First, super-creative idea for a first blog post, Katie! Second, 1860 - 1922? We're looking at an era of tremendous change in just about every area of design and technology already, and then to think about continued developments through the 1960s...so many influences, so many different periods of design to talk about.
For one thing, it's important to think about quality of paper and the printing process--after centuries of books as the primary printed product, with an increasing focus on legibility for long blocks of type, the Industrial Revolution creates all of these consumer goods that need to be advertised (dime novels and penny dreadfuls included--in fact, it might be interesting to look at how these dime novels included advertisements, or if in their story lines they might even have been advertisements themselves--product placement, anyone?). So, you get posters, magazines, newspapers being printed in much larger quantities on paper with much lower quality where the ink bleeds more. Type designers respond by eliminating some of the contrast between thick and thin strokes, large x-heights to be read at a distance, and larger slabs due to increasing fascination with the non-western world (interesting note about Napoleon's interests in Egypt, Abby).
Then, think about the probable audience of these novels--not the traditional reader, right? It's not until the Enlightenment (made possible by improvements in publishing technology) that books become remotely commonplace items, and then most people with the wealth to own books were probably reading religious or historical texts. But dime novels are tall tales of half-imagined real-life heroes, mixing fact, myth, legend into thrilling adventures for pure entertainment value (perhaps the reality television of the time, but yes, clearly also a precursor in both content and design to the silver and golden ages of comics in the twentieth century). So, starting the blog in a book design class with some of the first books designed specifically not to look like books to appeal to non-traditional readers? Nice.
Current designs related to western tradition? I think western styled typefaces are still popular, though sometimes with an ironic nod to the fact that the era is so romanticized, especially for Americans. And especially for Texans, as Shannon noted. The prominence in the last few years of the hipster aesthetic--a preference for the artisanal, the use of stylized images meant to look aged and evoke nostalgia, and a genuine love for the spur as an element of typeface design shows that, for better or worse, "western" influenced design still strikes a chord. To the point of a joke response site, Comic Spurs (definitely worth a look if you haven't seen it).
In terms of current book cover design, I think the concept of a type-only or type-heavy cover is still popular, though certainly more restrained in the variation of typefaces, which are as often sans or a mixture of sans/serif, or handwritten type, or one-off decorative type projects as they are traditional serif types. I don't know as much about western fiction as a genre as compared to others--a quick googling reveals a pretty close relationship between westerns and romance these days, with the classic embrace a popular image--, but covers for the more mainstream writers with western influences (Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy came to mind) still show some traces of the original designs, I think.
And, one more thing (Amy warned you about my posts...): in looking for examples of type heavy covers, I came across this Guardian article from 2012 about book design theories, which might prove useful. I'm done, now. I promise.
