Attached Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Western_fiction_authors

Are you anywhere near a library? I hate to be predictable, but this is a research project. Books like 813/WESTERN *The Western: a collection of critical essays* edited by James K. Folsom, might give you the insights you are looking for.

An educated guess would be that the formulas and archtypes of the genre started with the first popular authors of Westerns. Look to Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Louis L'Amour, James Fenimore Cooper, and others (there's a reasonably good list of authors at the link).

But I bet also responsible were the reporters who went out west and transoformed real people into the super legends of their times. There really was a Jesse James and a Calamity Jane, but their reality was far out shadowed by the stories told in the Eastern newspapers.

Message edited on: 05/07/2005 08:23