Jeremy Agnew
2 books in the catalogue, published 2008 to 2010.
Jeremy Agnew writes Old West history, and Western Reflections Publishing carries two of his books: Brides of the Multitude from 2008 and Smoking Gun from 2010. Both take a subject that the movies have mythologized and test it against the historical record.
About Jeremy Agnew
The Colorado College Bulletin lists him as Jeremy Agnew '64 when it featured Brides of the Multitude in its July 2009 issue. Goodreads counts 24 works under his name, many on the 19th century American West.
Those include Life of a Soldier on the Western Frontier (2008), Medicine in the Old West (2010), Entertainment in the Old West (2011), The Old West in Fact and Film (2012), Alcohol and Opium in the Old West (2013), The Creation of the Cowboy Hero (2014) and Colorado Above Treeline (2005). We could not find a fuller biography we could verify.
Books
Smoking Gun - The True Story about Gunfighting in the Old West
Agnew's 2010 study of the gunfighting era, covering weapons, methods, the gunfighter's image and the towns known as the worst. It tests the legend against the facts.
Brides of the Multitude
A 2008 history of prostitution in the Old West, covering the women, their reasons, the establishments they worked in, and the health problems the trade brought.
What the books share
Both books here pick a corner of Western life that is better known from legend than from evidence, and ask what actually happened. One looks at gunfighting from 1865 to 1900, the other at prostitution in the Victorian West. Each is nonfiction and each aims to separate fact from exaggeration.
The subjects this author is catalogued under. Open Library record.
Next steps for readers of this author
Sorting fact from film
Agnew's two books here both test legend against evidence. A reader who wants to do the same can pick a famous town, look at how its museum presents the story, then look for newspaper coverage from the period through an index like the Denver Public Library's.
Starting a book club on the Old West
Pair Smoking Gun with Brides of the Multitude and compare how each handles myth. Both are on our site, and the library's history pages list other books from the same decades if the group wants a third.
Go deeper
Jeremy Agnew writes about Old West subjects such as gunfighting and frontier vice. These resources let a reader see how a famous cow town presents its past and where to search for newspapers, local histories and digitized records.
Boot Hill Museum
The National Park Service's listing for the museum in Dodge City, Kansas, which says the early story of the town is told daily along Front Street.
Western History Subject Index
A Denver Public Library card file of more than seven million entries that points researchers to newspapers, local histories, biographical works, newsletters and journals.
Kansas Memory
The Kansas Historical Society's online collection of historical material, organized by topics such as agriculture, business and the built environment.
Good to know
How many Jeremy Agnew books does Western Reflections carry?
Does Agnew write about other Old West subjects?
Writers like this one are how the list was built
We have published Colorado and Western writers since 1996, and every submission is still read by a person. Send yours, finished or half written.