 There are two ‘Wests’ – the historical West in which farmers, ranchers, miners, prostitutes and criminals pursued their happiness, and the mythic West that took deep root in the American imagination.Western novels (dime novels, pulp fiction), mainstream literature (Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales), newspapers, and plays portrayed the West as both a barren landscape full of savages and a romanticized idealistic way of living for rugged men.Being a frontiersman in the so-called Wild West, a cowboy, rancher or gold miner were idealized within American mystery.