Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800-1915

By: Sandra L. Myres

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Synopsis: Since the history of women on the frontier has been studied by relatively few scholars, Professor Myres has had to craft the narrative out of materials found in more than four hundred collections about Western women. Only a few days before his death, Professor Billington commented that "The evidence of Sandra Myres's vast scholarship so well displayed in the voluminous notes, are bound to impress any reader ... they provide one of the most remarkable bibliographies to materials in this new field, both published and unpublished, that I have ever seen." By making extensive use of their own words, Myres has given frontier women a voice they never had before, whether the statements were matter of fact, poignant, eloquent, or all three, as captured in the diary of a woman who wrote: "go put on a clean dress, smooth hair with side combs, brew a cup of tea, set and rest and rock a spell and count blessings." Professor Myres has also recorded the statements and acts of Mexican and French pioneer women along with those of Anglo-American women. And, where possible, she has included the reminiscences of black and Indian women. Professor Myres succeeds in placing the experiences of pioneer women in context; that is to say, she has included them in the main narrative of Western history rather than isolating them. Thus her account is both new and complementary.