This response might come a little late for the OP, but others might benefit. If you want to read about fur trade, frontier, and early old west (read cowboy) knife blade types and materials for yourself, you might want to see Carl P. Russel's "Tools, Traps, and Firearms of the Mountain Man." It is a scholarly book, more in the field of comparative archaeology than of general history (don't expect a "general interest" writing style). It focuses on fur trade era artifacts, but that's not really too early for those interested in historical CAS appropriate blades. Knives and axes changed very slowly through that period of American history, as Russel documents.
There is a chapter called, "Knives of the Frontiersman" which is quite applicable. It has no photographs, but it does have line drawings of museum artifacts which clearly show blade types. Blade and handle materials are discussed. Of particular interest would be drawings of several early Bowie types, an Ames Rifleman's Knife from Murphy's Camp, CA, c. 1849, a couple of U.S. military hunting knives c. 1880's, not a few scalping knives, and a number of native American "dags." Really, the whole chapter would be of interest to a lot of people on this forum.
My copy is for my e-reader, but you'd be better off with a paper copy if you can find it, since you'll be flipping back and forth between diagrams and footnotes. If you're a scholar at heart, read it.