
development.
Frank Goodyear chose the pictures of more than one
hundred individuals for the show.
He says people from many different places and
occupations influenced the development of the
American West. For example, Joseph Glidden invented
barbed wire. His invention helped separate land for
farming. Theodore Roosevelt became president in
1901. Years earlier, he lived in North Dakota.
FRANK GOODYEAR: When Roosevelt became president, he
transformed this love of the West into concrete
legislation, setting aside lands for national parks,
national forests, initiating a vigorous national
debate about conservation.
Many people have heard of this businessman: Levi
Strauss.
FRANK GOODYEAR: Levi Strauss comes to recognize that
great fortunes can be made during the Gold Rush by
supplying miners with the goods that they need, and
realizing that a design for a waist overall is
really very popular among the miners, and makes a
tremendous fortune with his 501 jeans.
The show has pictures of explorers like John Wesley
Powell. He was the first white man to travel the
full length of the Colorado River. There are also
pictures of artists and photographers like Eadweard
Muybridge.
Goodyear says Muybridge was skilled at taking
photographs of landscapes. His images and others had
a major effect on the eastern United States. Many
people there could not believe the beauty of the
West.
Writer Samuel Clemens also was important.
FRANK GOODYEAR: Sam Clemens, who develops the pen
name Mark Twain, really is the first individual to
bring a kind of Western voice to American
literature. His novel, Roughing It, really provide a
larger American public with some of the colorful
characters and dramatic stories associated with the
West.
The West had many colorful personalities: criminals
like Jesse James, and bank robbers Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid. Entertainer Annie Oakley was
famous for shooting targets. William Cody, or
Buffalo Bill, was known for his Wild West Show.
Goodyear says the National Portrait Gallery show
covers eighty years during a time of great changes,
in both the West and the United States.
During this period, Native Americans and non-natives
fought several well-publicized battles. Workers
completed a railroad across the country. And the
modern-day environmental movement was born. Im Mario
Ritter.
Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
To post a comment:
• Click "Comment using..." in
the window below
• Click your favorite service: Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail
• Login to the service
• Click "Add a comment..."
• Post your comment in the window
Students: Please post a
comment stating what you found interesting about this video. You are
welcome to include links to your English study blogs and any
other materials you think might be useful for learning
English.
Teachers: Please post your
thoughts about this video. You are welcome to include links to
your sites, blogs, and any other materials you think might
be useful for learning English.
Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
