Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915 - (Histories of the American Frontier) by Sandra L Myres (Paperback)

About the Book

Myres uses extensive source material by and about women to study the impact of the frontier on women's lives and the role of women in the West.

Book Synopsis

Professor Myres gives frontier women a voice they never had. She uses extensive source 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

From the Back Cover

In this book frontier women gain a voice they never had. Professor Myres 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.

Review Quotes

. . . an exhaustively researched and well-written account of womens experiences in the American West. A provocative work . . .

. . . well-researched and well-written . . . Myress book is now the outstanding book on Western women. Good photographs; excellent footnotes . . . Should be purchased by all libraries collecting books on women or on frontier history.

. . . Myres book is very impressive for its extensive research, its integration of women into the history of the West, its abundant common sense, and its sensitive comparisons of different aspects of mens and womens lives. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the American West and the history of women in the United States.

. . . Myres has been ingenious in ferreting out materials that also permit French, Hispanic, black, and Native American women to speak of their experiences and . . . illuminate splendidly the dramatic changes wrought by the frontier in womens lives.

." . . well-researched and well-written . . . Myres's book is now the outstanding book on Western women. Good photographs; excellent footnotes . . . Should be purchased by all libraries collecting books on women or on frontier history."