Westward Ho!

Through Nov. 28, $10, Rosenbach Museum and Library, 2008-2010 Delancey Place, 215-732-1600, rosenbach.org.

by Shaun Brady

americana

There's always been a prairie-size difference between how the West was won and how we told ourselves we won it. Of course, like any good mythology, the epic romance of the frontier was largely painted at a safe remove — note that its most famous call to arms, to "go West," was made by Horace Greeley while comfortably ensconced in his New York office. But as the Rosenbach's new exhibit makes clear, those who actually made the arduous trek were as responsible for its invention as those who spun exaggerated yarns about it in dime novels. "The American West was an idea as much as a place," says Karen Schoenewaldt, who co-curated with Katherine Haas — an idea crafted on those flimsy paperbacks with covers depicting fierce Injuns towering over flinching but strong-hearted white women, or Buffalo Bill (himself a combo platter of legend and reality) proudly brandishing a scalp.