While doing research for the “Frontier Families” series we are in the middle of on the Family Pictures Podcast, I went looking for Will Wright’s 1975 book Sixguns and Society. It was part of the syllabus for a film class I sat in on during the early 90s at UCLA, and I wanted to see if it might still be of some use. Most of the places I tried to access it online (JSTOR, UC Press, etc.) were paywalled, but I did find a copy available on the mighty Internet Archive.
Sixguns and Society by Will Wright as borrowed from+ the Internet Archive
I had heard about the Internet Archive’s loan program before, but I never had an occasion to try it out. Turns out this was my chance. In order to get access to a digital copy of the book (nothing I could download, mind you), I had to use my free account to log in and click the borrow button. After that, I had the book at my disposal directly in the browser. The borrow length is essentially the time you are actively using the book—once the window is shut or you grow idle (I’m not sure if there’s a strict time limit), the book is automatically returned. You can always log back in and re-borrow it.
Reading through the Preface of Sixguns and Society thanks to the loan system of the Internet Archive
It turns out Wright’s study was unique in that it was one of the earlier books to take the Western genre seriously. Unfortunately for me, the bulk of the book is devoted to building rigid classifications in service to creating a structuralist logic of the genre, which made it a pretty dry read. I didn’t get much past the preface, but I truly appreciated that the Internet Archive made it possible for me to find that out for myself without hitting a paywall.
