Christopher Frayling explores the reality and the myth of the American Cowboy when he visits the largest and most remarkable collection of cowboy memorabilia, paraphernalia and artefacts ever assembled, at The American Cowboy exhibition in the Library of Congress. Washington DC. It ranges from Charles Goodnight's rawhide lariat and the Western bandana sported by Theodore Roosevelt during his 1912 Campaign, to Gene Autry's rodeo saddle, a pair of porcelain cowboy boots and a men's cologne called 'Chaps' These exhibits together with paintings, prints, manuscripts, photographs, film and video clips and music played on a 1940s Seeburg Wall-o-Matic jukebox trace the story of the cowboy from the dime novels of the 1870s to the fashion crazes of the 1980s.