Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915Professor Myres gives frontier women a voice they never had. She uses extensive new material by and about women--letters, journals, and reminiscences from over 400 collections-- to study the impact of the frontier on women's lives and the role of women in the West. She offers a major reinterpretation of the experience of pioneer women, including that of Indian, Mexican, French, black, and Anglo-American women. The account recreates in detail the frontier experience of all these women, beginning with their physical and intellectual responses to the trek West, and concluding with their struggle for political suffrage and economic opportunity. Women moved from civilization to the frontier encumbered by more than baggage. They also had to overcome literary and social stereotypes. We learn their views on wilderness, Indians, race, and religion as well as how they reacted to the daily challenges of keeping house, raising a family, and gaining a measure of equality. "A strikingly original, highly readable, and informative history that will be used by scholars and lay readers alike."--Howard Lamar, from the Foreword |
Contents
Westward | 98 |
Acknowledgment of Sources | 271 |
List of Abbreviations | 283 |
Copyright | |
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Abigail Scott Duniway American women anti-Mormon areas Arizona army wives BTHC cabin California camp chores church clothes Colorado cook Crossing the Plains dances described Despite dress Elizabeth European experiences farm fear French friends frontier women girls Hispanic Historical Quarterly Historical Society History husband Idaho immigrants Indian women Indian-Pioneer Papers Interview Iowa Journal journey Kansas ladies land Larson learned Letters living Margaret Mary Mary Austin Mary Hallock Foote Mary Maverick Mexican Mexico missionaries Mormon Mormon women mother Native Americans neighbors nineteenth century Oklahoma Oregon overland trails polygamy Prairie preconceptions ranch Reminiscences reported role Sarah Sarah Winnemucca savage settlements settlers sister social Spanish Story Territory Texas tion took trip Utah vote wagon washing West Western women white women wife wild wilderness woman recalled Woman Suffrage woman wrote Woman's Exponent women's diaries writers York young