Have you ever wondered where we would be without the women of the Wild West? The most obvious we would be extinct, because there would be no reproduction of offspring. Women were needed for this reason, but there was so many more contributions that they made. Women were important in founding this great land. The women traveled with their men in hopes of getting free land out west, but it was a different story when they arrived. The winters were bad, rain was often lacking, and therefore, the crops did not grow. As a result, food was not plentiful. Many of the settlers almost starved to death. Women had to provide and support their families by cooking, cleaning, planting food, making clothes, washing clothes, mending clothes and, above all, taking care of their children. Women in the Wild West should receive more recognition for what they have done in the Wild West from providing for their families, standing up in tough times, and leading an expedition thorough the country. Women should receive more recognition for providing for their families in the Wild West. Women worked in the fields along their husbands. “Before marriage he used to kiss my foot-prints, but now he harnesses me with the ass to the plough and makes me work” (Varigny and Ward 9). They planted corn, beans, wheat, and tobacco. After a long day in the fields, the women came inside to fix supper and tend to their children before bedtime. More often than not, men are the ones who get the credit for settling the Wild West, but the women remain forgotten. They need credit too. Perhaps women’s work, like housecleaning in the 21st century, was taken for granted, “with no permanence and little reward” (Garceau 99).Women should receive more recognition for mak... ... middle of paper ... ...you be? Where would this country be? Works Cited Garceau, Dee. The Important Things of Life: Women, Work, and Family in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, 1880- 1929. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Net Library. Web. 1 Jun. 2010. Roberts, Cokie. Ladies of Liberty: the Women Who Shaped Our Nation. New York: Harper Audio, 2008. Google. Web. 1 Jun. 2010. Sabin, Edwin L. Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Company, 1918. Google. Web. 1 Jun. 2010. Stratton, Joanna L. Pioneer Women Voices from the Kansas Frontier. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. Print. Varigny, C and Arabella Ward. The Women of the United States. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1895. Google. Web. 1 Jun. 2010. Western Writers of America. The Women Who Made the West. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1980. Print.
Shoemaker, Nancy. “ Native-American Women in History.” OAH Magazine of History , Vol. 9, No. 4, Native Americans (Summer, 1995), pp. 10-14. 17 Nov. 2013
Stratton, R.B. Captivity of the Oatman Girls: Being an Interesting Narrative of Life Among the Apache and Mohave Indians. San Francisco: Whitton, Towne and Co., 1857.
Van Pelt, Lori. "Discovering Her Strength: The Remarkable Transformation of Nellie Tayloe Ross." Annals of Wyoming 74(2002): 4.
Sonneborn, Liz. A to Z of Native American Women. New York: Facts on File, 1998.
Women of the Western schoolhouse had a reputation for instilling values and lessons to the children of the frontier. They were historical heroines who chose to journey all the way from the East just to hear the sounds of children learning. According to Anne M. Butler, in her book Uncommon Common Women, these women left behind their family and friends, "took teacher training, signed two-year contracts, and set forth for unknown sites " (68). Schoolteachers on the frontier must have had an incredible love for children in order to deal with the difficulties the West placed in their way.
Significantly, Welch deconstructs the myth that Plains Indian women were just slaves and beasts of burden and presents them as fully rounded women, women who were crucial to the survival of the tribal community. In fact, it is the women who perform the day-to-day duties and rituals that enable cultural survival for the tribes of...
“Women’s Liberation.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 9. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 112-116.U.S. History in Context. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Foster, Frances Smith (1993). Written By Herself: Literary Production by African American Women, 1796-1892. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indian University Press.
Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's voices, feminist visions: classic and contemporary readings. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
Fitts, Alexandra, and University of Alaska. "Sandra Cisneros's Modern Malinche: A Reconsideration of Feminine Archetypes in Woman Hollering Creek." Sandra Cisneros's Modern Malinche: A Reconsideration of Feminine Archetypes in Woman Hollering Creek 29 (2002): n. pag. 2002. Web
French, Katherine L., and Allyson M. Poska. Women and Gender in the Western past. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Print.
Different documents in the Gilded Age prominently illustrated gender inequality in their portrayal of men and women within society. Many photographs in the time period by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine did not shed light on a woman’s hardships, but rather undermined their domestic work. Society failed to give women credit for their work at home due to the common misconception that a woman’s work was easier than that of a man’s. Margaret Byington’s article Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town contrastingly gave an accurate portrayal of the distress women faced in their everyday life. The representation of women in the Gilded Age varies significantly between that in the photographs, and their domestic, weak personification, and in Byington’s article, which gives women a more accurate depiction through their domestic duties.
However, Brown claims on how gender roles and identities shaped the perceptions and interactions of both English settlers and the Native American civilizations. Both Indian and English societies have critical social orders between males and females. In addition, their culture difference reflexes to the English and Indian males and females’ culpabilities as well. However, the Indian people put too much responsibility to their women. Women were in charge as agriculturalists, producers and customers of vital household goods and implements. They were also in control for providing much of the material culture of daily needs such as clothing, domestic gears and furnishings like baskets, bedding and household building. Native American females were expected to do a range of tasks. On the other hand, the Indian men only cleared new planting ground and constantly left the villages to fish and hunt. Clearly, Native Indian women had more tasks than the men did. Therefore, Indian males’ social and work roles became distinctive from females’ at the moment of the huskanaw (a rite of passage by which Virginia Indian boys became men) and reminded so until the men were too old to hunt or go to war. English commentator named George Percy underlines, “The men take their pleasure in hunting and their wares, which they are in continually”. “On the other hand the women were heavily burdened with”, says other commentator, John Smith. Gender is directly referential in an important sense, describing how sexual division was understood in the social order. Consequently, Native American people prescribed the gender social practice that women should be loaded with range of liabilities than the
Rowlandson, Mary. A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.In Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives. Ed. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Kugel, Rebecca, and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy. Native women's history in eastern North America before 1900: a guide to research and writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.