Roger A. Bruns

Roger A. Bruns is the deputy executive director of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the author of several books. In the following selection he discusses how real—life American criminals of the nineteenth and early twentieth century became popular culture heroes, featured in popular literature, songs, poems, and motion pictures.
Bruns argues that writers, reporters, and filmmakers often depicted men such as Billy the Kid and Jesse James as romantic outlaws, representing conflicting strains of good and evil and assumptions about justice, society, freedom, and individual rights. Because of their appeal, these figures became enduring American archetypes.