Women in the American West 9781598840513, 9781598840506

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WOMEN IN THE

AMERICAN WEST

Titles in ABC-CLIO’s

CULTURES IN THE

AMERICAN WEST Series Scott C. Zeman, Series Editor Hispanics in the American West, Jorge Iber and Arnoldo De León American Indians in the Early West, Sandra K. Mathews American Indians in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century West, Jeffrey D. Carlisle African Americans in the West, Douglas Flamming

WOMEN IN THE

AMERICAN WEST

Laura E. Woodworth-Ney

CULTURES IN THE AMERICAN WEST Scott C. Zeman, Series Editor

Santa Barbara, California—•—Denver, Colorado—•—Oxford, England

Copyright © 2008 by ABC-CLIO All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Woodworth-Ney, Laura. Women in the American West / Laura E. Woodworth-Ney. p. cm. — (Cultures in the American West) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59884-050-6 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-59884-051-3 (ebook) 1. Women-West (U.S.)-History. 2. Frontier and pioneer life-West (U.S.)-History. 3. Women-West (U.S.)-Social conditions. I. Title. HQ1438.W45W67 2008 305.40978—dc22 2007052354 12

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 Production Editor: Anna A. Moore Production Manager: Don Schmidt Media Editor: Julie Dunbar Media Resources Manager: Caroline Price File Management Coordinator: Paula Gerard This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

Dedicated to my western parents: Dr. Gerald and Mary Ellen Woodworth

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CONTENTS Series Introduction, Scott C. Zeman, xi Preface, xv Maps, xxi 1

Finding “Her Story” in the American West, 1 Buffalo Bill, Frederick Jackson Turner, and the Male Frontier, 2 New West, Old West, and the Women’s West, 6 The Literary Critique, 10 Her Story and the Scholarship of Gender, 11 The Multicultural Women’s West, 12 Getting to the Source of Her Story, 14 Conclusion, 25 Bibliographic Essay, 26

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Visible in Everything, but Invisible to History: Native American Women in the North American West, 33 The Problem with Native American History, 35 Counting the Invisible, 37 Telling History, 40 Sacagawea’s West, 42 Women of the Great Plains, 46 Women of the Fur Trade, 50 The Custom of the Country, 52 Conclusion, 58 Bibliographic Essay, 58

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Women of the Southern Borderlands, 1600–1846, 65 An Extensive Borderland, 65 Ancient Women of the Southern Borderlands, 67 The Hohokam, 69 The Ancient Puebloan (Anasazi), 70 Pueblo Women of the Southwest, 72 Women in Spanish New Mexico, 74 Gender in Spanish California, 82 Women’s Resistance , 84 Disease and Survival, 88

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Contents Conclusion , 92 Bibliographic Essay, 93

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Gender and Manifest Destiny, 1830–1870, 99 Gender, Jeffersonian Ideology, and Manifest Destiny, 102 Sentimental Domesticity, 104 Manifest Domesticity and Texas, 107 “Civilizing” Native Texas, 114 White Women and the Acquisition of the Oregon Country, 117 Women on Western Trails, 126 Conclusion, 132 Bibliographic Essay, 134

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Polygamy, Prostitution, and Women in Mormon and Mining Settlements, 1840–1890, 141 Mormon Migration, 147 The Mormon Trail, 150 Slavery and Race in Mormon Country, 151 Women, Power, and Polygamy, 153 Rush Towns and Society, 159 Keeping House, Selling Sex, and Defining Home, 160 Native Women and Commerce in Mining Towns, 169 Aftermath of the Bear River Massacre, 172 Bibliographic Essay, 173

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The “New Woman,” Mobility, and Western Space, 1877–1920, 179 Introduction, 179 Reform and the Indian Question, 183 Suffrage, 191 Technology, 193 Labor and Immigration, 198 Tourism, Leisure, and the Modern House, 206 Conclusion, 211 Bibliographic Essay, 212

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War, Depression, and the Creation of the West, 1914–1940, 219 Introduction, 219 Influenza and Disease, 220 Health, Tourism, and the Plague, 222 Gender, Women’s Labor, and Western Tourism, 224 Creating the West, 233 Anti-Immigrant Sentiment, Racism, and the WKKK, 238 Depression on the Plains and Prairies, 243

Contents Women’s Labor Organizations, 251 Conclusion, 254 Bibliographic Essay, 255

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The Gendered Wartime and Postwar West, 1941–1980, 263 Work and World War II, 264 War Brides, 268 Japanese Internment Camps, 270 The Postwar West, 280 Labor Activism, 282 Freeways, Babies, and Boom, 284 The Nuclear West, 290 Politics of Conservatism, 294 Mobility, Activism, and Home, 298 Conclusion, 305 Bibliographic Essay, 305

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Late Trends and New Directions, 313 Definitions, 316 Demographic Shifts, 319 New Directions, 321 Bibliographic Essay, 326

Chronology, 329 Glossary, 337 Index, 353 About the Author, 387

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CULTURES IN THE AMERICAN WEST SERIES INTRODUCTION Scott C. Zeman, Series Editor

I

n my classes on the history of the American West at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, we discuss the infamous Rock Springs Massacre of 1885 in which an angry mob killed 28 Chinese workers and forced the rest out of the Wyoming mining town. My students are always a bit surprised when I mention that right here at home in Socorro, New Mexico, at about the same time, nativists denounced Chinese immigrants. The local newspaper declared the “Chinese Must Go!” and in the nearby mining hamlet of Kelly (now a ghost town), an anti-Chinese riot broke out (the mob apparently was enraged by the hiring of a Chinese cook—fortunately, the cook escaped harm and the mob leader was killed by his own men). During its mining-town heyday in the late 19th century, Socorro boasted a diverse population of Hispanos, Anglos, African Americans, Slavs, as well as Chinese. Today, Socorro is home to New Mexico Tech University, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and other affiliated high-tech enterprises. New Mexico Tech’s student body includes East Indians, Norwegians, Czechs, Vietnamese, Russians, Kenyans, Colombians, nuevo mexicanos, Native Americans, and Anglos. I use this perhaps self-indulgent example because it highlights the multicultural nature and history of the region. It is impossible to imagine Socorro’s history—just as it is with the rest of the West—without this simple fact. « xi »

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ABC-CLIO’s Cultures in the American West Series, of which this volume is part, takes the same point of departure: to understand the West—to make sense of it—we must adopt a view that accounts for the incredible variety of its peoples. The volumes in this series follow the lead of the New Western History, which brought to the forefront of western historiography issues of race, ethnicity, and gender. To use the words of one of the school’s foremost historians, Richard White, “The American West is a product of conquest and of the mixing of diverse groups of people. The West began when Europeans sought to conquer various areas of the continent and when people of Indian, European, Asian, and African ancestry began to meet within the territories west of the Missouri that would later be part of the United States. The West did not suddenly emerge; rather, it was gradually created” (“It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West, p. 4). The volumes in the series take on the challenging task of demythologizing the most heavily mythologized region in the United States. In Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, Richard Slotkin’s monumental study of the myth of the frontier in modern America, Slotkin argues that “according to this [frontier] mythhistoriography, the conquest of the wilderness and the subjugation or displacement of the Native Americans who originally inhabited it have been the means to our achievement of a national identity, a democratic polity, an ever-expanding economy, and a phenomenally dynamic and ‘progressive’ civilization” (p. 10). And, as Slotkin points out especially, “When history is translated into myth, the complexities of social and historical experiences are simplified and compressed into the action of representative individuals or ‘heroes.’” The volumes in this series go far in helping deconstruct such a simplistic view of the history of the West. Each volume in this series, written by experts in their respective fields, focuses on one of the many groups to call the West home. Volumes include discussions of origins, migrations, community development, and historical change, as well as short biographies. The volumes highlight key issues in the history of the groups, identify important historiographical concerns, and provide useful bibliographies.

Series Introduction

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Steven Danver of ABC-CLIO deserves the lion’s share of the credit for this series. I would also like to thank him for being such a delight to work with. And thanks also to each of the authors of the volumes; without them this series would be still only an idea.

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PREFACE

W

omen were everywhere men were in the American West, but the history of the region has rarely emphasized, or even acknowledged, their presence. Why? This volume seeks to find the answers to that and other questions involving western regional history and gender. To what extent did regionalism and environment affect gender relations? In what ways did women of different ethnicities, classes, and races work together and/or find themselves at cross-purposes? How has the history of the American West portrayed women in general, and how has it portrayed women of different ethnic and racial backgrounds? Did class function differently in relationship to women than it did to men in frontier regions and in the American West? How did gender function in the different Wests: the Spanish borderlands West, the northern borderlands West, the fur-trading West, the Native West? This volume of the Cultures in the American West Series departs from the others in significant ways. Women in western North America were not a discrete individual group sharing any characteristic other than gender. They did not share a migration pattern, or cultural customs, or views of landscape. Indeed, the women portrayed in this study were sometimes enemies. Women of certain classes and social backgrounds often shared more with the men of their status than they did with women of differing cultural persuasions. In addition to questions of class and status, to write a book about women in the American West assumes that “women in the American West” can, as a category, be defined. Which women do we mean? Only women born in what becomes the U.S. West? Women who moved in and out of the West? Do we consider all women in the American West at any given time? Figuring out how these disparate experiences fit together is much like herding cats, but doing it for

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a region as intellectually contested as the American West is like herding cats into a corral with gates rotating open and closed. The story of women in the American West is complicated further by conflicting definitions of the West as a place. There are many ways to define the region known as the American West. It has been defined as a frontier, a region characterized by limited rainfall, an area characterized by the presence of sagebrush and blowing dust, a land of opportunity, and an imaginary place where good and evil (and gender roles) are clearly delineated. Getting just a few of the cats into the corral requires defining terms, which will be explored in greater depth in Chapter One. For the purposes of this volume, the North American West is the region west of the Mississippi River, and western women are those who lived in that region, wrote about the region, affected the region, or experienced the region in some kind of meaningful way. A woman does not need to be born in the West to be “western.” Because of the distinction between non-Indian women born in the North American West and indigenous women, I have chosen to capitalize “Native” throughout when it refers to American Indians. This study does not consider Alaska and Hawaii to be part of the West. The two latter states are sometimes included in western syntheses, but their unique circumstances as the most western states, and the last to join the union, do not constitute western by the definition required here. Neither state exhibited historical characteristics commensurate with the continental U.S. West. Resources and references pertaining to Hawaii and Alaska will be included in relevant bibliographic essays, however. Although I believe the West is a region with boundaries, when studying the experience of women in the region it is sometimes necessary to collapse those boundaries. Women married to men who worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company may have been living in Montreal, but their individual experiences may have been analogous to those of women living with Hudson’s Bay Company employees at the company’s headquarters at Vancouver in the Oregon Country. Perhaps no other theme is more prevalent in this story than that of the fluidity, complexity, and interconnectedness of women’s lives. Women’s lives are not compartmentalized, and neither is the history of their experiences. The boundaries between children and work, between lovers and husbands, and between

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poverty and prosperity ebb and flow as the women of this study sometimes move in and out of the region now defined as the American West. Indeed, it is largely through the work of men who have marked the landscape that there are political borders in the region. Despite the need to collapse boundaries and to view, for changing time periods, the West as a somewhat fluid place, the two characteristics that most determine a woman’s opportunities and status in the American West tend to be specific geographic location and time period. Thus, a historian’s emphasis on change over time is the appropriate tool for understanding the lives of western women. A woman living in the Los Angeles area in 1800 and a woman living there in 1980 would have, despite sharing location, very different experiences. The same could be said for a woman living in Los Angeles in 1980 and a woman living in rural Montana in 1980. In addition, not all women gained rights or experienced improved circumstances as time marched on in the American West. For elite Spanish women in what became the American Southwest, the transition from Mexican to United States control signified lost economic power. For Native American women, the entire breadth of this study represents some lost authority but also significant themes of survival and perseverance. For some groups, different time periods meant contrasting power and opportunity. Some early 20th-century immigrants to Seattle found opportunity, for example, but others did not. Thus, this book will pay particular attention to the American region as a place comprising many individualized places and a region that changed dramatically, in terms of women’s experiences, over time. This book is divided into three sections. The first, which consists of Chapter One, addresses the place of western women’s history within the historical profession and within the fields of women’s studies, literary studies, and anthropology. The second section, which includes Chapters Two, Three, Four, and Five, introduces the major issues and movements of American western history and connects them to gender and women’s experience. Chapter Two introduces the study of Native American women, using Sacagawea as a case study for understanding the fluidity of the 18th- and 19th-century northern Plains, the significance of the Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara trade center on the upper Missouri River, and

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the role of women in Plains Indian societies and the fur trade. I’ve sought to avoid the common organizational tactic of placing Native Americans in Chapter One and then not returning to them until much later, if at all. Chapters Two, Three, Four, and Five all contain significant sections devoted to the history of the Native women in their respective subregions. Chapter Three analyzes the women of the southern borderlands, including the role of the Spanish, interactions with Apache and Pueblo peoples, and the social/cultural environment of Mexican and U.S. Los Angeles. Chapter Four explores the experience of women in the Oregon Country. It begins with an overview of Pacific coastal and plateau tribes, introduces non-Indian missionaries, explores the role of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and ends with the current literature of women and the Oregon Trail. Chapter Five offers a women’s history of Mormon country and mining communities, and includes analyses of the Mormon Trail, relations with local tribes, polygamy, and prostitution in these areas. The third section of the book offers a chronology of women’s experience in the American West between 1870 and the present. White women, the creation and definition of “whiteness,” the western suffrage movement, and the connections between gender and late 19th-century federal Indian policy are the subjects of Chapter Six. This analysis includes reference to the current literature on constructions of whiteness in the United States and how such definitions of race connect to gender and region. This book treats “whiteness” as a separate categorization rather than assuming it is the “norm.” Chapter Seven explores the lives of western women through World War I and the Great Depression. Chapter Eight offers an analysis of women’s experience during the Cold War and in the modern urban West. This chapter relies on research addressing the federal nuclear West and how the post–World War II West affected gender roles throughout the United States. The last section of the book, Chapter Nine, provides an assessment and suggestions for future directions of the field. This work is based on the premise that the past connects to the present in ways that help students to understand history. Thus, each chapter

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makes direct connections to contemporary issues, problems, or situations. Chapter Two, for example, uses the 2000 U.S. census to show that Native American undercounts in the present continue a tradition of conscious erasure of Indian people, both literally and figuratively. The history of the American West is not complete without “her story,” and every woman’s story is unique and important. Unfortunately, we have only a few of those stories, but in understanding them, we start to see thousands of women emerge from the past. I must acknowledge an intellectual debt to my mentor, Susan Armitage, whose class on Women in the American West in 1993 directed me toward this path. Although her influence runs through these pages, any mistakes of interpretation, terrible oversights, or exclusions are entirely my own. My colleagues in the Department of History at Idaho State University have blessed me with a collegial and supportive environment, and for that I am very grateful. Karen Kearns, Idaho State University’s archivist, has helped in many ways, some she does not even know about. Three students, all western women—Tara Rowe, Nancy Wall, and Crystal Hazlett—have done all kinds of things to ferry this manuscript along, including running to the library, digging in archival files, fact-checking, running down citations, and looking for photographs. All three read the manuscript in its entirety. Ms. Rowe’s editorial assistance and Ms. Wall’s proofreading significantly enhanced the manuscript. Ms. Hazlett’s work on the glossary was an indispensable help. I have also been the beneficiary of the humor, insights, and perspectives of five years of students in upper-division courses in the American West and Women in the American West. Without students, there would be no reason to write this book, and I thank them for all of their efforts, and for making the classroom one of my favorite places. It has been a real joy to work with the editorial staff at ABC-CLIO. I appreciate Scott Zeman’s faith in this volume and in my ability to do justice to this important topic. The editorial skills of Steven Danver and Alex Mikaberidze significantly improved this volume and gently pushed the project along. Betsy Crist’s copyediting skills saved me from mistakes, Julie Dunbar did extraordinary work in helping to procure the

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photos, and Anna Moore exhibited a keen eye and a patient spirit while the book was marshaled through the production process. I owe a debt to everyone at ABC-CLIO. Saying thank you at the end of a list does not seem to be enough thanks for family members who have put up with endless conversations about this book’s themes and have sat through many dinners and weekends alone. My parents, Gerald and Mary Ellen Woodworth, have done everything possible to support me, and this book is dedicated to them. John and Matthew, you keep me sane and make me happy.

MAPS

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OREGON COUNTRY

BRITISH

Fort Clatsop

TERRITORY

New Town Circle of Cultures (Mandan Villages) ILLINOIS COUNTRY MICHIGAN COUNTRY

Oacoma

LOUISIANA PURCHASE St. Charles St. Louis

UNITED

STATES

NEW SPAIN MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY

SPANISH TERRITORY

Maps

New Orleans

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Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804–1806

Women in the American West

ath

R.

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T r i n it y

K la

m

R.

S

S a c ramento R.

R. Eel

I E

R

Feathe r

R

R.

Clear Lake

Honey Lake

A Lake Tahoe

M. San Francisco Solana M. San Rafael

A

R.

D

M. San Juan Bautista

V

A

M. San Carlos M. Soledad M. San Antonio de Paduda

E

aquin n Jo Sa

M. Santa Cruz

Mono Lake

N

M. San Jose M. Santa Clara

M. San Miguel

Owens Lake Tulare Lake

M. San Luis Obispo

M. La Purisma Concepcion

M. Santa Inez M. Santa Barbara M. San Buenaventura M. San Fernando M. San Gabriel M. San Juan Capistrano l o r ado

R.

PACIFIC OCEAN

Co

M. San Luis Rey M. San Diego M. San Pedro MEXICO

Spanish Missions of California, 1769–1833

M. San Pablo

WASHINGTON 1910

VT MONTANA 1914

OREGON 1912

NORTH DAKOTA SOUTH DAKOTA 1918

IDAHO 1896

NEBRASKA UTAH 1870

CALIFORNIA 1911

MICHIGAN 1918

KANSAS 1912

OKLAHOMA 1918

MASS RI CONN

NEW JERSEY INDIANA

OHIO WEST VIRGINIA VIRGINIA

MISSOURI

DELAWARE MARYLAND

KENTUCKY NORTH CAROLINA

TENNESSEE ARIZONA 1912

NH

PENNSYLVANIA

IOWA ILLINOIS

COLORADO 1893

NEW YORK 1970

WISCONSIN

WYOMING 1869 NEVADA 1914

MAINE

MINNESOTA

SOUTH CAROLINA

ARKANSAS

NEW MEXICO

GEORGIA ALABAMA TEXAS

MISSISSIPPI LOUISIANA FLORIDA

ALASKA 1913

Women's Suffrage Prior to the 19th Amendment

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Equal suffrage (with date voted) Partial woman suffrage (primaries and/or presidential elections only) No statewide woman suffrage

Maps

HAWAII

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CEDED BY MEXICO 1848

GADSDEN PURCHASE 1853 Percentage of residents in a county identifying as Hispanic 0.0 – 6.0 6.0 – 17.4 17.4 – 34.7 34.7 – 61.1 61.1 – 100

Hispanics in the United States by County, 2000 Census

TEXAS ANNEXED 1845

CHAPTER ONE

FINDING “HER STORY” IN THE AMERICAN WEST

A

lone cowboy rides into the setting sun, leaving behind a white woman grateful for his aid, but sorry to see him go; a homesteader fearful of his wife’s affections, but in debt to the gun-slinging cowboy for saving his farm; townspeople shaken by recent violence, but secure in the knowledge that their town has turned the corner on civilization; and a young boy’s echoing cry. This final scene from the 1953 western film and Academy Award winner Shane encapsulated the western experience as portrayed for popular consumption for at least a century. The heroes are men, as are the villains. White women appear as supporting characters, but they lack real decision-making authority, and ethnic or racial women appear as prostitutes or as bad influences, if they appear at all. Until about 30 years ago, the history of the American West was just that: “his story” of the West. Hardy, white male explorers, miners, and boot-strapping pioneers dominated the West’s historical terrain in nonfiction, fiction, and film. An American fascination with the West’s masculinity, its cowboy and pioneer heroes, and its image as a place so rugged that true individualism emerged from the landscape permeated not just popular culture, but academic writing as well. The view of the West as a region gradually settled and civilized by advancing, westward-moving Euro-Americans highlighted the contributions of Protestant white men while it obscured the story of all other groups, including Native Americans, Mexican immigrants, Asian immigrants, Mormons, African American cowboys, and women of every class, ethnicity, religion, and race. « 1 »

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BUFFALO BILL, FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER, AND THE MALE FRONTIER Academic scholarship and popular imagery of the Old West merged at a critical moment in the late 19th century. That coupling left women out of the picture until 80 years later, when historians started to systematically look for her story in the West. Held in Chicago between May 1 and October 30, 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition celebrated 400 years of progress since Christopher Columbus’s first voyage. The fair’s location in Chicago positioned it as the gate to the New West, a place where civilization’s march would continue beyond the western shore of the Pacific to an American Empire. The fair consisted of a “White City” of stately buildings representing American ingenuity, commerce, and engineering, all situated within a constructed lagoon. An 80-acre midway of carnival attractions and cultures considered less civilized, including Native Americans, led visitors to the doors of the White City. Marian Shaw was a correspondent hired by the Fargo, North Dakota, pioneer newspaper The Argus to report a woman’s perspective of the world’s fair. Shaw described the Midway Plaisance as a place where a visitor “can here trace, from living models, the progress of the human race from savagery and barbarism through all the intermediate stages to a condition still many degrees removed from the advanced civilization of the nineteenth century” (Shaw, World’s Fair Notes, 56). Shaw was one of several female journalists who commented on the fair and one of a growing group of women who wrote for small pioneer newspapers in the western United States. Shaw and other fairgoers who entered via the plaisance walked through the stages of civilization until they came to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, the last attraction before the gates opened to the White City. The Wild West shows combined a circus atmosphere with rodeo stunts, historical reenactments, and elaborate costumes and stage sets. Buffalo Bill’s performances were so well known by 1893 that Shaw made no mention of the attraction, other than a passing reference. As historian Louis Warren has pointed out, however, Buffalo Bill’s Chicago Wild West show was one of the fair’s greatest attractions, and some visitors skipped the White City after leaving the show, thinking that something

Finding “Her Story” in the American West

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Poster advertising Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 1896. Annie Oakley is partially visible over Buffalo Bill’s shoulder. (Library of Congress)

as spectacular as the Wild West must be the fair. Certainly, Buffalo Bill’s presence could scarcely have been missed by the fair’s 27,529,400 visitors, a staggering number relative to the nation’s population of 62,116,811 and Illinois’s population of 3,826,351 (1890 Census). Buffalo Bill Cody’s cameo of western expansion, replete with savage (if defeated) Indians and struggling (but victorious) homesteaders, became the country’s dominant cultural portrayal of the West. Women in the Wild West show were either invisible, defeated Natives whose husbands failed to protect them, white women pioneers saved by Buffalo Bill himself, or stunt riders like Annie Oakley who portrayed femininity while performing amazing rodeo tricks. While Buffalo Bill’s cast rode for thousands of fairgoers who believed the last stage of civilization was being played out in front of them, historian and president of the American Historical Association Frederick Jackson Turner gave a highly influential talk about the disappearance of available land and the significant role the frontier had

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played in defining United States history. In what would become the oftcited “Frontier thesis,” Turner told an audience composed of American Historical Association members that “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development” (Turner, The Frontier in American History, 1). Turner’s argument ignored the Native people— not to mention Mexican citizens in the Southwest—who occupied the “free land” and were displaced by American settlement, and it ignored all women. Turner’s embodiment of American democracy was the male pioneer, a species that Turner lamented would disappear into the sunset as the frontier disappeared. The 1890 census had found no continuous line separating frontier from civilization. Turner’s declaration that the masculine frontier had ended struck a chord with a nation concerned about societal changes like industrial development, the growth of cities, and new immigrants. The nostalgic West of the pioneer hero was a welcome retreat. Turner’s arguments were not new. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show reenacted Turner’s thesis while he spoke. It was the combined force of Turner’s scholarly analysis, the public’s fascination with the western frontier—as embodied by Buffalo Bill’s popularity—that limited the power of alternative views of the West for the next half century. Within a decade of Turner’s speech, the United States became an imperial power as a result of the Spanish-American War. The dominant story of the West, or its metanarrative, served as justification not only for the displacement of Native people but also for America’s imperialism. The seductive chronicle of valiant pioneers overcoming an unforgiving landscape was repeated endlessly in textbooks and classrooms throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and continues to resonate in the public dialogue: on the nightly news, in advertising, and in Hollywood. As Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage have noted, “the versions of western history many of us inherited are very hard to get out of our minds” (Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage, Writing the Range, 12). If it is easy to prove the persistence of the traditional story of the West, and that women were left out of the telling, it is far less so to define which women we are talking about, and where. Who are these

Finding “Her Story” in the American West

5

western women? How do we tell whether or not an individual is western? What constitutes the western United States? How can western experience be defined? Does a person have to be born in the western United States to be western? Native American women and Mexican women lived in the West long before it became part of the United States. Where should we begin? With Native women on the Plains, perhaps, or with Spanish-Mexican women in the colonial Southwest? Moreover, the term “West” is strictly an American term denoting relation to the East. The West, after all, can only be west if you are in the East, and casting the region in this relational way leaves out many different perspectives. The West is the North for Spanish-speaking migrants and the East for Asian immigrants. Despite the eastern-American bias inherent in the terminology of western history, western historians have inherited and been forced to adapt the language. The West in this book refers to the United States and its Canadian and Mexican borderlands west of the Mississippi River. This book views the western United States as a place, and it defines western women as those who lived there, traveled there, or wrote about living and traveling there. But the question of place is a complex one that will be revisited throughout the text. Just as the circumstances of women’s lives often force them to adapt, the definition of place in this book will adapt to the women, rather than force the women to adapt to the place by limiting female experience to an area bounded mostly by male surveyors and politicians. Rigid adherence to region often subsumes historical questions related to gender, race, and class. This book will attempt to avoid that pitfall. Environments and landscapes have played significant roles in the kinds of work men and women do, and have thus affected—but not determined—specific gender roles at specific places in specific times. The western United States is a vast, immensely complex region. People from the Pacific coastal area faced different cultural and environmental challenges than did those on the southern plains of Oklahoma. The West is also an imaginary place, as represented by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The women of that imaginary West, stereotypical as they may be, can also tell us a great deal about how Americans viewed gender and gender roles throughout different time periods.

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NEW WEST, OLD WEST, AND THE WOMEN’S WEST Now is an excellent time to write a survey of women in the American West, for there is now much to synthesize about women’s experience in the western region of the United States. The result is a more complex history of the region and the nation. Scholars who have written about women in the West have formulated questions that have refined our understanding of the western United States and, at the same time, have challenged the underlying assumptions of the fields of western history and women’s history. Indeed, the unconventional marriage between western and women’s history has produced a well-adjusted offspring—a more balanced account of the past. This was not yet the case when Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson compiled and edited their groundbreaking study, The Women’s West, which brought together the conference presentations of the first Women’s West Conference, held in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1983. From that gathering, and the following year’s Western Women: Their Land, Their Lives conference in Phoenix, emerged a new movement in the field of western history, one that combined the questions posed by U.S. women’s history and the questions posed by western historians. Sun Valley conference papers tackled the image of women within the western myth, began a dialogue about the role of Native women in traditional Old West topics, like the fur trade and Arizona mining camps, and reconsidered the roles of white women in the West. Suzan Shown Harjo, a member of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes of Oklahoma and an activist for native rights, called for a more inclusive women’s West, arguing that the “challenge for the women of the West is to avoid the mistakes and biases of the men of the West and to recognize the origin of stereotypes and biases in our forefathers and our foremothers” (Harjo, “Western Women’s History,” 307). Harjo’s call for a more inclusive history reflected the tendency of early scholarship on western women to use the framework of western expansion inherited from the Old West model and to focus almost entirely on the experiences of 19th-century white women. This early scholarly examination addressed the tradition of Frederick Jackson Turner. Did the West provide additional opportunities and freedoms to women? Was

Finding “Her Story” in the American West

Ellen L. Watson was accused of cattle rustling and hanged by a group of vigilantes in Wyoming in 1889. (Wyoming State Archives, Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources)

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the West a more democratic place in its treatment of women? The results challenged the Turner model. Scholars of women’s history found that the West was not necessarily a place of liberation for white women. They also argued that women’s diaries of the westward journey, and their perceptions of the trail and of the West, differed from those of men. This scholarship did not illuminate the experiences of Native women or nonwhite women. It did not explore the meaning of whiteness, or how westerners defined who was white and who was not. Nor did it challenge the basic assumption of Old Western history, that the frontier experience of Euro-Americans moving east to west defined the West. Many of the historians who began writing about women at this time believed that, in the words of Susan Armitage, “it was just a matter of filling in the blanks” (“Rethinking the Region,” 199). They attempted to place women into the dominate narrative of western history, but did not challenge it, and they continued to define the West only in relation to the East. But they did provide a basis for understanding an expanded western landscape—one that contained women—and they questioned whether the West was a democratic place for all. These early efforts formed the basis for a much broader movement. At roughly the same time western women’s historians began to challenge the Turner thesis, a concurrent movement emerged within western history that also challenged the dominant narrative. Collectively known as the New Western historians, this group of scholars critiqued the Old West’s emphasis on the westward movement of white people; its narrow focus on the 19th century; and its notion that once the frontier disappeared, then so, too, did the West. The New Western history movement was—and remains—wide reaching and diverse. Its adherents reshaped the questions and format of western history. They also disagreed with one another about how to challenge the Turnerian model. Patricia Nelson Limerick’s 1987 publication of The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West helped to launch the New West. Limerick fashioned her idea for a new history of the American West at a scholarly conference in Idaho in 1981. At one of the sessions she attended, government officials and business leaders lamented the contentiousness of the West’s problems, but they viewed the difficulty as a recent development. Limerick recognized that the struggle over

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resources was anything but new, and that the struggle unified western history. In Conquest, Limerick asserted that the history of the American West was one of conquest, not of progress, and that Turner “was, to put it mildly, ethnocentric and nationalistic” (Limerick, Legacy of Conquest, 21). Limerick began her then controversial book with a quote from a woman about the prevalence of canned food—and thus garbage—on the Montana plains, and she noted the absence of women in traditional western history. Limerick’s focus on the decidedly unheroic exploits of white pioneers, however, continued the omission of women. The women in Limerick’s book invisibly went about the tasks of rising at the crack of dawn, tending the fire, gathering wood, and boiling water while the menfolk whined about the presence of the government, brutalized Native people, and ignored the long-standing American defense of property rights to strip those considered less civilized of theirs. Other practitioners of the New West included Donald Worster, Richard White, and William Cronon, all historians of the environment. The emergence of the New West was closely linked to the expansion of the field of environmental history, often defined as the “interdisciplinary study of the relations of culture, technology, and nature through time” (Worster, The Wealth of Nature, viii). Worster’s examination of water in the American West looked at the concentration of power within a small group of power brokers who controlled what he called the “hydraulic order” (Worster, Rivers of Empire, 331). Although he questioned the hierarchy of this order, he did not question or comment on its male domination or patriarchy. Only four percent of the names listed in Worster’s index were of women. William Cronon’s more recent history of the city of Chicago similarly ignored women: only nine female names appeared in the index of Nature’s Metropolis. New Western historians have lassoed both accolades and controversy. Women’s historians criticized them for professing expansion while leaving out half the western population. Others lambasted the group for telling only the bad stories and for portraying male pioneers as a selfserving, dirty, whiny bunch. Popular writers, such as Larry McMurtry, author of the best-selling Berrybender series and winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for literature for his western novel, Lonesome Dove, attacked the New Western historians for their rejection of myth, arguing

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that the Old West has an important and complex position in the cultural mythology of the United States. The myth itself tells us something about the past. He also noted that other writers’ plots, such as those of Wallace Stegner and Willa Cather, foreshadowed the New West’s arguments. Whatever its weaknesses, the New West revitalized a field that had struggled for respect within the larger historical profession, where academic historians had dismissed the study of the western region as trivial, provincial, and the territory of history buffs. New Western historians also believed good scholarship should be accessible to the public, and they reached out to nonacademics. By 1991, the New York Times Magazine, People, and many other national publications had featured stories about the New West. Initially, the New West did little more than the Old West to uncover the hidden female West, but it brought renewed interest and vigor to the field of western history, and it helped to attract new scholars who would explore a multicultural, women’s West.

THE LITERARY CRITIQUE Perhaps the most significant complaint about the lack of women in the New West came from the literary community. Scholars of literature decried the New West’s claim to originality. Western writers such as Pulitzer Prize–winning Wallace Stegner and classic writer Mari Sandoz had long before rejected the optimism of the westward model. Literary critics lamented the New West’s marginalization of women writers and their works. Women writers had been writing about a much less optimistic and less masculine West since the early 19th century when Caroline Kirkland published her 1839 memoir about homesteading in frontier Michigan, A New Home, Who’ll Follow? The literary West published and analyzed these works before the New Western historians launched their revolution against the old style of western history. But as Forrest Robinson pointed out in an essay entitled “Clio Bereft of Calliope: Literature and the New Western History,” fiction had much to offer western history, even as New Western historians dismissed fictional accounts as inappropriate source material. If we are to achieve a balanced account of Her Land, literary scholars contend, we must include the experiences and writings of western women such as Willa Cather, the early 20th-century writer from Nebraska; Mary Hallock

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Foote, the 19th-century artist and writer who followed her engineering husband throughout the West’s mining towns and irrigation projects; and Leslie Marmon Silko, a 20th- and 21st-century writer of Pueblo, Laguna, Mexican, and white descent.

HER STORY AND THE SCHOLARSHIP OF GENDER As scholars began to examine the lives of women in the American West, the field of gender studies emerged and contributed to a deeper understanding of western history. Gender studies scholars examine the ways gender roles are constructed and presented across disciplines as well as the impact of gender expectations and constructions on men and women. Gender scholars work in different areas, including history, anthropology, literature, and sociology. One of the most significant critiques of western women’s history came from historians of gender. They argued that women’s historians had accepted, without question, the dominant narrative of the West, and had thus subsumed more complex stories of gender. Gender scholars pointed out that in the area of femaleto-male cross-dressers, for example, women’s historians had simply accepted patriarchal definitions. When women’s historians addressed cross-dressers at all, they generally assumed that they were women who sought male constructions of gender because they wanted greater freedoms or more opportunities than they would have had as women. Scholars of gender took issue with this, noting that some of these individuals may have been dressing as men because they did not consider themselves to be women, a very different circumstance than dressing as a male (or as a female, as the case may be) for political, social, or economic gain. What 21st-century scholars would call transgendered or transsexual individuals had been, at least in some cases, kidnapped by feminist historians and identified as women. This book will highlight the experiences of some female-to-male cross-dressers in light of this scholarship and will explore the implications of the practice known as berdache within Native American groups. Gender scholars in western U.S. history have reexamined traditional subjects such as republican land policy, homesteading on the Great Plains, and the landscapes of ski resorts. Questions raised by these studies have forced a reexamination of the roles of gender and women. When

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Peter Boag asked in his article, “Thinking Like Mount Rushmore,” how the mountain’s “hidden meanings” support heterosexuality and its accompanying gender systems, he was challenging historians—particularly women’s historians—to see gender in different ways (Boag, “Thinking Like Mount Rushmore, 42). In similar ways, the questions posed by Annie Gilbert Coleman about the interplay of gender and the ski industry suggested the complexity of women’s experience on the western slopes of the 20th century. Although gender scholars have criticized feminist women’s historical scholarship, women’s historians have leveled criticisms against gender scholars. Some, like Judith Bennett in her 1989 article “Feminism and History,” argued that a focus on gender masked the political problems inherent in patriarchy and that to discuss the problems gender poses for homosexual men, for example, was to appropriate women’s history and to mask historical oppression. Others, such as Mariana Valverde, argued that women’s history was still relevant, but it needed to take into account theories of gender formation to better study the structure and function of gender in society rather than women’s individual experiences. The debate about the role of feminist theory in the writing of history had, at its core, a racial component. As many black, American Indian, and Hispanic scholars of western topics have pointed out, the debate about theory was often a discourse devoid of any discussion of the place of women of color. In the early 1990s, Marcia R. Sawyer noted at a roundtable devoted to the topics of feminism, gender, and history that the issue of theory versus history was irrelevant as long as white academic scholars refused to accept the racism within their own movement. “Until a new awareness can be demonstrated,” Sawyer wrote, “many women of color will not trust white women (inside or outside the academy) to act in anybody’s interest except their own” (Sawyer, “Dialogue,” 128).

THE MULTICULTURAL WOMEN’S WEST The earliest works on western women failed to include the lives of ethnic, Native American, immigrant, Hispanic, and African American women, and the field was rightly criticized for the omission. Although New West historians challenged the old Turnerian model, they, too, left out women and women of color, as did many environmental historians

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and gender scholars. A more inclusive view of women’s experience emerged from the women’s history movement itself. Challenges from New Western historians, literary scholars, and gender historians prompted historians of the women’s West to redefine their field. By integrating inclusive aspects of other disciplines, women’s western historians invigorated and broadened their studies with multicultural research. The publication of Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage’s Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in 1997 served both as a call for a more balanced western women’s history and as an example of what could be done. Writing the Range’s articles explored the lives of African American clubwomen in Denver; Irish women in Anaconda, Montana; Mexican American women in California; Native women in colonial New Mexico; and a host of other women and gender topics. Since 1997, multicultural studies about western women have exploded. A recent example is Sheila McManus’s study of gender, American culture, and Native American women in the Canadian borderlands: The Line Which Separates: Race, Gender, and the Making of the Alberta-Montana Borderlands. Although multicultural studies have expanded in recent years, challenges remain in this area for the fields of American western and women’s western history. The Western History Association, the main scholarly organization for western U.S. history, has struggled to attract women scholars, particularly minority scholars. At the association’s annual conference and banquet in 2004, controversy erupted when the keynote speaker, television journalist Bill Kurtis, delivered a speech in the Frederick Jackson Turner tradition that ignored women and immigrants, trivialized Native Americans, and presented a false and triumphant view of western history. Nearly half of the women scholars at the banquet—held at a hotel in Las Vegas with a featured topless revue—left their seats in the middle of the speech in protest (and not because the food was mediocre and overpriced). Spawned by scholars of gender and women’s western history, this protest and other vocal rejections of the patriarchal model of scholarship have advanced change, but more remains to be done to support, attract, and advance the intellectual inquiry of all women in the North American West. Certainly, including the multiethnic and multicultural history of women of the American past seriously complicates the effort to provide a

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narrative story that holds together well enough for a reader to actually follow it. That is, after all, the role of the historian: to piece together the past into a narrative whole. This approach in itself has been attacked by feminist scholars, particularly those whose work focuses on the history of colonization. These experts rightly argue that the structure of history itself—the linear, chronological format and the past-tense voice—gives a kind of authority to certain narratives that is not only inaccurate but is part of the colonial process itself. So, then, how does a historian represent multifarious perspectives in a written form that makes sense to a reader? These exceedingly complex questions are taken up in Elizabeth Jameson’s 2004 article, “Bringing It All Back Home: Rethinking the History of Women and the Nineteenth-Century West.” As Jameson notes, “The tangled trajectories of western women’s histories were forged within inextricably linked systems of gender, race and ethnicity, labor and kinship, sexuality and life cycle, as well as the more public histories of politics and empire that charted how, throughout the nineteenth century, the US claimed the West” (Jameson, “History of Women and the West,” 181). These complex linkages make women’s history a challenge to write, but they also offer new ways of understanding region and the meaning of place.

GETTING TO THE SOURCE OF HER STORY Studying women in the western United States is a challenge made more difficult by the lack of sources available. Historians rely on the leftovers of the past, the remnants of lives, to analyze the experiences of their subjects. Yet significant problems are inherent in relying on the written record of the past to understand history: nearly all records are produced by men for specific purposes, and most records include only one perspective. In the United States, as in other nations, men have left more records. Men’s involvement in business, politics, and public affairs has meant that they leave a paper trail behind. Until relatively recently, this was not at all true for most women, whose lives were often, irrespective of race or class, limited to non-document-producing activities. Doing laundry, cooking, gathering nuts and berries, rocking children to sleep, planting gardens, performing midwifery duties, preserving meat, hauling water, and taking food to a sick neighbor did not generally produce the

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kinds of official documents that ended up in nice, tidy file folders in climate-controlled archives. Women who left the kinds of records that end up in archival collections tended to be upper- or middle-class educated women who either engaged in traditionally male endeavors or were married to men whose records were preserved. The names of these women are often subsumed under the heading of their husband’s, father’s, or brother’s name in archival finding aids. Moreover, these women were educated and overwhelmingly white, leading to a historical record skewed by class, race, and gender. But even white, educated, upper-class women are difficult to find in the archival record. So how does a historian find the women?

TEXTUAL RECORDS Some records for women, though mostly for white women, do exist in the archival system in the United States and elsewhere. Finding them can be challenging, however. Because the writings of women are often filed under their husbands’ names, researchers must look under those names to find the records. Other textual sources are more subtle. By the middle of the 19th century, non-Indian, nonslave women in the United States were responsible for purchasing all of the domestic goods of the household and ensuring that household employees, such as nannies and housekeepers, received payment. Middle- and upper-class women in the United States and throughout Europe were also responsible for hiring household help, which meant that they interviewed domestic servants and sometimes maintained records of this activity. Household account registers are often excellent sources for women’s history, as they recorded all annual domestic expenditures. Account books maintained by Ellen Hauser, the wife of Montana territorial governor Samuel Hauser, for example, show that the couple spent large amounts of money on draperies and furniture imported from the eastern United States and that both maintained costly memberships in elite clubs. Household registers can also reveal the movements of women, as travel expenditures such as hotels, traveling nannies, and restaurant charges were also recorded. Other important textual records include telegrams and letters. Both can be buried within a husband’s, son’s, or father’s papers. A daughter’s or wife’s letters and telegrams may be catalogued under the male relative’s correspondence.

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ORAL HISTORY Oral history, or the recounting of memories and narrations and the use of those materials as sources for historical writing, was once viewed by the academic historical community as inappropriate or as having less value than written sources. The academic view of oral material has changed, however, as anthropological methods have influenced the discipline of history and historians have come to recognize that some cultures, such as most American Indian tribal groups, maintain very accurate oral tribal histories. For women’s historians, oral history can be particularly useful. As noted earlier, women often left few documents of their lives behind. Those that they did leave—receipts, photographs, newspaper clippings, recipes, scrapbooks—often tell very little about their lives. Textual material can be supported by oral interviews to create more complete stories. Oral history poses unique challenges, however. People who are interviewed by professional historians often recount only what they want to remember, thus giving a more rosy portrayal than was actually the case. In addition, oral historians who spend long hours with those they are interviewing develop, as historian Katrine Barber has stated, an “ethical obligation to my subjects and to the process of creating historical narratives” (Katrine Barber, “Documenting Women’s History,” 531). Oral histories are influenced by the interviewer, so that the oral history itself is a collaborative effort. Oral interviews can also extend the process of researching and writing a historical account.

MATERIAL CULTURE Because ordinary women rarely left textual records that were maintained or preserved, their stories lie in other kinds of sources. Items of material culture—such as quilts, recipe books, cookbooks, tablecloths, aprons, embroidered pillowcases—can reveal much about the stories of women’s lives. Cookbooks and recipe cards can show how much discretionary time a woman had to cook by revealing how elaborate—or simple—the meals were that her family ate. Notations in margins of cookbooks often contain notes about how to modify certain recipes to better fit the ingredients available in a region or whether or not the family liked the recipe. Sometimes cookbooks will show which cake recipe was preferred by the children in the family on their birthdays.

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By the end of the 19th century, nearly every bed in the United States was covered by a quilt made by a woman. Quilting and needlework are ancient arts brought to the United States by European colonists, but by the 19th century, patchwork quilting had reached its zenith in North America. Women made album quilts to commemorate an anniversary or the departure of a good friend. Women on the Oregon Trail often brought quilts from their former homes in the Midwest, stitched with the names of family members and friends whom they would never see again. They made mourning quilts when they lost a child or loved one. They stitched names, dates, years, and favorite quotes into their quilts. They made quilts from expensive silks and satins, stitched them with elaborate threads, and called them “crazy quilts.” They made quilts from flour sacks, from their husbands’ shirts, from discarded sheets and pillowcases, and from dresses so worn that the pattern had faded to a faint shadow. Quilts speak more quietly and subtly than do textual sources, but they still have a lot to say. Expensive fabrics denote financial stability and discretionary income; shabby material made from worn shirts can suggest either financial hardship or the desire to sleep with the clothes of a loved one. One woman in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, stitched all of her husband’s clothes into a quilt after he died. Women made quilts to keep their families comfortable, to give as gifts, and to record important events. As one woman homesteader put it, “I made quilts as fast as I could to keep my family warm . . . and as pretty as I could to keep my heart from breaking” (Nebraska State Historical Society, www.nebraskahistory.org/sites/mnh/patchwork_lives). Women also quilted, sewed, and engaged in needlework for companionship. Weekly quilting clubs were popular throughout the 19thand early 20th-century United States. Women met to finish quilts or to work individually on quilt squares that they later made into a large, single quilt. Some women also sewed for additional income, and many recognized the financial value of their sewing. Emily Hawley Gillespie wrote of the monetary value of her needlework in her Iowa diary during the 1870s: “Finish my Sopha cushion Cover. tis indeed beautiful, there are 96256 stitches on it. could broider at the rate of 100 stitches per seven minutes, which would take ____ days, providing it was all plain. It is worth at least 15 or 20 dollars to make it. the cost of material was one

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Clarissa Palmer made this quilt by painting the wildflowers of her Sioux County, Nebraska, homestead onto pieces of silk and velvet sent from her former home in the East. Elaborate crazy quilts like this were popular during the last decades of the 19th century but were expensive to produce. Palmer moved onto her homestead claim in 1886. She became the mother of future Nebraska governor and U.S. senator Dwight Griswold. The quilt was passed down through the generations and is now owned by Dorothy Griswold Gayer of Lakewood, Colorado. (Nebraska State Historical Society Photograph Collections)

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& one half dollars” (Judy N. Lensink, editor, Secret to be Burried: The Diary and Life of Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1858–1888, 351). Emily Hawley Gillespie left a written record of her life as well as her needlework, but most women in the American West did not. Many were illiterate, as formal education was not emphasized for women, and some spoke languages other than English, and those bilingual records were often rejected by libraries and archives that did not have bilingual staffs. Most Native American women used the oral tradition, not the written word, to pass on their histories. Thus, the record of Native women’s material production is as important a source as any other. Although most Native American women did not quilt until after contact with Europeans, they made extensive material culture items, such as baskets, pots, leather leggings, moccasins, and cradleboards for their babies. Indeed, no other sources are more telling of the nature of the lives of Native women. A Native bowl can reveal the family association of its creator through the designs on the outside. It can suggest social and financial standing and can reveal the subsistence practices of the tribe. Pestles suggest that grains, seeds, and roots were ground for use as flour. Tightly woven baskets may have carried water. The size of the basket can even indicate about how far a woman traveled for water. Although historians are not anthropologists or curators, and therefore must be careful in interpreting the use and meaning of such artifacts, these items can help create a more full picture of the past lives of women.

HOUSES AND HOMES The structures where women lived and worked also tell a story about women’s lives. The relative size of the kitchen, and whether it was located behind the house or within it, reveals time period and status. Most early to mid-19th-century houses in the United States did not have kitchens or bathrooms within their walls, as the open fires and heat of the kitchen and the fumes from the toilet were dangerous and unpleasant. A home’s setting, landscaping, and function all tell about its occupants. By the end of the 19th century, non-Indian women were responsible for decorating and maintaining the inside of their homes. Ellen Hauser, first lady of Montana, chose the design and furnishings of her Victorian mansion in Helena. Still extant, the house occupies half of

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a city block and remains one of the most imposing residential structures in the state. Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogs of the 19th and 20th centuries show the house plans and houses available for mail order. These modest houses were popular in the towns of the expanding West once the transcontinental railroads provided for delivery. Plumbing and heating systems could also be ordered from catalogs. Living museums, such as the reconstruction of the Mormon pioneer town of Chesterfield in southeastern Idaho, demonstrate how women worked and lived within the confines of their spatial surroundings. Pioneer women in Chesterfield, like women on homesteads everywhere, spent their days hauling water, chopping wood, stoking the stove, and scrubbing the laundry by hand. Unlike their non-Indian peers, most Native women in the American West owned the structures where their families lived. Before the end of the 19th century, most non-Indian, married women could not own property in their own names, so while they were responsible for the domestic work in their houses, they did not own them. On the Indian Great Plains (see Chapter Two), however, women not only owned the tepees used by Plains groups, but they also put them up, took them down, and transported them. If a woman wanted to divorce her husband, she simply put his belongings outside her door, and he was no longer welcome in her house.

PHOTOGRAPHS Photographs are also useful sources for women’s historians. Introduced during the 19th century, photography became affordable and popular with the middle classes in the United States by the early 20th century. By the 1950s, casual amateur photos began to outstrip formal photography. Nearly every family has a box of photos, or albums of pictures in their basements and attics. These are useful sources, because photograph albums were often created and maintained by women. The choices made about which photos went into the album and which went into the box indicate what kind of story the woman wanted the album to tell. As one photograph historian has written, “Family albums are for forgetting as well as for remembering” (Levine, Photographs as Documents, 156). Family portraits conform to what Americans view as “ideal family life,” and

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therefore shed light on views of family and gender roles. In his 1990s research into family photographs, sociologist David Halle found that albums did not contain nonfamily members, that few home-displayed photos were of people who had died, and that pictures usually captured the family at play or during holidays. Photographs are not any more reliable than written or material sources, however, so they must be used with caution. Photographs are always taken for a reason, be it the choice of the photographer or the subject. People in the 19th century had their photographs taken only rarely because of the great expense. Studio portraits were staged and taken to celebrate weddings, anniversaries, or the birth of children. It is easy to understand the motivation behind studio portraits: someone paid a photographer to have their picture taken. They wanted to appear prosperous and usually wore their best clothing. People in the 19th-century United States also had photos taken of deceased family members. While some may see this as gruesome today, the practice was part of the grieving and memorializing process. Funeral portraits reveal the status and values of families during times of grief, which were tragically common. Less clear is the motivation of the photographer in unposed photographs. Women of social standing were rarely photographed without their consent, unless the photographer was a close male relative (father, brother, husband) or, less likely, a female friend. Women of color, minorities, or laboring women were almost always photographed without their consent and without much thought on the part of the photographer. The most exploitive photos of women in the American West were those taken by professional photographers of American Indians in the Southwest. Usually taken without tribal consent, the photos were placed on postcards and widely disseminated throughout the United States during the 20th century. Tourists bought the cards at roadside attractions, amusement parks, and hotel lobbies, but they rarely visited reservations where Native people struggled to survive, and they often believed Indians had disappeared as a culture. The names of individual women did not appear on the cards. The caption “Indian squaw,” a highly offensive, racist term, was often the only indication of identity. Tribal affiliation was changed in the card’s description, depending on where the cards were sold. No Native women received compensation for this common

This photograph was created by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior. It shows women of New Mexico’s Santa Clara Pueblo making pottery around 1916. Many photographs of this type remain because the Pueblos became the focus of intense research by the Bureau of Ethnology (now part of the Smithsonian Institution) during the early 20th century. Anthropologists such as Frank Cushing lived among the Pueblo tribes, photographed them, and recorded their lifestyles. While such efforts yielded information about tribal peoples, the anthropologists were mostly white men whose careers benefited from their experiences. Native women were not always consulted about whether they were willing to be photographed, and some photographs were later used as postcards that often had demeaning captions. Native women received no compensation for the use of their own images, nor were they consulted about the creation of the postcards. This kind of exploitation continued until the 1960s. (National Archives)

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use of their photographs, nor did they give permission to reprint the photos. Although these postcards are not a historical representation of Native life, they are telling artifacts of American culture.

INTERNET SOURCES Internet sources have become immensely more useful to historians in recent years. Databases of primary and secondary documents now offer researchers the ability to look up material without leaving their office or home. As with other sources, web-based sources can be problematic. Most Web sites lack basic peer-reviewing, and some are intentionally misleading. For that reason, many faculty members in junior colleges and universities simply ban the use of all Internet sources for classroom assignments. The terms “Internet source” and “Web site” are now so vague that they lack clear meaning or identification. Some very good research Web sites, such as those maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, the Denver Public Library, and the Library of Congress, offer students unprecedented access to records. The prevalence of Web sites, and the ability of users to create their own sites, has the potential to expand our understanding of subjects, such as western women’s history, that might receive little attention if only the most commonly requested topics are highlighted. Even encyclopedia sources have been transformed by the information age. Wikipedia, the wiki-based free encyclopedia, is an example of a community-based web application of enormous potential benefit to researchers. Wikipedia is used by huge numbers of people every day, but there are also many “Wiki-victims,” or people who have been fooled or had their reputations damaged by repeating information they obtained from Wikipedia that turned out to be false (Wikipedia was cautiously used for basic fact-checking in the writing of this book). Still, wikis, or Web sites that allow individual users to upload information, have created a revolutionary way to edit and disseminate information. Wikis are part of the much larger open-source movement that began within the computer software industry. In a wiki, data can be downloaded, revised, and then uploaded by large numbers of people at little expense. Wikipedia is free, it has more entries than any other online or digital encyclopedia in the world, and it is updated every day, every hour, every minute by someone somewhere on the globe.

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Accuracy is difficult to police in this system, though, and there is no way to track uploaders to Wikipedia. Information obtained in this way must be independently verified. Still, this brand of interactive web-based community represents the future of knowledge exchange and distribution and a significant challenge to the traditional, patriarchal structures of knowledge dissemination. (See sidebar for an example of an Internetbased academic research community relevant to women’s history.)

WEB-BASED RESEARCH The Internet has revolutionized research and will continue to do so. The web can no longer be ignored by those who initially viewed it as a trend that would pass. VG/Voices from the Gaps is an example of a new web-based research model that can benefit scholars of women’s history. VG, like Wikipedia, offers a new way of recording, storing, and disseminating research and ideas. An Internet-based transnational academic community, VG links students, teachers, artists, and scholars. Since its inception in 1996, VG’s purpose has been “to use new digital media to preserve and extend knowledge of art by women of color.” The site is maintained by the Department of English at the University of Minnesota. It provides resources about female minority artists and writers while it “forges a collective effort of scholars who digitally interact with each other” (voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/our_ project/index.html). The site offers biographical and critical analysis, teaching resources, and literary translations. VG also archives film, recorded sound, illustrative material, photographs, and interviews. Another example of an Internet general resource is the Internet Public Library (IPL), maintained by the University of Michigan’s School of Information. IPL’s mission is to serve Internet researchers; teach digital research techniques; build technologies for digital reference services and systems of protocol; learn and publish scholarship about the growing field of digital library science; share services, technology, and systems; and grow by developing models for long-term sustainability of digital repositories (www.ipl.org/div/about/ newmission.html). IPL serves as a model for the development

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of interactive research platforms. Blogs, e-mail, listservs, and instant messenger applications are also sources of support and information for researchers and have made research a much less solitary activity. Before computers, researchers hunched over their books and typewriters; now they can communicate with the world while they type on their keyboards. Many institutions now maintain companion Web sites. The National Women’s History Museum’s Web site includes virtual exhibits, links to resources, and lesson plans.

CONCLUSION More than 20 years after the challenge advanced by women’s historians and scholars at western women’s conferences during the 1980s, women’s western history remains a relatively new field. Much has been accomplished; so much, in fact, that this synthesis is possible. But women’s history too often is taught as an afterthought in U.S. institutions of higher learning. Women’s history courses are rarely taught by faculty who were not hired specifically to do so, and the courses are often available only as electives, not as part of the regular curriculum. Women’s history and women’s studies programs often borrow faculty from other areas to teach women’s courses, and thus must rely on the chance circumstance that the department happens to hire someone with a background in women’s history or women’s studies. Western history faces a unique challenge, because images of the Old West are so ingrained, so much a part of American cultural perception, that they continue to obscure a more complete understanding of the past. In addition, western women’s history has struggled with the baggage it inherited from women’s history and feminist theory. For women of color in the American West, the white history of the women’s suffrage movement held little meaning. Of more significance in the American West was the resistance by Native women to non-Native infiltration, assimilation, and conquest; the cultural adaptation and preservation of millions of Hispanic and Mexican immigrants; and the complex gender negotiations of Chinese American women in San Francisco and

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Cotton picker in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, in 1936. Photograph by Dorothea Lange. (Library of Congress)

elsewhere. These are just a few of the relevant women’s history topics, but none of them received attention from scholars of the early women’s history movement. Scholars of western women’s history have consistently moved forward in an effort to chip away at the cultural perceptions that have hampered understanding of women and place in the American West and to achieve an expansive history that is honest about its purpose, role, and agenda. This book will explore the complexity of uncovering Her Story, and the story itself, in a region that continues to carry its mythology like an overloaded wagon on the Oregon Trail.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY The scholarly history of the United States, not to mention of the American West, was once a litany of battles and elections; men were at the forefront and

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women in the background, if they were there at all. The work by women’s historians has enriched all of U.S. history. For a recent synthesis of U.S. women’s history, consult Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes: An American History (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004). Susan Armitage discusses the incompatibilities between regional and gender scholarship in “Rethinking the Region: Gender, Race, and Class in Pacific Northwest History,” in David H. Stratton, editor, Terra Northwest: Interpreting People and Place (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2007), 199–216. The scene represented at the beginning of this chapter comes from the classic western film Shane. Directed and produced by George Stevens, starring Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur, the Paramount Pictures movie provides a classic visual example of the western myth. Filmed near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the 1953 movie won an Academy Award for cinematography and garnered five other nominations. For a recent analysis of the role of the western film in American culture, see Roger Bromley, “Dead Man Tells Tale: Tongues and Guns in the Narratives of the West,” European Journal of American Culture, Volume 20, Issue 1 (2001): 50–65. The American West as interpreted in art, advertising, and film is explored in Brian W. Dippie, “The Visual West,” and Anne M. Butler, “Selling the Popular Myth,” both in Clyde A. Milner II and others, editors, The Oxford History of the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 674–705; 770–801. The indispensable study of Buffalo Bill Cody is Louis S. Warren’s biography, Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show (New York: Knopf, 2005). For the history of the construction of the Chicago World’s Fair’s White City, the culture of the fair, and the responses of fairgoers, see Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (New York: Crown Publishers, 2003). Larson’s rendition of the exchange between Susan B. Anthony and Buffalo Bill Cody is worth noting. Marian Shaw’s perspectives of the Chicago fair are captured in World’s Fair Notes: A Woman Journalist Views Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition (Pogo Press, 1992). See Mona Domosh, “A ‘Civilized’ Commerce: Gender, ‘Race,’ and Empire at the 1893 Chicago Exposition,” Cultural Geographies, Volume 9 (2002): 181–201, for an interdisciplinary approach to gender at the Chicago World’s Fair. Matthew F. Bokovoy has provided a cultural study of western U.S. fairs in The San Diego World’s Fairs and Southwestern Memory, 1880–1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005). The Illinois 1890 statelevel census data can be accessed at the University of Virginia Fisher Library at fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/ fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgilocal/censusbin/census/cen.p1. Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 speech and other writings are compiled in Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, with a foreword by Ray Allen Billington (New York: Robert E. Krieger, 1976).

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Students should begin their study of the historiography of women in the West with the two pivotal anthologies of the field, Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage’s The Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987) and Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997). Two of the earliest articles to address stereotypical roles of white women pioneers were Beverly Stoeltje, “A Helpmate for Man Indeed: The Image of the Frontier Woman,” Journal of American Folklore, Volume 88, Number 347 (January–March, 1975): 25–41; and Sheryll Patterson-Black, “Women Homesteaders on the Great Plains Frontier,” Frontiers, Volume 1, Number 2 (Spring 1976): 67–88. Julie Roy Jeffrey’s Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1880 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1979) broke new ground when it was published. Jeffrey’s narrative challenged Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis—that the West was a more egalitarian place—by arguing that it wasn’t so for women. Other works further expanded the scholarship on white women in the West and on emigrant trails: John Mack Faragher, Women and Men on the Oregon Trail (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979); Joanna Stratton, Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981); Lillian Schlissel, Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey (New York: Schocken Books, 1982); and Sandra L. Myres, Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 1800–1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982). All of these volumes attracted an audience outside of the academy and young female scholars to the field of western history. They also commented on and/or supported various interpretations of white pioneers as drudges, reluctant pioneers, or liberated women. For a discussion of this, see Elizabeth Jameson, “Women as Workers, Women as Civilizers: True Womanhood in the American West,” in The Women’s West, 145–164. By the 1980s, work in the field of women’s western history had expanded considerably. Scholarship began to look more closely at the lives of Native, Asian, and Mexican women. These included Sylvia Van Kirk’s Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur Trade Society, 1670–1870 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983); Sucheng Chan, This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880–1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Vicki L. Ruiz’s Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930–1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987). Western Women: Their Land, Their Lives (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press) edited by Vicki Ruiz and Lillian Schlissel, appeared in 1988 and remains a classic collection of essays about women on the western frontier. It includes the pivotal essays “Anglo Women and Domestic Ideology in the American West in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries” by Robert Griswold; “The Legal Rights of American

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Indian Women” by Genevieve Chato; and “The Custom of the Country: CrossCultural Marriage in the Far Western Fur Trade” by John Mack Faragher. Women in Pacific Northwest History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), edited by Karen J. Blair, sought to “set the record straight” about the lives of diverse women in the far corner of the West. Paula Petrik’s No Step Backward: Women and Family on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier, Helena, Montana, 1865–1900 (Helena: State Historical Society of Montana Press, 1987) showed how statistical analysis could be used to make women visible. The 1990s witnessed a flurry of scholarship, including Glenda Riley’s A Place to Grow: Women in the American West (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1992); the influential anthology edited by Valerie J. Matsumoto and Blake Allmendinger, Over the Edge: Remapping the American West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Vicki L. Ruiz’s From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); and So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier by Ruth B. Moynihan, Susan Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990). Recent publications include Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (New York: Norton, 2000); Nancy Shoemaker, editor, Clearing a Path: Theorizing the Past in Native American Studies (New York: Routledge, 2002); Lillian A. Ackerman, A Necessary Balance: Gender and Power among Indians of the Columbia Plateau (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003); Janet Bennion, Desert Partiarchy: Mormon and Mennonite Communities in the Chihuahua Valley (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004); Virginia Scharff, Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Dee Garceau-Hagan, Portraits of Women in the American West (New York: Routledge, 2005); Sandra K. Schackel’s (editor) Western Women’s Lives: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003); and Sheila McManus, The Line which Separates: Race, Gender, and the Making of the Alberta-Montana Borderlands (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). For a recent article about the practice of western women’s history, see Virginia Scharff ’s “Going Public with Western Women’s History,” Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, Number 4 (2005): 499–504. The standards in the field of New Western history are Patricia Nelson Limerick’s The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: Norton, 1988) and Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West (New York: Norton, 2000) and Richard White’s “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). The Trails Conference papers are published in Trails: Toward a New Western History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991). For studies on the environment and the American West, see

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Donald Worster, The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) and Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). See also William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1991). For articles that analyze and critique the New Western history, see Walter Nugent, “Western History, New and Not So New,” Organization of American History Magazine of History, Volume 9 (Fall 1994): www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/west/nugent.html; Larry McMurtry, “Westward Ho Hum: What the New Historians Have Done to the Old West,” New Republic, October 22, 1990; John Mack Faragher, “The Frontier Trail: Rethinking Turner and Reimagining the West,” American Historical Review, Volume 98, Number 1 (February 1993): 106–117; and Peter Schrag, “The Burden of Western History,” The American Prospect, Volume 11, Number 10 (March–April 2000). Caroline Kirkland’s masterful memoir, “A New Home, Who’ll Follow?” is edited by Sandra A. Zagarell (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990). The classic feminist literary analysis of western landscape and male pastoralism is Annette Kolodny’s The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975). “Clio Bereft of Calliope: Literature and the New Western History” appears in Forrest G. Robinson, editor, The New Western History: The Territory Ahead (Tucson: University Press of Arizona, 1997): 61–98. See also Krista Comer, Landscapes of the New West: Gender and Geography in Contemporary Women’s Writings (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), and Forrest G. Robinson, “We Should Talk: Western History and Western Literature in Dialogue,” American Literary History, Volume 16, Number 1 (2004): 132–143. For Peter Boag’s critique of feminist scholarship in reference to female-tomale cross-dressers, see “Go West Young Man, Go East Young Woman: Searching for the Trans in Western Gender History,” The Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, Issue 4, viewed May 25, 2006, at www.historycooperative.org/cgibin/printpage.cgi. For more analysis of gender in the American West, students should consult the essays contained within Virginia J. Scharff, editor, Seeing Nature through Gender (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), especially Boag’s “Thinking Like Mount Rushmore: Sexuality and Gender in the Republican Landscape” and Annie Gilbert Coleman’s “From Snow Bunnies to Shred Betties: Gender, Consumption, and the Skiing Landscape.” For information about the Western History Association and the Las Vegas conference of 2004, visit the Western History Association Web site at www.umsl.edu/~wha/conf/confinfo.html. Feminist critiques of written history and the structure of historical narrative have challenged all historical writing, but western history lends itself to

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such criticism because of the linear “moving West” theme that pervades much of it. See Kass Fleisher, The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History (Albany: State University Press of New York, 2004), and a group of papers published as “Dialogue: Gender History/Women’s History: Is Feminist Scholarship Losing Its Critical Edge?” Journal of Women’s History, Volume 5, Number 1 (Spring 1993): 89–128. Judith Bennett’s thesis appears in “Feminism and History,” Journal of Gender and History, Volume 1, Number 3 (1989): 251–272. See also Louise M. Newman, “Critical Theory and the History of Women: What’s At Stake in Deconstructing Women’s History,” Journal of Women’s History, Volume 2, Number 3 (1991): 58–68; and James Livingston, Pragmatism, Feminism, and Democracy: Rethinking the Politics of American History (New York: Routledge, 2001). For third-wave feminism accounts by young women of color, see Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman, Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism (Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2002). The Journal of Women’s History “Dialogue” article contains the comments of Mariana Valverde and Marcia R. Sawyer. The anger and distrust inherent in the “Dialogue” forum has continued to hamper communication between white women’s historians and women historians of color, as evidenced at the Western Historical Association meeting in 2004. For more about using oral history to write women’s western history, consult Katrine Barber and Janice Dilg, “Documenting Women’s History: Using Oral History and the Collaborative Process,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, Number 4 (Winter 2002): 530–540. The tensions and interactions between Native American oral history and the academy are addressed in Ronald J. Mason’s highly controversial book Inconstant Companions: Archaeology and North American Indian Oral Traditions (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006). Judy Nolte Lensink’s “A Secret to be Burried: The Diary and Life of Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1858–1888 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989) provides an excellent look at the interweaving of women’s material culture and women’s lives. Emily Hawley Gillespie, like other women diarists, carefully chronicled her domestic duties and production. For a scholarly interpretation of western quiltmaking, consult Norma Derry Hiles, “Crazy Quilts and Fancy Work: Icons of the American West,” Journal of the West, Volume 33, Number 1 (1994): 64–66; and Mary Bywater Cross, “Quilts in the Lives of Women Who Migrated to the Northwest, 1850–1990: A Visual Record,” in Karen J. Blair, editor, Women in Pacific Northwest History, revised edition (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001): 258–266. See also “Patchwork Lives,” Quilt Exhibit at the Nebraska State Historical Society, Nebraska State Historical Society Web site, www.nebraskahistory.org/sites/mnh/patchwork_lives. For a demonstration of the ways to use houses, homes, and domestic quarters as sources, see Barbara J. Howe and others, Houses and Homes: Exploring

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Their History (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1989); and Thomas J. Schlereth, Artifacts and the American Past (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1980). Richard L. Bushman’s massive The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Vintage Books, 1992) provides an essential understanding of the evolution of domestic gentility and the meaning of houses in North America between 1700 and 1850. Chesterfield, Idaho’s Web site can be found at chesterfieldfoundation.org. Lori Merish explores the link between consumption, domesticity, and womanhood between the American Revolution and 1900 in Sentimental Materialism: Gender, Commodity Culture, and Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000). For a handbook on using photographs as historical sources, consult Robert M. Levine, Insights into American History: Photographs as Documents (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004). The technological revolution has changed the way historians work. Complaints that women’s history was not accepted for publication with as much frequency as other kinds of history have been, in part, mitigated by the explosion of media outlets now available, although questions of peer review remain for these sources. Christopher Miller explores the uses and misuses of Wikipedia in the history classroom in his article, “Strange Facts in the History Classroom: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wiki(pedia),” Perspectives: The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association, Volume 45, Number 5 (May 2007): 44–46. See also Roy Rozenzweig, “Can History Be Open Source?” Journal of American History, Volume 93, Number 1 (June 2006): 117–146. For Web sites of particular interest to women’s scholars, visit the National Women’s History Project at www.nwhp.org/, the National Women’s History Museum at www.nwhm.org/about/about.htm, and the Library of Congress American Memory Women’s History Web site at memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/. For more on the open-source movement and the technological transformation of culture, see Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006). Friedman’s book has garnered praise outside academia, and criticism from scholars who contend that the book oversimplifies the ability of technology to make the world “flat” or to even the playing field between industrialized and developing nations.

CHAPTER TWO

VISIBLE IN EVERYTHING, BUT INVISIBLE TO HISTORY: NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN IN THE NORTH AMERICAN WEST

U

sing deft fingers made agile by years of weaving, the woman worked dyed fibers of dark orange into the large basket to create an intricate design. This container, like all of the receptacles used by her family, was made to hold the berries, nuts, and grains she would gather throughout this year and every year after, until she was too old or tired to continue to do so. She made watertight baskets to carry precious rainwater; she made small pouches for small items, such as a needle formed out of bone; and when she was not making baskets and pottery, she sewed tiny beads onto leather shoes and leggings. When she became older and took her place with the tribal elders, younger women would bear the brunt of the gathering work, but she would continue to tend small children, preserve food, and make baskets. In her tribe, women’s gatherings—the seeds, grains, fruits, and berries—did more than supplement the diet. These gatherings represented up to 80 percent of the calories consumed by her village, depending on the season and the availability of game. This woman could have been any one of the many thousands of Native women who provided sustenance for their families in western North America before, during, and after Euro-American occupation. Native women’s specific tasks, tools, and art differed by culture and region, but they all made utilitarian items for use at home, such as bowls and baskets; made clothing for themselves and their families; and gathered « 33 »

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Hopi woman weaving a basket. Photographed by Henry Peabody, ca. 1900. (National Archives)

and/or cultivated available foods. While the men traveled together, often on horseback after the mid-1700s, in search of animals to hunt, women tended the fires; built, maintained, and transported the family’s lodgings; preserved, stored, and prepared food; and maintained the tribe’s link to the past through the techniques of their domestic arts. They were powerful; they were numerous; and they were productive. They made their mark on everything—on the weaving patterns of rugs and baskets, on the beadwork on moccasins and leggings, on the intricate knowledge of medicinal and healthful plants, and on the interracial marriages common to the fur trade. And they were invisible to the European and American male explorers, trappers, and adventurers who wrote about life in 19th-century North America. They have also been largely invisible, until very recently, to historians of the American West.

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THE PROBLEM WITH NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY The formal study of Native American history and culture began during the 19th century and is controversial because the field was initiated by white men with little regard for, or understanding of, their subjects. Thomas Jefferson is often cited as the “father of archaeology” for his efforts to dig up and catalog the Indian grave sites located on his Virginia family property where he built his home, Monticello. This kind of amateur digging continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, resulting in the widespread desecration of Native burial sites, the pillaging of sacred artifacts, and the removal of unidentified skeletal remains to museums and depositories throughout the country. Lewis H. Morgan, an American social scientist, initiated the formal anthropological study of Native Americans with his highly influential and controversial study, League of the Iroquois, published in 1851. Morgan’s work set the tone for early anthropological and historical study of North American Indian cultures. His theory argued that all cultures progressed through a series of stages, beginning with savagery, progressing to barbarism, and ending with civilization. These classification terms were then used to justify the treatment of the tribal people viewed as savage or barbaric. The classifications, eventually known as unilinear cultural evolution theory, were linked with economies. According to Morgan, so-called savage cultures relied on hunting and gathering, barbaric cultures on livestock and agriculture, and civilized cultures on complex economies characterized by written languages. This system marked most Indian groups as either savage or barbaric. Within the framework of this metanarrative, the United States did not conquer Native groups. Instead, westward migration was a democratic sharing of civilized systems with less privileged societies. Not only was this theory hierarchical, imperialistic, and racist, but it was also patriarchal, as Morgan and those who followed in his intellectual footsteps generally viewed men’s economic practices—hunting, for example—as more important than those of women. As a result, women’s activities were devalued and men’s activities were misinterpreted. Men who hunted were sometimes viewed as lazy, and women who farmed were

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seen as slaves. Now discredited, this system of classification remained influential well into the 20th century. The tendency of male anthropologists to focus entirely on men’s activities and to talk mostly to male informants during field research has been partly to blame for the way Indian women have been obscured. Early ethnographers (scholars of Indian cultures) often viewed Native people as “noble savages” or “victims.” They failed to ask the kinds of questions that would lead to a better understanding of power within these cultures, because they imposed western ideas of power and authority onto Native cultures. This was especially true in relation to tribal women, who were often viewed by non-Indians as drudges or, in the more romantic western mythology, as Indian princesses. Early scholars were influenced by Lewis Morgan’s classification system, so they also viewed women’s work as indicative of the tribe’s evolution on the cultural scale. If women performed what non-Indians considered men’s labor, for example, this was seen as evidence of the tribe’s savage or barbaric status. Today’s Native groups, often in conjunction with the professional anthropological and historical communities, have worked to overturn more than a century of misguided cultural views stemming from these early scholarly theories. Many Indian nations contend that non-Native scholarship interprets the past in a way that is foreign and degrading to aboriginal peoples. In response, some tribes, such as the ShoshoneBannock of Fort Hall, Idaho, have established their own historical museums. Tribal activists also fought for passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which Congress authorized in 1990. The act requires institutions holding the skeletal remains or sacred objects of tribes to identify likely descendants and to take necessary actions to return or repatriate them back to the tribes. Native rights groups made up of Indians and non-Indians have also spent considerable legal and social effort lobbying for the removal of offensive place names, often with the usage “squaw,” throughout the American West. For example, the denigrating term, known as “the s-word” by Native groups, occurs as a place name no less than 93 times within the state of Idaho. All of the tribal groups in Idaho have joined forces with women’s organizations like the American Association of University Women to have the names changed.

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COUNTING THE INVISIBLE Yet another reason Native women’s lives have been obscured has to do with the methodology of the historical profession. As noted in Chapter One, women’s history demands different sources and different uses of sources. In addition to traditional textual sources like government documents, women’s historians must rely on material culture, written fiction, and domestic sources such as cookbooks and recipe cards. But the traditional sources historians use not only fail to illuminate women’s lives, but they often work to obscure them. Federal documents, already mentioned in Chapter One, provide only the perspective of government agents, and they generally did not have contact with Native women, or they did not deem female Indian authority as significant. Census records provide another important source for historians. The U.S. Census, mandated by Congress to occur every 10 years, has provided valuable information about population distribution, race and ethnicity, gender, poverty, and region since its inception in 1790. The U.S. Census Bureau, the agency of the federal government that oversees the census, is the official factfinding agency of the federal government. The results of the census are extremely important for municipalities, counties, states, and Indian reservations. Census numbers are used to allocate seats in Congress, electoral votes, and government-sponsored funding. In addition to the federal census, some states conduct regular censuses of their own. Recent censuses are available online from the U.S. Census Bureau. Census records from the past have been important for social and women’s historians, as they can tell us about birth and death rates, the average number of children per woman, and the economic status of women and children. The federal and state censuses reveal little, however, about Native populations, and especially about Indian women. Even before the formal census, historic population figures, based on the writings of whites, undercounted the precontact population of North America because they did not take the impact of European diseases into account. When nonIndians began settling North America, diseases introduced by the Spanish in Mexico and South America and by seafaring traders had already devastated Native American populations. With no hereditary immunity

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to smallpox, influenza, measles, or other childhood diseases, Native Americans were highly susceptible to strains that did not pose a threat to European populations. Approximately 90 percent of the population of North and South America was wiped out by these pathogens. Instead of the 1 million figure for precontact population posed by anthropologist James Mooney early in the 20th century, the actual precontact population of North America (north of central Mexico) was somewhere between 2 and 10 million. The New World was not so much a virgin, as some have noted, as it was a widow. Still, low population numbers allowed Europeans to view North America as an untouched wilderness. Federal census takers did not explicitly count Native Americans until the 1870 census, because they were not considered citizens or, more accurately, taxpayers. States kept enumerations of Indian populations, and the military maintained estimates of Indian groups, but they focused mostly on able-bodied men. Special census counts mandated by treaties shed some light on Indian populations during the 19th century, but these too tended to undercount women and children, as they often grouped populations according to headmen identified by Indian agents. By 1900, the Census Bureau considered Indian people as part of the population as a whole, though it maintained separate schedules for counting Indian reservation populations until 1920. Today, as the U.S. Census Bureau admits, ethnic enclaves, minorities, and Indian reservations continue to be undercounted in the final census numbers. The preliminary study on the undercount of the 2000 census found that the Native group was undercounted by 4.1 percent, a significant improvement over the 1990 census net undercount of American Indians by 12.2 percent, but still higher than other groups. Reasons given for the high undercount include cultural barriers, distrust of government agents, and lack of knowledge of addresses and locations on the part of federal census employees. Some Indian scholars and activists have called the census undercount “statistical genocide” (John Anner, “To the U.S. Census Bureau, Native Americans Are Practically Invisible,” 48). They argue that such undercounts erase Native populations, through both design and effect, and make it more difficult for Native populations to secure the federal funding they need. They also argue that the cover-up of the Native

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population reflects not just methodological problems with the census, but also prejudice. A follow-up study of the 1990 census revealed discriminatory problems in census coding that contributed to undercounting. The federal census uses complex computer programs to minimize inaccuracies, but these very programs were to blame for some of the undercounting of Native people in 1990. Forms that indicate someone is 200 years old or is a widowed 5-year-old, for example, will be rejected by the census. But the census coding system “was at one point set to reject any form that indicated that the person was American Indian, lived in a high-income urban area and had an educational degree of Master’s level or better” (Anner, “Census Bureau,” 50). This particular coding was eventually dropped, but because the Census Bureau’s computer code is not made public, Native communities struggle to deal with potentially discriminatory census methods. Census undercounts cost Native communities on reservations, but they may be even more damaging for cities. The urban Indian undercount is perhaps even more significant than the rural undercount, because a cultural bias against seeing Native people in American cities still exists and influences census takers. Cities in which large groups of Indian people live lose thousands of dollars in federal aid that would go to support these communities and provide social services. In this context, being invisible can also mean being neglected. In 1999, the U.S. Conference of Mayors issued a study of the fiscal impact of the 1990 census undercount on 34 U.S. cities. Of the western cities on the list, Spokane, Washington, a city with a historically significant Native American population; McAllen, Texas, a city in south Texas with large Mexican and Hispanic immigrant populations; and St. Joseph, a community nestled in rural Missouri suffered the greatest per capita loss for undercounted population. Spokane’s estimated per capita loss was $4,942 per uncounted person. McAllen’s was $4,810, and St. Joseph’s was a whopping $8,000 (because of the state tax and revenue structure in Missouri). By comparison, predominately white Plano, an affluent suburb of Dallas, Texas, reported a zero percent undercount and no per capita loss in funds. western cities experienced the largest overall per capita losses. What does the invisibility of Native people in the U.S. census say about the lives of Indian women? Historical and contemporary

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institutionalized invisibility contributes to lack of power. High undercounts in western urban areas contribute to shrinking dollars for invisible populations. Because there are more people than social services, city dwellers may encounter difficulty in obtaining services, which in turn may fuel additional problems. When an individual of any race or ethnicity fails to procure the necessary mental health support, for example, he or she may turn to alcohol or drugs. At least half of the undercounted are probably women, and women make up the majority of single-parent households that qualify for the child-oriented assistance that disappears as a result of the undercount. The controversy about the census in Indian communities serves to illustrate the gap between traditional sources used by historians and the kind of research necessary to understand Native life in the past and present.

TELLING HISTORY If historians relied solely on sources like census records and government documents, Native American women would remain invisible, even today. Of utmost importance in understanding Native American women’s history is the significance of the oral tradition. Most Native American groups relied on the spoken word to pass down their histories to new generations. Because these histories were not written down, non-Indians often dismissed them as inaccurate or flawed; they did not recognize that detailed tribal histories were often embedded within these stories. Rather than write their history, most tribal groups told their history. While they built fires, preserved food, and maintained shelters, Native American women told stories to their children. These stories were often about the origin of the people, or about the beginning of the world, and humans were not separate from the landscape, but part of it. Characters such as Coyote and Deer played important roles in these stories. The stories helped to differentiate cultures and define identity. The tradition recounted stories of the ancestors of the tribe and the history of the group. Such narratives incorporated information about tribal seasonal migration patterns; weather incidents, such as significant storms or floods; and diseases. Oral histories represent part of the faded parchment of the past, made clear when combined with other sources. The oral narratives

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generated by societies that rely on the spoken word are generally more accurate than the oral accounts of textual societies. Societies that write down their history do not place as much value and emphasis on the oral record. Beverly Hungry Wolf, a woman of the Blood People of the Blackfoot Nation in what is now Canada, interviewed her female relatives and generated a detailed account of gender practices, child rearing, and domestic arts. The resulting book, The Ways of My Grandmothers, is a classic history of Blackfoot women and a testament to the detailed accuracy of the oral tradition. Hungry Wolf chronicled stories of creation as well as the more practical stories of how to prepare animal skins, dry meat, and erect a tepee. The tribe’s history is woven into these accounts. When Hungry Wolf discusses directions for tanning animal hides, for example, issues of gender practice emerge. “A good tanner was considered an industrious woman,” Hungry Wolf was told, “while a bad tanner was considered lazy” (Hungry Wolf, Ways of My Grandmothers, 231).

BEVERLY HUNGRY WOLF Beverly Hungry Wolf did not appreciate the ways of her Blood grandmothers of the Blackfoot Tribe until she was an adult. After encouragement from her German husband, Adolf Hungry Wolf, she began to listen to the female elders and came “to value the teachings, stories and daily examples of living which they have shared with me” (Ways of My Grandmothers, 16). Born in 1950 in Cardston, Alberta, Canada, at an Indian hospital on the Blood Indian Reserve (reservation), Hungry Wolf represents a generation of Plains Indian women who were forced by anti-Native policies to choose between the old ways and non-Indian society. She grew up surrounded by the ancient ways of her ancestors. She attended a Catholic boarding school on the reserve, where she was told never to speak her Blackfoot language and to avoid “all other signs of Indian cultural ways” (Grandmothers, 15). Like others of her generation at Indian boarding schools in Canada and the United States, she was physically punished if she slipped out of English into her native language. Her parents encouraged her to embrace non-Indian ways. She felt “ashamed” to be seen with her traditional grandparents in public.

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Tribal people differ in their views toward the uses of oral tradition, and some sacred practices are not shared outside of the tribe. Moreover, historians must be careful in evaluating the relative validity of individual oral accounts, and oral history should conform to the standards set forth by the Oral History Association in the United States or other professional organizations. Just telling a story does not make it a history. Still, oral history can help illuminate the outlines of thousands of Native women of the past.

SACAGAWEA’S WEST Even the most prominent Native woman, and perhaps the most widely known western woman of all, Sacagawea, is mostly invisible. For what do we really know about this young woman who traveled with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as part of the Corps of Discovery between 1804 and 1806? Indeed, as historian Virginia Scharff has recently pointed out, we know very little. We don’t know how she came to be in a Hidatsa encampment by 1804. We don’t know how she traversed the trails she followed before the Lewis and Clark voyage, and we don’t know much about her path after it. We don’t even know how to pronounce her name, which appeared 17 times in the Lewis

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and Clark journals, with variant spellings, but usually with a hard “g” pronunciation. Often she was referred to as simply “an Indian Woman wife to Charbono” or “the woman and child” or “our Indian woman” (Bergon, Journals of Lewis and Clark, 98, 99, 168). William Clark sometimes called her “Janey.” Although the journals are painstakingly detailed in some ways, the explorers did not focus on the women they encountered, though they came into contact with, and were aided by, Indian women throughout their journey. What we know of Sacagawea comes from the Corps of Discovery journals, from oral histories conducted during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and from the faint trail she left of her life. Like other Native women of the Great Plains and mountains, Sacagawea was born during a century of disorder and transition for tribal communities. She may have covered her tracks, Virginia Scharff reminds us, because it was safer to do so. Perhaps we know only what she wanted us to know. Sacagawea was born of Lemhi Shoshone parents, probably in what is now the Salmon River country of Idaho. Her Lemhi name is lost to us, but by the time Lewis and Clark met her, she was addressed as Sacagawea, Sakakawea, Sacajawea, or some variation that was so incomprehensible to Lewis, Clark, and their party that no one who wrote or spoke English could make it out. Because it most resembles the journal entries, the spelling “Sacagawea” will be used here. But spelling matters, for the “Sacagawea” spelling translates in Hidatsa to “Bird Woman,” and Sacajawea to “boat launcher” in Shoshone. During early or preadolescence, around the age of 10, 11, or 12, Sacagawea was taken in a war raid and ended up in a Hidatsa Sioux camp in what is now North Dakota. When she was around the age of 14, the Hidatsa Sioux either traded or bartered her to a French-Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, who claimed her as one of several Native wives. She joined the Lewis and Clark expedition with Charbonneau (who went by several different names himself ) in November 1804, while the expedition camped with the Mandan and Hidatsa people at their village near the Missouri River. From that point on, we hear intermittently of Sacagawea in the journals, including her extensive knowledge of plants, her reunion with her brother and her Lemhi Shoshone people, and her infant child, a boy born during the winter encampment in North Dakota. Sacagawea spoke

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Sacagawea as portrayed in Charles M. Russell’s 1905 painting Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia. Interest in Sacagawea and her role in the expedition peaked during the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, held in Portland, Oregon, in 1905. (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

some French and English and was proficient in a number of Native languages in the region traversed by the explorers. She served as an interpreter, though never as an official guide. But she knew her way through the country between present-day North Dakota and Idaho and was able to reconstruct the journey she had taken as a captive child years before.

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Indeed, she belonged to this terrain in a way the others did not, as they had entered a foreign land, both culturally and politically. Once the party left the headwaters of the Missouri River and embarked across the Rocky Mountains into what is now Idaho, they were no longer in the United States, but rather in the Oregon Country, claimed jointly by the British and by the Americans but largely unmapped and unknown. One of the most critical junctures in the journey occurred as the expedition approached Shoshone country, just on the eastern side of the Continental Divide. The explorers needed horses to cross the Rocky Mountains, an obstacle they had not anticipated. While scouting the area, Lewis encountered several Shoshone people. One of them turned out to be a chief of the Lemhi, Cameahwait, and to Sacagawea’s delight, her brother. Sacagawea’s connections, knowledge, and skills thus allowed the corps to obtain the necessary horses for the remainder of the journey. When the explorers returned to the Missouri River during the summer of 1806, Sacagawea left the party, and because she was no longer with white men responsible for mapping and writing about the American West, she disappeared. A fierce scholarly debate currently rages over where Sacagawea went after 1806, how long she lived, where she died, and to which tribes she was affiliated. Notations made by William Clark suggested that Sacagawea died on December 20, 1812, at Fort Manuel in what is now South Dakota. This view was also maintained by a fur trader at Fort Manuel, John C. Luttig, who wrote in his journal that “this Evening the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake Squaw, died of a putrid fever she was a good and the best woman in the fort, aged abt 25 years” (quoted in Ronda, Lewis and Clark among the Indians, 259). Sacagawea had suffered from some kind of health problem throughout her life, and it seems likely that either her long-term health problems and/or an epidemic resulted in her untimely death as a very young woman. A competing story about her death emerged in 1933 with the publication of Grace R. Hebard’s biography, Sacajawea. Hebard, a historian and member of the Board of Regents at the University of Wyoming, described herself as a feminist and did all she could to further the fortunes of women’s history and Wyoming. In so doing, Hebard claimed Sacagawea for Wyoming and became one of the most controversial figures in

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the debate over the young Indian woman. Hebard’s account claimed that Sacagawea left Charbonneau after he took another wife and then journeyed through the Great Plains, where she eventually lived out her relatively long life on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Hebard’s account has her living with the name “Porivo” until her death in 1884. Most scholars dispute Hebard’s biography and argue that Clark’s notations and his care and education of Jean Baptiste, Sacagawea’s son, suggest that she died at a young age. Because the woman known as Sacagawea possessed the skills that later came to define a western scout—she was watchful, knew the terrain, and covered her tracks—we cannot know more about her. But her life tells us much about the women of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain West. In Sacagawea’s mobility, in her varied associations, in her multilingual camps, in her unassuming skills, in her motherhood, and in her biracial children, we find shadows of other Native women.

WOMEN OF THE GREAT PLAINS By 1800, the region extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains provided a home to a large number of Plains peoples. The Hidatsa-Mandan village where Lewis and Clark wintered in 1804 was representative of the kind of sedentary, agricultural villages occupied by Plains tribes that also included the Arikara, Pawnee, and Omaha. Identity and inheritance in most of these tribes passed through the female line (excepting the Omaha, who were patrilineal). The matrilineal nature of Hidatsa society explains why Sacagawea did not become a full-fledged member of the tribe. She arrived in a Hidatsa camp at a young age and lacked female Hidatsa family members. This limited her ability to integrate into Hidatsa matrilineal, agricultural society. Most agricultural tribes were matrilineal because of the important role played by women in horticulture. In agricultural societies on the Great Plains, in North America, and throughout the Americas, women were the primary agriculturalists, though men generally planted and tended tobacco (often considered a sacred plant). Plains agricultural women planted a mix of maize (corn), beans, squash, and sunflowers. Fields tended to be small, averaging between one and three acres per household, but never larger than could be tended by a woman and the

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family members who aided her. After planting, women often let the fields go for weeks—or even months—while they moved to summer gathering grounds. This form of agriculture appeared haphazard and unkempt to the eyes of Euro-Americans, who were used to monoculture (fields planted with one crop). But the multivariant nature of Native women’s farming lent itself to the tasks that Indian women performed. Fields planted with corn, beans, and squash were carefully planned to ward off weeds and insects and to allow for low maintenance. Corn stalks served as bean poles, and the spreading squash covered the ground, eliminating many weeds. Resulting yields were high, especially compared with the amount of labor per acre required by European monoculture fields. The combination of beans, squash, and corn provided a balanced diet of vegetable proteins all in one field. Moreover, the beans released nitrogen into the soil, which helped maintain the field’s nutrient levels. This kind of agriculture allowed tribal women to leave their fields to tend children and supplement the family diet with wild foods. Women in the farming Plains groups supplemented agriculture with wild berries, fruits, greens, turnips, and various roots that were gathered during the spring and fall months and either eaten in camp or preserved for the winter. During the late summer and early fall, women returned from the gathering places to permanent villages to harvest their crops. Women were responsible for harvesting, preserving, and distributing the food. This meant drying and storing corn and beans and preparing and drying the meat provided by tribal men. Women pounded dried corn into meal and either stored it as flour or made it into cakes. Root plants were often baked over hot coals or underground in earthen ovens. The resulting baked tubers were sometimes then ground into a kind of flour for storage. A common high-energy, highcalorie food on the plains and in the Rocky Mountains was pemmican, which was made of dried and flattened (pounded) meat (often buffalo), bone marrow, animal fat, and dried berries or cherries. Pemmican could be tightly packed into leather bags for use when hunting or riding. Because of the sealing qualities of the melted marrow and fat, pemmican stayed fresh for long periods. Each Native woman used the earthen pots, baskets, and tools she had made during the slower winter months for preparing and preserving food. By the beginning of the cold plains

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winter, tribal women had amassed stores full of dried berries, ground corn, dried meat, and pemmican. Changes had come to the agricultural tribes of the Great Plains with the introduction of the horse during the 17th century. Spanish explorers and missionaries first introduced horses into northern Mexico during the 1500s. The horse then spread through trade into North America, where it was adopted by seminomadic tribes, particularly some Plains groups. The introduction of the horse from the South and pressure from the East from expanding European fur-trading networks combined to change culture on the Native Great Plains. Historians and anthropologists estimate that horses were in widespread use on the plains by the mid-18th century. Possession of the horse brought expanded mobility to nomadic Plains peoples and allowed the sedentary agricultural tribes the option of pursuing game at greater distances from village sites. The move from dogs to horses also meant that more could be carried from campsite to campsite. Peoples like the Sioux, Cheyenne, and southern plains Comanche perfected horse skills and created Native horse cultures. The transitions introduced by the horse occurred as the fur trade offered European firearms to the tribes of the Northeast. A massive disruption of peoples and cultures ensued. The Ojibwas and Crees of Minnesota obtained firearms from the fur trade and pressured their neighbors, the Siouan-speaking Dakotas, who moved west. Once on the plains, the Sioux obtained horses and became one of the preeminent riding tribes of the Great Plains. The Blackfoot tribes of what is now Montana and Canada obtained guns and extended their hunting grounds, while the Shoshones moved west into what is now Nevada, Idaho, and Utah. The Crow separated from the Hidatsa, moved west, and became a horse tribe. By the mid-1800s, the Crow had acquired more horses than any other group on the northern plains. A poor man among the Crow owned around 20 animals, while a wealthy man owned upwards of 60. Horse ownership and dependence altered gender roles. Before the horse, hunting occurred on foot with bows and arrows, and it was often conducted close to the main camp. Once tribal members began using horses for long hunting expeditions, they would be away from the camp for days or weeks, leaving the camp to women and small children. Because the ability to gain wealth among groups like the Crow

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was determined by horses, women’s participation in the economy was devalued, and patriarchal institutions followed. Whereas women had traditionally contributed significantly to the diet, buffalo hunting now took precedence. Male hunters owned the meat they procured, though women still preserved and prepared the meat. Like other horticultural tribes of the Great Plains, the Crow were traditionally matrilineal, but as they abandoned farming for buffalo hunting and the hide trade, they became increasingly patrilocal (the bride became a member of the groom’s family and kinship was organized through the male lineage). By the middle of the 19th century, a Crow wedding was sealed by the transfer of horses from the groom to the bride’s male relatives, often her brothers. Buffalo hides among the Plains horse groups also determined wealth and created a significant trade market. Hides, like the meat, were owned by the hunting men. Women achieved some status through their ability to tan hides, however, and the hide trade depended on women’s participation. Women often accompanied men to the kill site, where women would skin the animals and prepare the hides. A Crow woman erected and dismantled tepees, loaded the family’s belongings, helped groom her husband, saddled his horse, and assisted him out of his clothes when he arrived in camp. A woman with tanning skills was a prized wife, for through her art she could further enrich her husband in the hide trade. Men in Plains horse tribes belonged to warrior societies that yielded significant cultural power, while women in the Blackfoot, Dakota and Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne tribes formed craft organizations that recognized a kind of patent system for artistic designs and gave prizes for buffalo robes. As women in the nomadic tribes of the Great Plains experienced declining authority with the introduction of the horse, marriage systems became more patriarchal and punishments for an adulterous woman became more severe. Among the Blackfoot, the punishment for adultery could be as severe as cutting off a woman’s nose. Divorce remained relatively easy to procure, however, and women continued to exercise authority within camp and over their children. Women owned the tepees and household goods. Blackfoot women participated in the sacred Sun Dance by serving as sponsors, and these holy women commanded great

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Plains Indian women often accompanied men to the buffalo killing sites, as portrayed in this Frederic Remington (1861–1909) painting. (Library of Congress)

respect. Beverly Hungry Wolf found that her grandmothers remembered respect for both genders among the horse-oriented, nomadic Blackfoot.

WOMEN OF THE FUR TRADE Although Sacagawea’s movements were more prominent than those of her Indian women peers, they were no less common. Her association with the French-Canadian fur trader Toussaint Charbonneau represented a century and a half of intimate relationships between Native American women and non-Indian fur traders. These associations— sometimes formal marriages, sometimes with the consent of both parties, sometimes not—marked the terrain throughout North America, particularly in the Great Lakes region and extending throughout the plains into the Columbia Plateau of present-day Idaho and Washington. Sexual relations between Native women and fur traders resulted in a new categorization of race in the region, métis, a separate people whose descendants today are classified in Canada as an aboriginal group. Relationships between Native women and European male fur traders

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defined and solidified the French, British, and American fur trades of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Lewis and Clark wintered in the Mandan and Hidatsa villages of the upper Missouri not by chance, but by design. Generations of non-Indian traders had already established complex relationships with these groups, in large part because they were agricultural and because their location provided an ideal interacting place between non-Indians from St. Louis and elsewhere, and Plains and Plateau peoples from the West. The Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara villages of the upper Missouri were a focal point for an expansive Native trade network that linked the Great Lakes with the Pacific Ocean. This trade area had naturally become a center for the European North American fur trade, once it was established. The French founded a fur-trading empire based in Quebec and Montreal during the early 1600s, and by the 1700s they had established long-standing trade relationships with the Algonquian tribes of the Great Lakes region. When the French Empire dissolved with French defeat in the French and Indian War in 1763, the English took over the trade. The English trade network centered on the Hudson’s Bay of what is now Canada and was controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company and a rival organization, the North West Company. Shortly after Lewis and Clark’s expedition, North West Company traders established posts in the Oregon Country, in what is now Washington State and elsewhere. Thus, by the 1830s, the fur trade had moved west and involved many different tribes throughout Canada, the Great Plains, and the Oregon Country. After the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Americans founded their own beaver fur-trading enterprises, centered in the Rocky Mountain region of what is now the states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Nathaniel Wyeth founded the fur trade post Fort Hall in present-day southeast Idaho in 1834. The agricultural status of the tribes on the upper Missouri River meant that they often had food and women to sell or barter, so Sacagawea’s sale and/or trade to Charbonneau in the early 19th century represented a relatively common practice. Mandan communities gifted important visitors, including non-Indian traders, with temporary sex partners as a custom of hospitality and a gesture of friendship and diplomacy. Lewis and Clark’s men took full advantage of this kind of hospitality, but it seems that the Mandan intent may have been lost on them.

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These ties were considered important and sacred, but non-Indian views of sexuality complicated and degraded the practice. As a trade hub, upper-Missouri Mandan and Hidatsa villages were known as a source of Native women for sale. In 1838, trader Francis A. Chardon paid $150 for “a Wife, a young Virgin of 15” (quoted in Hurtado, “When Strangers Met,” 131). Chardon later received a “gift” from an Indian trader, either an Arikara or Hidatsa man, of a 12-year-old Assiniboin girl. Like Sacagawea, she had been taken during a war raid. Although some early historians and non-Indian contemporary commentators referred to the sale of women as prostitution, these relationships were much more complicated than the sale of sex for money, or a slave/master relationship, would denote. As indicated by Sacagawea’s status as Charbonneau’s wife, women purchased by fur traders were sometimes treated as wives, bore children, and lived in long-term relationships. Like Charbonneau, however, fur traders often bought more than one female companion and possessed more than one wife. But, as the contradictory stories of Sacagawea’s life show, Native women were not powerless within these so-called marriages. Francis Chardon’s diary shows not only that he casually purchased Native women as wives, but that at least one of his Native wives, Tchon-su-mons-ka, a Lakota Sioux woman, exercised power over his behavior. In an 1835 entry at Fort Clark, Chardon noted that he had received a “whipping” from his Lakota wife for inappropriate behavior at a Mandan dance the previous evening. Other entries include references to additional whippings received for “fornication” (Lansing, “Plains Indian Women and Interracial Marriage,” 413). If the whippings turned the other way for these women, they were also not bound to stay. After all, they knew and understood the contested terrain of the fur-trading frontier, and they could become invisible, if they wished to do so, by running away and disappearing into tribes with whom they had ties of kinship or friendship.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY Not all relationships between Native women and non-Indian women were characterized by slavery or sexual hospitality. Throughout the Great Lakes and Canada, the interracial marriage practice between non-Indian men and Native women whose tribes were involved in the fur trade was

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legally sanctioned by the French crown during the 17th century and institutionalized and recognized by fur-trading tribes. Eventually governed by specific rules maintained by both sides, the practice became known as the “custom of the country” or marriage à la façon du pays. Young French men, and later British workers, came to Canada and the Great Lakes as employees of large fur-trading companies. They established relationships with Indians, who procured furs in exchange for European trade goods, like pots, knives, liquor, guns, ammunition, and beads. The trade changed the subsistence patterns of tribes that participated in the business. As tribes came to depend on the trade, they spent their energies on trapping beaver and other fur-bearing animals, not hunting and agriculture, and they valued their relationships with the traders. The French and British fur trades did not result in the migration of French or English women, so young European traders sought Indian wives for company and household support. The 1666 census of New France showed a population of only 3,215 non-Indian inhabitants. Of these, less than one-third (1,181) were women. Skewed sex ratios and European minority status in the fur-trading regions of North America fueled relationships between Indian women and non-Indian men and created an environment that resisted the imposition of European gender norms. Native women possessed kinship networks with tribes—through family and marriage ties—that allowed traders access to new markets. But traders were not the only ones to benefit from this arrangement. Tribes expected, in return for intimate relationships with Native women, to receive privileged trade status and access to trade goods. As French and British traders fought over trade networks, these associations increased in importance and became tools of expansion and diplomacy. These interactions were not simply contracts, examples of sexual exploitation, or temporary arrangements. Both parties held power and received benefits from these intimate relationships. They were, as Richard White described them, “a bridge to the middle ground, an adjustment to interracial sex in the fur trade where the initial conceptions of sexual conduct held by each side were reconciled in a new customary relation” (White, The Middle Ground, 65). Although marriage à la façon du pays benefited both parties, it did little to impose European notions of patriarchal control onto Native

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A marriage between a trapper and a Native woman is romanticized in American painter Alfred Jacob Miller’s The Trapper’s Bride, 1845. (MPI/Getty Images)

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women. Sylvia Van Kirk, in her study of the role of Native American women in the fur-trade society of western Canada, found that unions between Indian women and non-Indian traders “conformed more to Indian custom than to European” (Van Kirk, “Role of Native American Women,” 144). When traders married Native women, they often joined their wives’ households and became members of tribal communities. Because women controlled the preservation and distribution of food, this connection to the global European economy gave them additional access to resources. For communities that were traditionally matrilocal—where the man moved in with the women’s family after marriage—fur-trade relationships reinforced the power of matrilocality and the prestige of individual tribal women. Such was the case in the 18th-century marriage between the Illini tribal woman Marie Rouensa Aramepinchieue and the French trader and explorer Michel Accault (see sidebar). ARAMEPINCHIEUE ROUENSA At first Aramepinchieue Rouensa, the daughter of a prominent Kaskaskia chief, refused to marry the French fur trader Michel Accault. Rouensa’s village, south of Lake Michigan, was one frequented by the Catholic missionaries who accompanied French colonization. The Jesuits sought converts among the Algonquian tribes of the Great Lakes region beginning with their arrival in the Saint Lawrence River valley in 1625. They had contact with nearly every tribal group in the Northeast, but by 1700, the Jesuits were focusing their efforts on Algonquian villages like Rouensa’s. Her refusal to marry Accault went against her parents’ wishes, as her father wanted to use the marriage to cement trade relations. But Rouensa exercised the Algonquian tradition that unmarried women possessed control over their own bodies. Her rejection of the French union was supported by a Jesuit priest, Father Jacques Gravier, who believed Michel Accault was not a proper Christian husband. When Rouensa’s father drove her from the family home, she gained sanctuary with Gravier, and many young Illini women abandoned their fathers and chiefs and supported the mission church. Rouensa thus used Catholic Christianity to support her sexual choices. Eventually, Aramepinchieue agreed to marry Accault, through a series of

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Women in the American West negotiations with her father that resulted in her parents’ conversion to Jesuit Catholicism and an alliance between her tribe and the French. Accault died seven years after the marriage, and Rouensa married another Frenchman, Michel Phillippe. When Aramepinchieue Rouensa died in 1725, her estate was valued at 45,000 livres. Her real and personal property was extensive and illustrated the “middle ground” between Native American and European culture in North America. Her will included two significant houses with stone chimneys, two barns, four African slaves, livestock, and several farm tracts. Her mixed-race children, who lived in what would become the state of Illinois, each received 2,862 livres (the livre was a French currency equal to one pound of silver, but later standardized to make 51 livres equal to 8 ounces of silver). Because the value of the French livre fluctuated due to inflation and location, it is difficult to convert the value of Rouensa’s fortune to modern currency. When calculated with the livre equal to a pound of silver at 2006 prices, the amount Rouensa’s children each received was worth about $274,752.

While it is impossible to determine the exact value, it is clear that Rouensa’s estate was worth a sizeable fortune at the time of her death. In addition to cementing trade and diplomatic relations through sexual relationships, Indian women supported the fur trade in direct economic ways. Women at fur-trading posts provided men with Indian shoes, or the moccasins that had been universally adopted by fur traders throughout North America, and with other clothing made from animal furs and hides. Indian women also provided knowledge of healing plants, helped the sick at post sites, and gathered and preserved food. At British fur-trading posts on the Great Plains, the preparation and preservation of buffalo meat and the production of pemmican were part of the seasonal routine. This work depended on the labor of Native women, most of whom were connected with fur traders through marriage. The heroic accounts of fur traders surviving storms and traversing miles through tough terrain have, at their heart, the hands of Native women who accompanied them, made their shoes and the blankets that kept

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them warm, provided their food, and secured them with connections to large Native groups and empires. By the time the West became part of the United States, the “custom of the country” had eroded (the United States acquired the Oregon Country through treaty in 1846, and the territory that had been Northern Mexico, including the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and California, in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; see Chapter Four). During the 1820s and 1830s, the Hudson’s Bay Company controlled the fur trade in the Oregon Country under the rule of Chief Factor John McLoughlin. His boss, Governor George Simpson, administered the Northern, Columbia, and Montreal departments. Simpson’s “country wife,” Margaret Taylor, was pregnant with their third child when he decided that a country marriage no longer served his desires or his role in the corporate fur trade. He left Taylor in North America and departed for London. His lack of regard for his Native wife and her people was clear in the instructions he left to his staff regarding the impending birth of his child. “Pray keep an eye on the commodity,” he wrote in reference to Taylor, “and if she bring forth anything in proper time and of the right colour let them be taken care of but if anything be amiss let the whole be bundled about their business” (quoted in “The Emperor at Home,” history.cbc.ca/history.) The 43-year-old Simpson then married his 18-year-old cousin, Frances Geddes, who was a member of London elite society. When he brought Geddes to North America, she was shunned by the local community, as Simpson had committed a faux pas in fur-trading society by rejecting his Native wife and failing to properly provide for her (though he did house her with friends and associates). Geddes’s writings indicate that she was unhappy in what she considered to be the rough company of the fur-trading society on the Red River. Simpson’s choice to marry a European wife and live with her instead of with one of his country-born wives created a fissure in upper-class fur-trading society. New officers in the Hudson’s Bay Company also sought European wives, and the practice of marrying in the custom of the country was openly discouraged. Although many officers remained loyal to their Native wives, even they became anxious that their mixed-race daughters become proper European women. As a result, a finishing school was established during the

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1830s at Red River for the daughters of officers. By the 1870s, marriage in the custom of the country had mostly disappeared in Canada, and it was never the practice once the United States took over the former furtrading areas of the American West. Meanwhile, Frances Geddes Simpson’s firstborn son, George Junior, died only seven months after a very difficult delivery. Friendless, depressed by her surroundings, and often ill, Frances Geddes Simpson fled back to London in 1833, where she remained for five years. Although the women in Simpson’s life paid the price for his choices, he was knighted for his service to England in 1841. Still in operation, the Hudson’s Bay Company is one of the oldest corporations in the world.

CONCLUSION The history of Native American women in the American West is one of contradictions. Invisible to historians, anthropologists, and EuroAmerican explorers and commentators, Native American women nonetheless maintained highly intimate relations with non-Indians, bore mixed-race children, and lived in long-term unions that came to define the fur trade and relations in much of the northern borderlands. Although Native women appeared as drudges and slaves to non-Indians, they exercised considerable power within their communities. In agricultural communities on the Great Plains, they planted, harvested, prepared, stored, and distributed the food of the tribe. In the nomadic horse cultures that grew up on the plains with the integration of the horse, women continued to exercise important roles as preservationists of tribal culture. As will be shown throughout this book, the invisible tracks of individual Native women color every corner of the West.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY Many general books about Native American history are now available, though few devote much space to the treatment of women or gender issues. For a general treatment of North American Indian tribes and a description of methodology in anthropological studies, see Mark Q. Sutton, An Introduction to Native North America (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000). A recent general textbook on Native American history is Clifford E. Trafzer, As Long as the Grass Shall Grow and Rivers Flow: A History of Native Americans (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt College Publishers, 2000). Trafzer does not address the topic of Native women in

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any independent chapters, but he does cover the lives of Indian women throughout the text, particularly in a chapter on Native American fine arts. For a broad and extensive coverage of cultures in North America, see Nancy Bonvillain, Native Nations: Cultures and Histories of Native North America (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001); Alice B. Kehoe, North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006); and Wendell H. Oswalt, This Land Was Theirs: A Study of Native Americans (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002). A classic synthesis of Native people in North and South America is Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Indian Heritage of America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970; reissue edition, Mariner Books, 1991). Colin G. Calloway’s documentary study of American Indian history, First Peoples (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004), includes both synthesis and primary documents. A standard synthesis of early Indian America is Gary B. Nash, Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000). Population figures for precontact North America vary greatly. The earliest work, which significantly underestimates tribal population but remains valuable as a primary source, is James Mooney, The Aboriginal Population of America North of Mexico (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1928). Revisionist estimates include Henry F. Dobyns, “Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate,” Current Anthropology, Volume 7 (1966): 395–416; Alfred W. Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America,” William and Mary Quarterly, Volume 34 (1976): 176–207; Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987); and Douglas H. Ubelaker, “North American Indian Population Size, A.D. 1500–1985,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 77 (1988): 289–294. The national clearinghouse for information and regulations related to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is the U.S. National Park Service’s Web site “National NAGPRA,” www.nps.gov/ history/nagpra/index.htm. The fight over offensive place names using derogatory terms about women and Native Americans continues as I write this. In Idaho the debate has been heated. The Idaho Chapter of the American Association of University Women and Idaho Indian tribes have been frustrated by the process required to bring name changes before the Idaho Geographic Place Names Advisory Council, which then makes recommendations to the Idaho State Historical Society Board of Trustees. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names makes the final judgment on U.S. place names. Idaho’s coalition has twice failed to get a state legislative resolution on changing the place names, and has had its recommendations rejected by the Idaho Geographic Place Names Advisory

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Council. One of the Idaho coalition’s proposals was recently rejected at the national level when local residents complained that “outsiders” were trying to impose their cultural standards on rural residents. In 2007, however, the coalition enjoyed success in getting approval to change the name St. Mary’s Nipple to St. Mary’s Knoll. For more on the struggle in Idaho and the American West over such place names, see Morgan Winsor, “Bernal: Changing ‘s-word’ controversial but needed to make difference,” at Idaho Natives Web site, www.uidaho.edu/idahonatives/sword.html; U.S. Board on Geographic Names—Domestic Names Committee Minutes, January 11, 2007, at geonames.usgs.gov/docs/minutes/DNCJan07Minutes.pdf (these minutes include the quotations from local residents complaining about “outsiders”); and Proceedings of the Meeting of the Idaho Geographic Names Board, May 11, 2007, www.idahohistory.net/Mins_Trustees_0510-1107.pdf. The census remains controversial for scholars of Indian history. It represents both a source of important statistical information and an instrument of conquest. William Seltzer, an anthropologist at Fordham University in New York, gave a detailed analysis of Native American census enumeration at the 1999 American Statistical Association Joint Statistical Meetings. He found in “Excluding Indians Not Taxed: Federal Censuses and Native Americans in the Nineteenth Century” that with every census after 1860 more effort was made to count the Indian population. For an analysis of the treatment of Native populations in the 1990 census, see John Anner, “To the U.S. Census Bureau, Native Americans Are Practically Invisible,” Minority Trendsletter, Volume 4, Number 1 (Winter 1990–1991): 15–21; also in Susan Lobo and Steve Talbot, editors, Native American Voices: A Reader, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001), 48–53 (quotations). Oral history is now a respected field within the historical profession, although some controversy about methods and meaning persists. The Oral History Association maintains the most complete oral history guidelines available in English. Revised in 2000, the current edition, Oral History Evaluation Guidelines (Pamphlet Number 3) can be accessed at the association’s Web site at www.dickinson.edu/oha/pub_eg.html. For a perspective on the application of oral history to Native American studies, see Roger Anyon, T. J. Ferguson, Loretta Jackson, and Lillie Lane, “Native American Oral Traditions and Archaeology,” Society for American Archaeology Bulletin 14(2), March/April 1996, www.saa.org/publications/ saabulletin/14-2/. A recent and highly controversial counterpoint on the uses of oral history is that of Ronald J. Mason. His recent book questions the relative authority of oral history in some contexts, including that of the primarysource-based historical narrative, where in Mason’s view some written documents represent a higher form of evidence than oral tradition. Mason questions the indiscriminate use of oral tradition as source material in

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Inconstant Companions: Archaeology and North American Indian Oral Traditions (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006). Beverly Hungry Wolf ’s masterful history of her grandmothers was first published in the early 1980s and has since gone through multiple printings. See Hungry Wolf, The Ways of My Grandmothers (New York: Quill, 1982). For biographical information about Beverly Hungry Wolf, see the “Beverly Hungry Wolf, b.1950” entry, VG/Voices from the Gaps, voices.cla.umn.edu/ and “Beverly Hungry Wolf (Sikski-Aki, Black-Faced Woman),” Native American Authors Project, Internet Public Library, www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A166. The literature on Sacagawea, the young Lemhi Shoshone woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark, is both voluminous and contradictory. I have relied on Virginia Scharff ’s recent synthesis of the controversy and meaning of Sacagawea, “Seeking Sacagawea,” in Scharff, Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 11–33. For a current analysis of the controversy, students should consult Sally McBeth, “Memory, History, and Contested Pasts: Re-Imagining Sacagawea/Sacajawea,” American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Volume 27, Number 1 (2003): 1–32. McBeth argues that historical truth must be considered in relation to culture and that there can be no absolute knowledge. Grace Raymond Hebard’s biography of Sacagawea, which places her late in life on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and which led to the widespread spelling of “Sacajawea” and the telling of her story as a guide of the expedition, was published with the simple title Sacajawea by the Arthur H. Clark Company in Glendale, California, in 1933. James P. Ronda’s Lewis and Clark among the Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984) remains the standard work for understanding the relations between the Corps of Discovery and the Native peoples with whom they interacted; the Appendix “Note on Sacagawea” is particularly helpful and contains a bibliography. William Cronon’s masterful work on the Indians of New England, Changes in the Land, provides a detailed description of the kind of tri-crop agriculture maintained by tribes throughout North America. The book won the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize in 1984 and was in the vanguard of the environmental history movement. See Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), especially pages 42–49. For recent scholarly explanations of the differences between agricultural methods and the development of societies in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, see Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986) and Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1998), though it should be noted that Diamond’s arguments have been criticized for being overly simplistic and deterministic.

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For further study of nomadic Plains tribes and women’s roles, students should consult Patricia Albers and Beatrice Medicine, The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women (New York: University Press of America, 1983). Romona Ford’s article, “Native American Women: Changing Statuses, Changing Interpretations,” in Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage, editors, Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), Writing the Range, provides an overview of the differences between matrilineal and patrilineal cultures and a useful chart listing the lineage customs of North American tribes. Scholarly work on the marriage of Native women to non-Indian men and the role of women in the French, British, and American fur trades has exploded in recent years. An important starting point for anyone interested in gender interactions on different frontiers in North America is Albert L. Hurtado’s “When Strangers Met: Sex and Gender on Three Frontiers,” in Jameson and Armitage, Writing the Range, 122–142. Richard White’s The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991) is the pivotal study of the fur trade and its impact in North America, while William John Eccles’s The French in North America 1500–1763 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998) offers a general overview of New France. Michael Lansing’s recent article “Plains Indian Women and Interracial Marriage in the Upper Missouri Trade, 1804–1868,” Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 31, Number 4 (Winter 2000): 413–433, shows that Native women on the upper Missouri served as important diplomatic mediators, consumers, and transmitters of social and cultural change. Susan Sleeper-Smith’s study of Indian women and French men offers a multifaceted approach to understanding gender and the fur trade; see Smith, Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural Encounter in the Western Great Lakes (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001). A useful reference timeline for the fur trade can be found at www.whiteoak.org/ learning/timeline.htm. For literature regarding marriage in the custom of the country, consult Sylvia Van Kirk’s classic article, “The Role of Native American Women in the Fur Trade Society of Western Canada, 1670–1830,” Frontiers, Volume 7, Number 3 (1984): 9–13. Information about George Simpson’s personal life can be found in Brian Richardson, “The Quality of Friendship: Andrew McDermot and George Simpson,” Manitoba History, Issue 46 (Autumn/Winter 2003– 2004): 27–36, and at Canada: A People’s History Web site, “The Emperor at Home,” history.cbc.ca/history. See also “Empire of the Bay: George Simpson,” at the Public Broadcasting System Web site, www.pbs.org/empireofthebay/ profiles/simpson.html. For biographical information about Aramepinchieue Rouensa, see Susan Sleeper-Smith, “Women, Kin, and Catholicism: New Perspectives on the Fur

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Trade,” Ethnohistory, Volume 47, Number 2 (2000): 423–452. Sleeper-Smith’s analysis reconceptualizes Aramepinchieue Rouensa as presented by Richard White in The Middle Ground, especially pages 72–73. White argues that Rouensa’s marriage was a function of the negotiations of the middle ground; Sleeper-Smith sees the union as evidence that Catholic Native women retained autonomy and gained some power within interracial marriages on the fur trade frontier. Converting the value of 1720s currency into modern currency is tricky. The National Archives of the United Kingdom maintains a Web site calculator at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/default0.asp#mid. Most tribes maintain active Web sites, and many operate their own museums. See Shoshone-Bannock, www.shoshonebannocktribes.com/ and www .shoshonebannocktribes.com/museum.html; Shoshone/Arapaho of Wyoming, www.easternshoshone.net/; Blackfoot, www.blackfoot.org/; Coeur d’Alene, www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/; Spokane, www.spokanetribe.com/; Cheyenne River Lakota, www.sioux.org/; Fort Peck Tribes, www.fortpecktribes.org/; Standing Rock, www.standingrock.org/; Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, www.ccsmdc.org/; Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, www.earthskyweb.com/ sota.html; Yankton Sioux Tribal Tourism Association, www.yanktonsioux .com/index.html; Cheyenne, www.ncheyenne.net/Default.htm; Arapaho, www.northernarapaho.com/; Arikara, www.mhanation.com/main/main.html; Iowa, www.iowanation.org/.

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CHAPTER THREE

WOMEN OF THE SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS, 1600–1846 AN EXTENSIVE BORDERLAND Modern examples of the cultural influence, large and small, of the Mexican borderland region on the American West are everywhere. The small, rural Idaho community of Rupert is not considered part of the geographic area of the southern borderlands region, the area heavily influenced by Spanish colonization, occupation, and culture, and now part of the United States and Mexico. Idaho is not a state that borders Mexico. Idaho’s northern panhandle borders Canada. But Rupert—located in the southern portion of the state in the center of the Snake River’s Magic Valley—exhibits characteristics of the borderland culture of the American West. Because of its location at the heart of intensive potato agriculture, the community of only about 5,000 has hosted steady immigration from Mexico since the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the immigration has been legal, some has not, but all of it has been encouraged by a labor-hungry agricultural economy dependent on seasonal workers for hoeing sugar beets and harvesting the state’s famous potatoes. Generations of Spanish-speaking families, themselves inheritors of a long history of European interaction in what was once northern New Spain, have made Rupert their home. The community’s town square, built by progressive-minded civic leaders and women’s club members during the first decade of the 20th century, now boasts two Mexican bakeries, two Mexican restaurants, and a Mexican market where even products made in the United States are labeled primarily in Spanish and two-pound bags of hand-dried chilies hang in the windows. Handcrafted leather goods are sold next to one of the bakeries, where pink, yellow, « 65 »

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and green sugar-coated rolls line the shelves. English is spoken only as a distant second or third language, but English speakers are accommodated and respected. Such Latino enclaves exist all over the American West, in small and large communities, in border towns and in Rocky Mountain cities—anywhere migrant labor, borders, and agriculture have mixed to create the Mexican-American West. Indian reservations throughout the West have also experienced the cultural influence of the border and Mexican migration. On many reservations, a fusion of Native and Mexican food cultures—the Navajo or Indian Taco—is served at powwows and other community events. A Mexican-inspired mixture of beans, meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese served on Indian fry bread, the Indian taco has become a staple of the powwow circuit and has been called the “universal modern powwow food” (whatscookingamerica.net/History/NavajoFryBread.htm). A 1995 poll conducted by the Arizona Republic newspaper chose the Navajo taco as the state dish. Women of the southern borderlands have changed the American diet. Ketchup, the tomato-based staple of the 20th-century U.S. dining table, has been at least partially replaced by salsa, a Mexicaninspired hot chili–based condiment, and tortillas grace the western U.S. table as frequently as white bread. An ongoing debate about ketchup versus salsa illustrates this point, even as it remains unclear which condiment is actually winning. The firm Information Resources, which tracks purchases nationwide at 35,000 retail outlets, found that salsa outsold ketchup $462.3 million to $298.9 million for January through August 2007. People spent more money on salsa, but ketchup sold more units, and The Wall Street Journal online blog has declared the battle “a truce” (Bialik, “Ketchup vs. Salsa,” blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/ketchup-vssalsa-by-the-numbers-191/). The fact that salsa has even come close to edging out the old classic suggests the powerful impact of Mexican cuisine on the American table. The American West feels the impact of economic as well as dietary influences. Western agriculture continues to attract migrant labor from less vibrant economies and fuels controversy within the American West and the United States about issues of immigration, health and social services, border security, and language programs.

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ANCIENT WOMEN OF THE SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS Continually infused with Spanish language, food, architecture, and religion between 1500 and the middle of the 19th century, the southern borderland area and its satellites, such as Rupert and Caldwell, Idaho, reflect the historical and cultural legacy of centuries of interaction between Spanish colonial Europe, Native Americans, and imported African labor. For centuries before the arrival of English-speaking Euro-Americans to the region, Native American women and European colonizers interacted in the southern borderlands. The Mexican-American borderland region’s expansive deserts, extreme temperatures, and lengthy growing season made it a formidable dwelling place capable of supporting large populations. Ancient Puebloan societies developed significant urban centers and a culture based on the cultivation of maize, or corn, and the careful engineering of water allocation. Maize agriculture spread from central Mexico to what is today the American Southwest by 1500–1000 BCE. The details of corn domestication remain a source of controversy among scholars, but research indicates that people in Mesoamerica started planting and harvesting maize between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. A recent study found that the “earliest securely dated remains of maize in Mexico” are fossils “that date to at least 6,200 years ago” (Sluyter and Dominguez, “Early Maize,” 1151). Women in ancient American civilizations were the farmers. Their cultivation and harvesting of plants, consciously and unconsciously, resulted in a selection process that rewarded plants that best met their families’ needs. When women watered and cared for plants that produced sweet corn with large ears or squash with more flesh than seeds, they ensured that those plants would proliferate. Plants that produced small or fruitless ears of corn did not receive the same favored treatment. Ancient women also unconsciously domesticated plants simply by throwing away the day’s refuse. When women gathered the sweetest fruits and largest vegetables, carried them into their camps, and threw away the seeds, shells, and husks, they were planting a new crop, close to camp. Women began to plant, in addition to gather, these favored varietals. As the crops

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View of Cliff Palace, the remains of an ancestral Puebloan settlement that is now part of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. (Corel)

gradually moved north and south, through trade and travel, they became the basis for North American Native agriculture (see Chapter Two for a discussion of agriculture among the Plains peoples). Around 1500–1200 BCE women living near a place known by archaeologists as Bat Cave, New Mexico, acquired maize through trade and introduced it to their communities. At Bat Cave and in rock shelters throughout the desert Southwest, archaeologists have found and dated dozens of sites littered with grinding tools and organic matter identified as corn. The irrigated, agricultural societies of the southern borderlands relied on the nutritional properties of corn and water control to support large urban populations. Although corn contains only 9 percent protein, compared with 8–14 percent protein in wheat, it allowed for a sedentary agricultural lifestyle and population increase. When consumed with the Mesoamerican-developed and protein-rich bean, corn provided a nutritionally balanced diet. Beans and squash are thought to have been added to the Southwest diet around 500 BCE.

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Because women were responsible for cultivation, the arrival of these Mesoamerican crops signaled an increase in female responsibility and power. Women planted, harvested, processed, and distributed corn and other agricultural by-products. They made baskets and pots that enabled them to carry corn and water, and they formed tools, such as the pestle, that allowed them to grind corn and prepare meals. By the first century CE, Southwestern peoples had begun to gather into villages, build irrigation systems, and construct ceremonial houses. Distinct agricultural societies emerged in what would become the American Southwest: the Hohokam (also Pima, Pagago, or Tohono O’odham) in present-day Arizona, 400 CE to present; the Anasazi-Puebloan groups in Arizona and along the Rio Grande River in New Mexico, 1 CE to present; the Patayan, or Yuman-speaking people in the Colorado River valley, 875 CE to present; and the Navajo and other Athapaskan speakers, 1300 CE to present.

THE HOHOKAM After 300 CE a vibrant urban culture known as the Hohokam—“those who have gone” in the O’odham language—emerged along the Gila and Salt rivers of modern Arizona. These Native American societies engineered irrigation systems capable of supporting towns of a hundred or more residents, and they constructed a maze of irrigation canals that linked larger communities to outlying areas. The main Hohokam canal stretched for about 30 miles and was lined with stone. Within the population centers of the Hohokam, archaeologists have unearthed platform mounds and ball courts where urban dwellers gathered for ceremonies and events. Men participated in this large-scale farming operation in which two crops of corn, beans, and squash were harvested per year, and Hohokam women became experts in crafting pottery bowls. Hohokam population centers anchored an extensive trade network stretching from the Pacific Coast of California to the southern Great Plains. Trade goods included shells, bird feathers, salt, pottery, animal hides, and carved figures. The Pacific Ocean shells procured by Hohokam women and worked into jewelry and other ornaments attest to the extensiveness of the trade network and infrastructure of these early irrigation farmers.

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THE ANCIENT PUEBLOAN (ANASAZI) The Hohokam lifestyle influenced the formation of other cultures in the river valleys of present-day Arizona and New Mexico. By 700 CE, large numbers of Ancient Puebloan families had begun to settle at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, which became the center of Anasazi urban life. “Anasazi” is a term now rejected by many Pueblo groups, since it was a Navajo term for the “ancient alien ones” (quoted in Kehoe, North American Indians, 110). Pueblo Bonito, the canyon’s largest community, enclosed 600 rooms within a single, multistoried structure. Pueblo Bonito was the largest multifamily dwelling in North America. Women in this and other Chaco high-rise towns used ladders to move between the rooms in their families’ vertical houses, and they used subterranean rooms to prepare corn for storage and meals. These rooms, known as “mealing rooms” by archaeologists, were used by Anasazi women to prepare cornmeal for ritualistic use in ceremonies and for consumption. The mealing rooms provided a space for women’s activity, socialization, and conversation. Scholars have found that the orientation of most mealing rooms allowed women to face each other while working, suggesting that social activity was an important component of these structures and that women exercised considerable influence over Anasazi architecture. These ancient women also kept fires, grew crops, made pottery and turquoise jewelry, and tended to their children. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Anasazi were a matrilocal people, meaning that women resided with their families after marriage and that the female line provided a female-based kinship structure. Matrilocal kinship networks provided the structure necessary for organizing a workforce to construct large, multistoried houses and to produce turquoise and turquoise ornaments. Turquoise trade extended over a large area, but the consumption of turquoise trade goods was centrally controlled within Chaco Canyon and based on female kinship networks. Archaeologists and anthropologists debate the population of Anasazi centers like Chaco Canyon, though it is generally agreed that these were relatively densely populated places. Chaco towns supported a population of between 5,000 and 15,000 residents during their height,

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around 1100 CE. A roadway system of straight sections, stairways, footholds over cliffs, and signaling stations linked hundreds of towns and settlements within the canyon system. The vibrancy of Anasazi communities at Chaco Canyon and other sites, including Mesa Verde, began to crumble shortly after they reached their cultural and population zenith. The conditions that made large population concentration possible for the Anasazi changed around 1150 CE, and the settlements were abandoned by 1300. The causes of this decline have been hotly debated by scholars. New research suggests that resource depletion, disease, class conflict, internal strife, and warfare are all likely possibilities. By 1000 CE, the Anasazi communities at Chaco depended on trade with outlying areas to provide wood and pine nuts, as their own juniper forests had been completely deforested by that time, because of the Chacoans’ ambitious building projects. The Anasazi use of rainfall and arroyos to water crops had become ineffective by that time. Clearing land for crops and diverting water from natural arroyos ultimately resulted, once the rains came again, in deeper arroyos or unpredictable flows, often below crop level (modern irrigationists manage this problem with electric pumps). Tree-ring studies reveal that a serious drought hit the Ancient Puebloan region between 1275 CE and 1300 CE and that this was the last in a series of significant periods of low precipitation. Soil depletion of Anasazi fields, moreover, required that the larger towns import corn and other foodstuffs. The women’s role in processing continued, but women in urban centers were divided between those whose families could afford to participate in trade and those whose families lived a more marginal existence. The most elite families lived in the largest structures, acquired luxury goods (such as turquoise necklaces), and ate a more diverse diet. Refuse remains and burial sites reveal that the elite consumed more meat, such as deer and antelope, than the peasants who lived in smaller structures in outlying areas and whose diet depended almost entirely on corn. This disparity had a significant impact on the health of women and children. Women from elite families were larger in stature and experienced less anemia and fewer infant deaths than women in peasant society. Children in households that relied on corn for subsistence exhibited health problems related to severe anemia.

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As resource depletion stressed Ancient Puebloan towns, some anthropological evidence suggests that violence increased, including violence against women and children. Controversial archaeological studies of sites such as Rattlesnake Ruin in southern Utah argue that by the end of the Anasazi period, violence against large groups of people had erupted. The Rattlesnake site includes a mass grave of about 20 people, mainly women and children, whose bodies had been mutilated and dismembered. The cause of this brutality is unknown and hotly contested, but Pulitzer Prize–winning scientist and author Jared Diamond has argued that violence among the Anasazi was the result of pressures associated with environmental challenge and depletion. Whatever their reasons for leaving—environmental, social, political—the Anasazi systematically abandoned some sites. Much scholarly debate remains about where these Ancient Puebloan people went when they abandoned their towns. Remnants of Anasazi communities scattered throughout the Southwest, and it is not clear if they resettled within existing pueblo communities or founded new ones. Evidence exists that many of the Chaco Canyon refugees migrated to the northern Rio Grande River area and to the Hopi and Acoma pueblos. Anasazi women must have passed their artistry to other women, because the distinctive black-on-white pottery style continued within the Pueblo groups and their neighbors, the Zuni.

PUEBLO WOMEN OF THE SOUTHWEST By the time the Spanish colonizers of present-day Mexico made their way up the Rio Grande River to what is now the American Southwest, the Anasazi decline was an ancient memory for their descendents, the Pueblo peoples. By the 1500s, the Pueblos occupied permanent, politically independent agricultural towns along the Rio Grande River in what is today New Mexico. These autonomous communities supported populations of 30,000 to 50,000 people before Spanish infiltration at the end of the 1500s. Their economy was based on the traditional borderlands triumvirate of maize, beans, and squash, but they supplemented agriculture with trade and hunting. “Pueblo” is a Spanish term meaning adobe or stone houses or towns and is thus not specific to any tribe. These groups were distinct from one another. They did not recognize a central hierarchy, and Pueblo groups spoke five different languages. But the

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Anasazi black-on-white Olla from Aztec Ruins National Monument, ca. 1000–1300. (David Muench/Corbis)

Spanish did not see these differences. They saw only that these sedentary peoples engaged in a similar, stable economy and lived in urban settlements made up of multifamily dwellings of adobe and stone. The Spanish term “pueblo” differentiated these peaceful agriculturalists from the nomadic groups in the region, peoples who did not farm or live in sedentary villages. The Spanish lumped all of the nomadic groups under the term “Apache,” thus setting up an unfortunate linguistic, dualistic simplification. The Spanish found the Pueblos an attractive target of colonization, whereas they perceived the Apaches as enemies, based in part on their dealings with nomadic tribal groups elsewhere in northern New Spain, particularly in Texas (Tejas). Overlooked in most Spanish accounts is the women’s role in providing the agriculture and the knowledge of household construction, basket

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weaving, healing rituals, and pottery production that made these communities appear stable and peaceable to Spanish eyes. Pueblo peoples maintained a strictly gendered society before the Spanish conquest, but each gender’s contributions and representative powers were seen as necessary and equally significant. Senior members of the community taught young girls the knowledge they needed to make baskets, build houses, and process and prepare food. Young boys learned hunting, warfare, and rain ceremonies from their elders. Warfare and negotiating conflict with other groups was a male responsibility in Pueblo society. Rituals associated with war, and the Pueblo view of female sexuality and power, limited male contact with women before any war activity. Warriors did not engage in sexual activity for four days before and after war activity, as intercourse with a woman was believed to drain men’s power and energy. Pueblo men limited contact with women not because they thought women were inferior, but because women’s power in the area of fertility and sexuality was considered superior. The genders performed different, but equally significant, roles in the society. Indeed, Pueblo peoples conceived of life as interdependent, circular. Gender roles were thus distinct but interconnected in essential ways. In spite of the Euro-American tendency to perceive Native American communities as transient and fleeting, the Pueblos remain in their villages today and continue to practice their religious and cultural rituals. Occupied continually for 1,000 years, the Taos Pueblo, outside presentday Santa Fe, New Mexico, is home to around 150 full-time residents and dozens of families who live there in the summer. Other Taos families live in modern structures within the Pueblo land holding, making the population of Taos Natives on Pueblo land about 1,900. The Taos north house (Hlauuma) and south house (Hlaukwima), constructed between 1000 and 1450 CE, are often cited as the oldest continuously inhabited structures within the continental United States.

WOMEN IN SPANISH NEW MEXICO The Spanish attempt to establish a permanent colony among the Pueblo peoples began in the late 1500s, although Spanish exploration, plunder, and rape preceded colonization attempts. The mid-century expedition of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado is usually whitewashed in U.S. survey

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textbooks as part of the European era of exploration. At their most critical, these textbooks note that Coronado failed to find the cities of gold he was seeking. At their most positive, they highlight his accomplishments relative to mapping and exploring the region. Most fail to explore the implications of gender embedded within Coronado’s journey. Coronado’s expedition included nearly 300 European soldiers, 800 MexicanIndian allies, and horses and livestock. The young European men who accompanied Coronado were looking for fortune, adventure, and trouble. What they found disappointed them. Instead of the fabled golden cities of Cíbola, Coronado encountered a city of multistoried adobe buildings, occupied by about 100 families, and containing food and trade goods, but no gold or items deemed of significant value to Coronado’s men. Coronado made the pueblo, Hawikuh, his headquarters while he continued the search for the mythic cities of gold. He then moved into other pueblo neighborhoods, including the Hopi, and spent the winter of 1540–1541 within the Rio Grande Pueblos. No single pueblo could support an army larger than its own population. When the Pueblos refused to trade with Coronado, his men seized food stores, stole clothing and turquoise trade goods, and raped Pueblo women. By the time Coronado departed from New Mexico, disgusted that no elaborate cities like those of the Aztecs existed along the Rio Grande, his men had destroyed 13 pueblos, killed hundreds of pueblo residents, infected Native communities with European diseases, and raped countless Native women. Juan de Oñate, a wealthy and well-connected Spaniard, led hundreds of Spanish colonists up the Rio Grande to establish a permanent settlement among the Pueblos in 1598. Although his colonizing efforts represented the expansion of the Spanish Empire through geographic conquest, Oñate’s marriage reflected the process of Spanish acculturation through intermarriage and female fertility. Like other mixed-race marriages, Oñate’s marriage to Isabel de Tolosa Cortés Moctezuma revealed the complexity of race, ethnicity, gender, and culture in New Spain. The Spanish created intricate definitions of race and ethnicity and tracked family connections through the multiple names they gave their children and, more officially, through the official Tables of Ethnicity. Isabel de Tolosa Cortés Moctezuma was the granddaughter of Hernán Cortés, the

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Spanish explorer who conquered the Aztec Empire in 1521, and the great granddaughter of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma Xocoyotzin (reigned 1502–1520), who was the emperor when the Spaniards invaded North America. Moctezuma Xocoyotzin had been the ninth to succeed to office as ruler of Mexico Tenochtitlan. The tradition of plural wives among Aztec royalty cemented family alliances, aided in succession, and resulted in numerous Aztec royal daughters and granddaughters, such as Isabel de Tolosa Cortés Moctezuma, later living under Spanish rule. When Isabel de Tolosa Cortés y Moctezuma—a mixed-blood Native and Spanish woman—married Don Juan de Oñate, she was securing a Spanish “white” future for her children. Her husband was a criollo, a full-blooded Spaniard born in New Spain, and because she was a castiza, the mixed-race daughter of a mixed-race mother (a mestiza) and a fullblooded Spanish father, Isabel’s children, Cristobal de Oñate y Cortés Moctezuma and Maria de Oñate y Cortes Moctezuma, were classified by the Tables of Ethnicity as white people of Spanish descent. Women’s race, status, and children thus defined New Spain’s hierarchy and cemented the presence of those of Spanish descent within the colony. Oñate’s attempt to colonize the pueblos predated the first permanent North American English colony, Jamestown, by nine years. The Spanish took with them their Catholic Christianity and their views of gender, women, and women’s proper roles. They came as Spanish families, numbering 130 men, their wives, and their children. The 500 colonists settled near the Acoma Pueblo, about 800 miles from the next nearest Spanish community. Pueblo peoples significantly outnumbered the Spanish, and the new colonists hovered on the brink of survival as they attempted to institute European practices and create an economy. Despite being outnumbered, Oñate informed the Acoma and other Pueblo peoples that they were now subjects of a Spanish king, entitled to protection, but under significant threat of physical punishment if they resisted. Because of the disparity in the demographics, the Spanish settlers relied on the Pueblo people for trade and labor. Pueblo hires tanned hides, made turkey-feather blankets, gathered pine nuts, and served as household help. Many of these, especially those who worked in households, were women. At first, the region’s Native population tolerated

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the Spanish, but as the colony’s hope for gold and other treasures dwindled, its settlers began to raid the Pueblos food stores. Again, Spanish settlers stole stored corn, took clothing, raped Pueblo women, and killed Pueblo men when they refused to trade. By the end of the first year of Spanish colonization in New Mexico, members of the Acoma Pueblo rebelled, killing 13 Spanish settlers. The swift, brutal Spanish retaliation that followed left Acoma in charred ruins. The Spanish killed 500 Pueblo men and around 300 Pueblo women and children. Some 80 men were captured, along with 500 women and children. Children under 12 were taken into the custody of the Spanish, where they began labor as servants. The Acoma men who survived were sentenced to have one foot severed, and all adolescent captives received 20 years’ worth of indentured servitude. Stripped of their children and their male partners, their population riddled with European diseases, Acoma’s women lost their ability to maintain traditional culture. The old ways did not seem to be effective against these new evils. The Catholic religion of the Spanish did not require converts to immediately reject their old religious practices. Franciscans sought converts first, behavioral change later (often by brute force). Hence, during this early period, surviving Acoma women and children incorporated some Catholic practices into their indigenous rituals. Despite the brutal effort to exert Spanish power and authority, many colonists abandoned New Mexico and returned to Mexico. The combination of brutality, harsh climate, and distance from other Spanish cultural centers dissuaded settlers from taking their place. After a decade of settlement, the Spanish population remained small, and only 400 Pueblos had converted to Catholic Christianity. The viceroy in Mexico City recommended abandoning the fledgling colony in 1605, but the Franciscan missionaries who had worked to convert Pueblo souls objected on the grounds that these new Catholics could not now be abandoned. The Franciscan commitment to saving the souls of the Pueblos convinced authorities in New Spain to preserve the colony, which in 1608 became a colony funded by the Spanish crown and controlled by Franciscan missionaries. The Pueblos along the Rio Grande became the center for missionary activity in northern New Spain. The presence of the Spanish irrevocably

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altered the lifeways of the Pueblo people. Spanish colonization set in motion a power shift between the agricultural Pueblos and their nomadic neighbors, altered gender roles, destroyed family relationships, and contributed to a decline in women’s authority. By settling among the Pueblos, the Spanish inadvertently strengthened neighboring nomadic tribes by upsetting traditional trade networks. The Spanish missionary model, tested elsewhere in the Spanish Empire, included forcing Natives into villages, instituting an economy based on agriculture, appointing and training skilled craftspeople such as blacksmiths and carpenters, and appropriating and distributing the products of the mission site. Because the pueblo populations were already centralized into agricultural villages, the Franciscans needed only to insert forced religious practices and economic controls into the existing towns. Governors were appointed by the Spanish crown. The governance of the colony was often at odds with the ecclesiastic control of the friars, but this conflict did not aid the Natives, who found themselves caught in a vicious struggle for control of the colony. Although the friars tolerated the trading fairs that the Puebloans maintained with neighboring nomadic tribes, governors imposed controls on Pueblo production and trade. Surplus goods could not be traded except to the Spanish, and the Spanish often commandeered food supplies and craftwork. The nomadic Apache had once depended on trade with the Pueblos for food, but now they had to resort to other suppliers or engage in raids. Governor Luís de Rosas (1637–1641) attacked Apache and Ute camps, looking for slaves, and forced hundreds of them to work in textile production in Santa Fe. In response, Apache and Ute warriors attacked the Pueblo settlements, stealing horses, burning fields, and destroying corn stores. The presence of Spanish tools, firearms, and livestock made the Pueblos a more attractive target for raids. Navajo, Apache, and Ute raiders used the new weapons and horses to become excellent mounted raiders and formidable opponents. This shift in power from the agricultural to the nomadic groups remained in place when the United States acquired the territory with the Mexican cession of 1848. Some benefits accrued for the Pueblos, including the introduction of new crops, such as wheat, apricots, peaches, and plums, and livestock, including sheep, cows, and horses. The missions employed both women

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and men as skilled workers. Men served as sheepherders and were responsible for weaving wool, in addition to the traditional Mesoamerican cotton, into cloth. Pueblo women became servants for the priests and—through force, intimidation, or persuasion—their sexual partners. Although the Franciscans took an oath of chastity, they were missionaries in a remote region of the Spanish Empire. By the 1660s, Inquisition documents (see sidebar) reveal that broken chastity vows were not uncommon in New Mexico. One priest, Fray Nicolás de Frietas, claimed that “all the pueblos are full of friars’ children” (quoted in Ramón A. Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 123). The priests also took advantage of the Native women’s skill at manufacturing adobe and building houses. Many of the mission churches, some still standing, were built by Native women under the direction of the Franciscan friars.

CASILDA SEPÚLVEDA About 17 years old in 1842, Casilda Sepúlveda was a member of the Spanish-speaking elite in Mexican California. Like other gente de razón women whose names appear in the Spanish and Mexican courts in California, Sepúlveda used the civil court and the legal system to resist patriarchal rule and abuse within her own family. When she appeared before a civil judge in 1842, Sepúlveda maintained that her father, stepmother, and parish priest had forced her to get married, and that her “liberty” had thus been violated. Sepúlveda’s grandmother testified on the girl’s behalf, arguing that her father had beaten her and forced her to marry a man she did not desire. The civil judge ruled in her favor and nullified the marriage. Angered by the ruling, the parish priest notified the bishop of Alta and Baja California, Francisco García Diego y Moreno, who promptly interceded and accused the judge of interfering in Catholic Church business. Moreno declared that only the Church could nullify a marriage, and ordered Sepúlveda to take her case to the proper ecclesiastical tribunal. The bishop secured a place for Sepúlveda to stay while she was in Santa Barbara, forbade her to discuss the case with her family, and gave Abel Stearns, the socially prominent owner of the house, responsibility for protecting Sepúlveda’s virtue while

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The patriarchal order imposed by the Franciscans, however, may have been the most dramatic change to accompany the Spanish occupation. In precontact Pueblo society, men and women performed separate (but roughly equal) tasks, responsibilities, and rituals. The women’s role in fertility rituals disappeared, as the mission fathers forbade any former religious practices. In the Pueblo world view, sexuality and fertility were linked and connected to women’s power. For the Franciscans, women’s sexuality was to be loathed, rejected, and feared. Franciscans merged some Native celebrations with the Catholic calendar—including the

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Mission of San Geronimo at Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, taken by Ansel Adams in 1942. The original mission church was built around 1619 by Spanish missionaries using Pueblo labor; it was destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The current mission was rebuilt on a separate site in the 19th century. (National Archives)

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winter solstice and Christmas—but no such fusion was allowed for the Pueblo summer solstice celebration of women’s fertility and fruits of the Corn Mothers. The death of Christ and the crucifix replaced the Corn Mothers, and the Virgin Mary’s lack of sexuality replaced the fecundity previously emphasized by summer rituals. Women in the Pueblos worked hard within the Spanish mission system. They made pottery and jewelry for trade; they harvested and processed food and cotton; they built Spanish churches and buildings; and they gave birth to mixed-race babies, some of whom grew up to work for the Spanish as well, as slaves or in other capacities. Pueblo women produced more wealth under Spanish rule, but their status and economic well-being declined. Mission Natives were forced to attend weekly mass and observe Catholic feast days, or they faced whippings and other punishments. The Spanish Catholic view that women were subservient echoed across the Pueblo world. Spanish-introduced diseases, including smallpox, measles, and syphilis, ravaged the Pueblos. The population of the Pueblos plummeted from 60,000 in 1600 to 15,000 by 1680. The calamitous social, cultural, and economic changes wrought by Spanish conquest led the Pueblos to revolt in 1680. Organized by Native religious leaders, the revolt involved two dozen independent communities and resulted in the deaths of more than 400 Spanish colonists and 21 Franciscan fathers. The Spanish would not again assert control in the region until 1692, when the new system permitted the Pueblos to practice many of their indigenous rituals. The processes put in place by the Spanish conquest, however, including the decline of women’s authority, the change in power structure between nomads and the Pueblos, the appropriation of women’s sexuality and labor, and the continuing growth of the Hispanic population in New Mexico, continued throughout the 1700s.

GENDER IN SPANISH CALIFORNIA During the 1700s, diverse tribal peoples in what is now California confronted Spanish Franciscan missionaries, who established a string of missions stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. By 1821, the year of the Mexican Revolution, 21 missions formed a spine along Spanish California’s coastline. Franciscan missionaries gathered converted Indians

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around mission sites, where they forced neophytes to work and taught them to read and write. None of the 21 California missions ever became self-sufficient. Like Native women elsewhere in the Spanish Empire, those in California faced difficult choices once the Spanish arrived. They could convert to Christianity and work as servants in the missions, or they could stay with their tribal units and watch their villages crumble as smallpox stalked the mission region. As they did elsewhere in the Spanish borderlands, colonizers and Franciscan missionaries established a culture in California that reflected the patriarchal hierarchy of Spanish society. Spanish law and social custom viewed men as dominant at home and in the public sphere. A married man served as the head of the household, but with that honor came responsibility: he was expected to provide shelter, food, clothing, and appropriate training to all the members of his family and those living under his roof. In return, his wife, children, and servants owed him obedience and respect. Women’s sexual purity before marriage was expected, and fidelity after marriage was often enforced by law. According to historian Antonia I. Castañeda, “women’s honor centered on their sexuality, and on their own and their family’s control of it” (Castañeda, “Engendering History,” 276). Class hierarchy further defined the status of individual women. Spanish-speaking women, along with Spanishspeaking men, were known generally as gente de razón (people of reason). The colonizers used this term to differentiate between California Natives and an occupying, elite class that could itself be of mixed ancestry but spoke Spanish. California Native women who converted to Catholicism were called neófitas, and non-Christian Indian women were gentiles. A non-Christian woman possessed the lowest status in California mission society, but she also moved outside the interest of Spanish authorities. The economy of Spanish (and later, of Mexican) California was based on agriculture and ranching. Under Spanish and Mexican law, women could own land and could receive land grants. Between 1769 and 1846, 7 percent of the land grants in California were awarded to women. By 1844, 13 percent of Los Angeles households were headed by women. Although California rancheros did not become the large, self-sufficient estates, or haciendas, that characterized elite landholdings

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in 18th- and 19th-century central Mexico, they were the basis for class hierarchy. The larger rancheros employed Native women, usually gentiles, as household servants, and Native men or landless Mexicans as ranch hands, cooks, cowboys, and seasonal laborers. Native women who worked on large rancheros cultivated vegetable gardens, tended vineyards, and maintained orchards. Vegetables—chilies, squash, tomatoes, and beans—and beef or pork provided the hearty staples of the wealthy California diet. Elite Spanish families in California, as elsewhere, ate chocolate melted into milk or cream for breakfast. These families also maintained sometimes elaborate homes in town and divided their time between their house and their ranchero. The vast majority of California residents, both Native and SpanishMexican, lived more marginal existences. Most ranchero families slept on the floor. Hired help on California rancheros lived in shacks with dirt floors and ate what little beef they had, wrapped in tortillas, with their hands while sitting on the floor. Tanned hides and wooden furniture were luxury items. California Indians struggled to maintain their families amid invasion, forced removal to missions, and the onslaught of ravaging European diseases.

WOMEN’S RESISTANCE Historian Miroslava Chávez-García has found that despite the unbalanced power differential between men and women in Spanish and Mexican California, women of all classes and means resisted patriarchal rule within the transition from Spanish, to Mexican, to American control in the Spanish borderlands. Women used the courts, the imposition of social norms, and other tactics to resist patriarchy (see sidebar). Court records show that when women sued for their property rights they were successful as often as men in early 19th-century California. Although Spanish-speaking women in northern Spain lived in a strict patriarchal society, they were able to sue in a court of law, unlike their counterparts in the early 19th-century United States. This right would be taken away after the transfer of the Mexican cession to the United States under the terms of the peace treaty of the Mexican-American War in 1848. Until then, Spanish-speaking and indigenous women had access to the courts throughout the Spanish Southwest.

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ANTONIA DE SOTO A survey of women in the colonial southern borderlands masks the complexity of interracial relationships, gender roles, and the resistance of women on the margins of the Spanish hierarchy. In 1691, 11 years after the Pueblo Revolt, Antonia de Soto, a 20-year-old slave of mixed-race (Spanish and African) descent, turned herself over to Catholic Christian authorities in northern New Spain, in the area that is today southern Chihuahua. Antonia de Soto confessed to breaking church law by adopting a male identity, using witchcraft and love magic, and stealing, plundering, and murdering throughout the northern region for six years prior. During that time, she nearly killed her male companion, Tepehuan Matías, who did not abandon her but continued to join her on her travels. She encountered Apache Indians and mulatto slaves, with whom she exchanged the magic charms and peyote that she claimed influenced her choice to live, at least temporarily, as a man. The Jesuit priest to whom she confessed turned her case over to the Inquisition, the Spanish Catholic crown’s tribunal authorized to identify and punish all forms of religious heresy, including blasphemy and witchcraft. In some cases, the Inquisition handed down capital punishments and used torture to elicit confessions, but its reach was limited along Spain’s northern border, where its few agents could not effectively monitor vast spaces. The reasons why a young slave woman conditioned by a Catholic upbringing would choose to live as a man, reap some of the benefits of male privilege, and then turn herself over to the widely feared Inquisition are as complex as the mixed-race climate of New Spain’s borderlands. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 sent shock waves throughout northern Spain. In their early years, the silver mining communities and ranches that dotted the region were not stable or safe places for young women or men, and Spanish authority struggled to assert itself outside a handful of older Spanish population centers. Antonia may have embraced a male identity to defend herself, as many of her confessed exploits involved swashbuckling and murder. Her sexual orientation is unknown, though she claimed to have given herself sexually to a male devil. Spanish authorities who recorded Antonia’s story may have been conditioned to think of

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Women divorcing husbands in U.S. municipalities as late as the 1870s often filed under their brother’s or father’s name. In Spanish California and Texas during the 1800s, however, women brought charges against their fathers and husbands for sexual crimes and marital infidelity. In 1806 Santa Barbara, Lieutenant José Raymundo Carrillo, comandante of the presidio, heard a case brought by a wife against her husband, Vicente Quijada, who was accused of having a sexual relationship with their daughter, Bibiana.

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Another incest case was brought by a wife against her husband elsewhere in northern Spain—El Paso del Norte—during the same year. Women in New Spain, including those of mixed Indian and Mexican ancestry, also used the courts to file their last will and testaments. Such records offer a way of understanding the lives of women who were not literate, as even those who could not read or write were able to have someone read and file the documents on their behalf. In August 1747, a woman named Juanotilla filed a will that divided her property. Juanotilla was identified as coyota, a controversial term that denoted her status as a woman of mixed Spanish and indigenous heritage. The term was a derogatory expression of Juanotilla’s status and race and appeared on the will document because she did not herself write it. The officer of the court did, however, take Juanotilla’s wishes seriously, rendered them to paper, and distributed her property—including livestock, tools, and houses—among her four living children. Centuries later, her will indicates that she may have been Catholic and was a resident of the Pueblo of San Buenaventura de Chochiti. Despite the Spanish court’s view of Juanotilla as someone with lower status, known only by her first name and her ethnicity, she was able to use the court to preserve her wealth and to convey some security to her children. Despite rigid legal and societal pressure to conform to gender expectations in marriage, some gente de razón and neófitas engaged in extramarital relationships, bore children out of wedlock, and cohabited with men who were not their legal spouses. The consequences of defying gender roles were significant for Spanish-speaking women, whose behavior was viewed as central to the establishment of civilization in California. Gente de razón who had been found guilty of adultery endured public humiliation, such as having their hair and one eyebrow shaved, and physical violence, including death at the hands of vigilante groups. In one instance in the greater Los Angeles region, a woman was shot by vigilantes, and her body was exposed when she aided her lover after he killed her estranged spouse. Only extreme examples of female resistance found their way into church or court records, but instances of violence against women who stepped out of the bounds of female respectability provide evidence of the courage of those who persisted to resist, to varying degrees, the hierarchies of Spanish rule.

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DISEASE AND SURVIVAL The standard of sexual purity for Spanish-speaking women did not protect neófitas and gentiles from rape and assault at the hands of the Spanish colonizers. Native women at the Spanish California mission San Gabriel during the 1770s resorted to numerous nonlegal tactics to avoid sexual assault at the hands of Spanish soldiers stationed at the mission. Women drove their families away from the missions and into the hinterlands of settlement where they struggled for resources but were more protected from attack. Those who were raped purified themselves with tribal rituals, induced abortions, and sometimes resorted to infanticide. Native women who endured the brutality of rape and physical abuse often experienced a double punishment. Priests at the Mission San Gabriel punished neófitas for inducing abortions, infanticide, and miscarriages, which they attributed to infanticide. Punishments included flogging for up to 15 days, wearing iron shackles, and standing on the church steps holding a wooden baby to represent the lost infant. Native women forcibly removed to the missions used a number of methods to resist the onslaught on their culture and their power. Scholars of the borderlands region have shown that Native women poisoned priests’ food; worshipped their own gods, including the Native Chumash earth goddess, Chupu; and exercised rituals that Spanish priests and officials viewed as witchcraft. Chupu worship reached its height during a smallpox epidemic at Mission Santa Barbara in 1801, a movement characterized in Franciscan records as the work of a neófita sorceress. Venereal diseases ran through all of the California missions, spread from Spanish soldiers to Native women and their children. Priests stationed at the California missions during 1814 and 1815 reported that syphilis was the most serious health problem among mission Indians. By the 1830s, syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases had accounted for between 10 and 30 percent of the total number of Native deaths within the missions. Smallpox also raged through the California mission population, and its spread related to Spanish views of female sexuality. Within some missions, the fathers locked unmarried women in barracks to protect their sexuality from other mission Indians, but this close sleeping

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arrangement bred disease and made a hospitable environment for deadly smallpox epidemics. In her monumental study of the destructive North American smallpox epidemic of 1775–1782, Elizabeth A. Fenn found that smallpox crippled the Spanish Southwest while it interrupted the execution of the American Revolution on the other side of the continent. By 1781, the smallpox epidemic had moved northward from Mexico City to Baja California, where Spanish mission priests attempted inoculation. Dominican friars at the Baja missions inserted Variola virus, obtained from the open sores or pustules of smallpox victims, into the skin of healthy Natives. This process was in intermittent use throughout North America, but it apparently had some success in Baja California, where few Indians reportedly died after the inoculations. Smallpox was a doubly cruel disease. Those who survived the disease often suffered with deep scars on their faces, arms, and/or hands for the remainder of their lives. Adding to the strain of constant cultural and social assault, smallpox’s targeting of young children struck at the hearts of mission women. In addition to diseases, the Spanish brought new plants and animals with them, and thus permanently altered the ecosystems of California and the southern borderlands. The integral role played by Native women of California in the seasonal food-gathering cycle was disrupted by confinement within the mission system. Whereas women had supplemented the Native California diet with high-calorie, nutritious foods such as acorns, seeds, and fruits, they were now reduced to eating a diet consisting largely of a starchy cereal, or gruel, known as “atole.” This diet lacked adequate iron and other nutrients necessary for children and nursing mothers, as well as for the population at large. A 1989 archaeological dig of the San Diego mission revealed a mass grave of children and young adults, a find that substantiated the historical record of starvation, abuse, and disease within the Spanish mission system. Native numbers in Spanish California—probably 300,000 during the 1760s and 1770s—had been cut by at least one-third by disease and/or violence by 1821. For those who lived as mission Indians, traditional family life was disrupted by new work demands. Colonial and mission households hired Indian women as servants, where sexual assault and coercion were often a part of the job.

Women of the Tohono O’odham people (formerly known as Papago), a group who lived in the Sonoran Desert (along the border of the United States and Mexico), from Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 1857–1859, Conducted under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior, by William H. Emory. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

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FOOD CULTURE AND WOMEN OF THE SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS From the ancient women who domesticated corn to the modern Navajo women who pride themselves on the airy quality of their fry bread, southern borderlands women have expressed their values, creativity, and lifeways in how they prepared and shared food. Ancient women in Arizona and New Mexico, as this chapter shows, were responsible for farming. They planted a mix of maize, beans, and squash, a combination that provides an excellent balance of proteins and nutrients. New research about the meaning of food and women’s preparation of food has shown that women create their own spaces, their own history, and a female-centered sensual knowledge of life through the preparation of food. Food in the southern borderlands, and elsewhere in colonial North and South America, also signified cultural exchange. When Susan Magoffin, an elite, white American woman, accompanied her husband, Samuel Magoffin, on the Santa Fe Trail in 1846, she encountered strange cultures and strange food. At the Mexican village of Las Vegas, Magoffin rejected the blue corn tortillas and chile verde that she was expected to eat with her hands. When she wrote that she could not eat a dish “so strong, and unaccustomed to my palate,” Magoffin could not have known that more than 150 years later, U.S. residents would be more accustomed to fast-food tacos than to the formal dinners favored by 19th-century elites (Magoffin quoted in Scharff, Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West, 49). Later, trail weary and thankful for shelter among the Mexican and Native families of San Gabriel, New Mexico, Susan Magoffin learned how to make tortillas. She expressed awe at the lengthy process involved and embraced the New Mexican diet, noting with “a good dish of Frijoles or any thing of the kind, one does not eat a bad dinner” (quoted in Scharff, Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West, 52). Magoffin and her Mexican and Native American hostesses found a shared cultural space in making tortillas, drying chilies, and preparing beans and corn.

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CONCLUSION Until the Spanish lost control of Mexico in 1821, many individual male Spanish authorities, missionaries, and soldiers lived off the fruits of Native women’s labor, benefited from the trade and sale of Native women’s artwork and household commodities, and used brute force to help themselves to Native women’s sexuality. The Spanish left shattered families and diseases, including smallpox and sexually transmitted diseases, behind them. Spanish women, Hispanic women, and Mexican women also participated in the cultural reshaping of the borderlands of the Southwest. Spanish presence combined with Native cultures to enrich the cultural expression of the region, and to give the southern borderlands a distinct flavor unique in the world. The Mexican government struggled to hold onto its northern provinces. In 1846, the Mexicans and the United States went to war over disputed areas of the southern borderlands. The resulting Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transferred the area that is now the American Southwest to the United States in 1848. Former Mexican citizens living within the cession area, which included the present-day states of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, part of Texas, and California, became citizens of the United States under the terms of the treaty. This did not prevent the southwestern U.S. territories and states from violating these citizens’ property rights and voting rights, and by the early 20th century much of the land and many of the rancheros formerly held by Mexican citizens had been lost through various means—often to the new American occupiers. When gold was discovered in 1849 in northern California, the wealth from the gold rush flowed to the United States instead of Mexico. After the Mexican-American War, Mormon migrants to what is now the state of Utah were forced to contend with the United States, not Mexico (see Chapter Five). Still, the region retained its multicultural flavor. The southern borderlands gradually infused, through cultural exchange and immigration, the rest of the region that became the U.S. West with Spanish/Mexican/Native food, architecture, language, and understandings.

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BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY The literature of the southern borderlands is extensive. The region is often left out of general studies of the American West, or at least once was, because an ethnocentric view of the American West excluded Spain and Mexico but included the former British colonial holdings. That bias has started to change because of the research of many of the people listed in this essay. Much more needs to be done, however, to centralize the story of women in the southern borderlands in broad histories of the American West as a region. Carl Bialik’s blog “Ketchup vs. Salsa: By the Numbers” appeared in The Wall Street Journal Online on September 20, 2007, at blogs.wsj.com/ numbersguy/ketchup-vs-salsa-by-the-numbers-191/. The nation’s largest Hispanic online network, Quepasa, recently conducted a market research survey in which it found that “the vast majority of Hispanics prefer salsa to ketchup and rice to noodles” (Quepasa press release, August 24, 2006, www.quepasacorp .com/?option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=68). Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: Norton, 1998) presents a readable explanation of the domestication of plants around the world and the particular challenges faced by peoples in North and South America. His account of why some societies are haves and others are have-nots challenges the traditional assumptions of Manifest Destiny, the 19th-century U.S. notion of westward expansion, arguing instead that biology and luck of location matter much more than ingenuity and institutions in the conquest of the world. Although it is a revisionist account, Diamond’s book has been soundly criticized for its tendency to oversimplify complex material and for its replacement of Manifest Destiny with another predetermined agent: biological destiny. Both Manifest Destiny and biological destiny obscure the agency of indigenous peoples, reduce complexity to simplistic explanations, and downplay the interactive nature of frontier relations. R. David Edmunds, Frederick E. Hoxie, and Neal Salisbury’s The People: A History of Native America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007) offers a thorough survey of Native American history, including coverage of the Hohokam and Anasazi cultures of ancient New Mexico and Arizona. I have also relied on the interpretations of pre-1400 history in American West presented in Gary Clayton Anderson and Kathleen P. Chamberlain, Power and Promise: The Changing American West (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008); Richard W. Etulain, Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006); and Alice B. Kehoe, North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account, Third Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006).

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For a synthesis of ancient life in the Southwest, see Richard W. Etulain, “Prehistoric Man and Woman in New Mexico,” in Richard W. Etulain, editor, New Mexican Lives: Profiles and Historical Stories (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002), 5–18. For more on the debate over the time frame of domestication of maize in Mesoamerica, see Andrew Sluyter and Gabriela Dominguez, “Early Maize (Zea mays L.) Cultivation in Mexico: Dating Sedimentary Pollen Records and Its Implications,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 103, Number 4, January 24, 2006, 1147–1151. The meaning of female subterranean mealing rooms is addressed in Jeannette L. Mobley-Tanaka’s article, “Gender and Ritual Space during the Pithouse to Pueblo Transition: Subterranean Mealing Rooms in the North American Southwest,” American Antiquity, Volume 62, Number 3 (1997): 437–448; and in Tracy A. Perkins, “Cornmeal Production and Women’s Roles: Changing Labor Patterns in the Northern Southwest,” (dissertation, University of Virginia, 2002). Anasazi matrilocality, female kinship networks, and the turquoise trade are analyzed by Peter N. Peregrine, “Matrilocality, Corporate Strategy, and the Organization of Production in the Chacoan World,” American Antiquity, Volume 66, Number 1 (2001): 36–46. For a general, illustrated work on Native women’s and men’s artwork, see Larry J. Zimmerman, American Indians, The First Nations: Native North American Life, Myth, and Art (London: Duncan Baird, 2003). The issue of Anasazi decline and violence are highly contentious topics, not to mention the archaeological evidence that some kind of cannibalism may have occurred within Anasazi communities. Modern Pueblo peoples maintain that the non-Indian scholars who study these questions see ancient Indian communities through their own tainted cultural lens. Moreover, some Native scholars argue, any evidence that ancient communities were not peaceful serves non-Indian ends and justifies conquest. “It is presumptuous for non-Native scholars to assert that because of their ‘postmodern theoretical knowledge’ they are sensitive to tribal matters and have somehow captured the ‘real story’ . . . . But some recent works on Native women have been authored by so-called progressive white women ethnohistorians who use no Native voices.” For an extensive treatment of this debate and for the Native perspective on responsible, fair, and life-affirming scholarship, see Devon Abbot Mihesuah, Indigenous American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 31–33 (quotation). For more on the politics of multicultural western women’s history and the role of the historical profession in addressing colonialism, see also Virginia Scharff, “Else Surely We Shall All Hang Separately: The Politics of Western Women’s History,” Pacific Historical Review, Volume 61 (1992): 501–533. The controversial issues of Anasazi cultural violence and cannibalism are taken up in Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking Press, 2005), especially 136–156; Alison E. Rautman

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and Todd W. Fenton, “A Case of Historic Cannibalism in the American West: Implications for Southwestern Archaeology,” American Antiquity, Volume 70, Number 2 (April 2005): 321–342; and Shane A. Baker, “Rattlesnake Ruin: The Question of Cannibalism and Violence in the Anasazi Culture,” Canyon Legacy, Volume 17 (1993): 2–11. Large media markets also covered the Anasazi cannibalism story; see Constance Holden, “Molecule Shows Anasazi Ate Their Enemies,” Science, Volume 289, Issue 5485 (September 8, 2000): 1663. For an account of the debate surrounding the disappearance of the Anasazi, see Stephen H. Lekson, “Flight of the Anasazi,” Archaeology, Volume 54, Issue 5 (September/October 2001): 44–48. For more on the decline of Anasazi communities, see Donna M. Glowacki, “The Social Landscape of Depopulation: The Northern San Juan, A.D. 1150–1300,” (PhD dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe, 2006). The controversy over the name “Anasazi” was the subject of the Archaeology News section of the journal Archaeology in the July/August 2006 issue (“What’s in a Name?” Volume 59, Issue 4, 12). The National Park Service has dropped the Anasazi terminology within its own interpretive sites, opting instead for the phrase “Ancient Puebloan,” a term also in use by modern Pueblo groups. For a comparative collection of essays devoted to gender in prehistoric North America and Mesoamerica, see Cheryl Claassen and Rosemary A. Joyce, Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). For a thorough analysis of the scholarly debates surrounding Pueblo ceremonialism and spirit power, see Jerrold E. Levy, “Hopi Shamanism: A Reappraisal,” in Raymond J. DeMallie and Alfonso Ortiz, editors, North American Indian Anthropology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 307–327. James A. Vlasich’s Pueblo Indian Agriculture (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), compares Spanish, Mexican, and United States land and water legislation. Vlasich covers Pueblo agriculture from 1540 to the 21st century, arguing that the Pueblos have accommodated new systems of water and land use while maintaining their traditional practices. The National Park Service Pima Hohokam Web site can be accessed at www.nps.gov/pima/. General studies of European contact in North America that contain broad survey-level treatment of the Spanish in New Mexico include John E. Kicza, Resilient Cultures: America’s Native Peoples Confront European Colonization, 1500–1800 (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003), especially 100–104; Gregory H. Nobles, American Frontiers: Cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997); and David J. Weber, What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680? (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999). Ronald Wright’s Stolen Continents: The “New World” through Indian Eyes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), a comparative analysis of the “discovery” of whites by the Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee, and Iroquois, and their consequent

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resistance and rebirth, offers a Native-centered account of the confrontation between North American indigenous peoples and European invaders. Richard Etulain’s Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West provides a balanced synthesis that rejects the linear, patriarchal Turnerian interpretation of the American West but questions the conflicted focus of the New Western History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006). Etulain also incorporates a significant section on the southern borderlands into his account. The staple historical analysis of gender and the Spanish/Mexican occupation of New Mexico remains Ramón A. Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991). Other essential works include Ann María Alonso, Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico’s Northern Frontier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995); Albert L. Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988); Deena J. González, Refusing the Favor: The SpanishMexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820–1880 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); and Virginia Maria Bouvier, “Women, Conquest, and the Production of History: Hispanic California, 1542–1840” (PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1995). For more on the role of missions in New Spain, see Robert C. Galgano, Feast of Souls: Indians and Spaniards in the Seventeenth Century Missions of Florida and New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005). Gender in the California mission system is extensively examined in Miroslava Chávez-García, Negotiating Conquest: Gender and Power in California, 1770s to 1880s (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004), and this work has informed this chapter. Chávez-García uses court records, birth rates, and legal documents to map women’s resistance to patriarchy. Dedra S. McDonald, “Incest, Power, and Negotiation in the Spanish Colonial Borderlands: A Tale of Two Families,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review, Volume 6, Number 4 (1997): 525–557, examines women’s roles and the function of gender in colonial Texas and California through the lens of two court cases involving accusations of incest by wives against their husbands. Juanotilla’s will is described in Deena J. González, “Juanotilla of Cochiti, Vecina and Coyota: Nuevomexicanas in the Eighteenth Century” in Richard W. Etulain, New Mexican Lives: Profiles and Historical Stories (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002), 78–105. See also Antonia I. Castañeda, “Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769–1848: Gender, Sexuality, and the Family,” in The American West: Interactions, Intersections, and Injunctions, Gordon Morris Bakken and Brenda Farrington, editors (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000), 274–303; and “Presidarias y pobladoras: Spanish-Mexican Women in Frontier Monterey, Alta California, 1770–1821,” (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 1990). Bonnie

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Ford discusses marriage and the legal status of women in post-Mexican California in “Women, Marriage, and Divorce in California, 1849–1872” (PhD dissertation, University of California–Davis, 1985). Elizabeth A. Fenn’s study of smallpox in North America, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001) is an indispensable resource for comparing the spread and impact of smallpox in the English and Spanish empires of North America. Alex Loya, a descendant of Spanish settlers in Texas and a contributor to Somos Primos, a magazine dedicated to Hispanic heritage and diversity issues, offers a genealogical examination of ethnicity, family history, identity, and oral tradition in the Spanish Borderlands, including an analysis of the Oñate-Cortés family, in Loya, Continuous Presence of Italians and Spaniards in Texas as Early as 1520, Texian Web Forum, 2006, www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/txweb/txweb main.htm. Information about the Taos Pueblo, including population, governance, economy, and land base, can be found on the Pueblo’s official Web site at www.taospueblo.com/. The Taos Pueblo is open to visitors, but the Pueblo requests that visitors respect the privacy of homes and observe regulations. See the visitor’s page on the Web site for details. The story about Antonia de Soto appears in Susan M. Deeds, “Subverting the Social Order: Gender, Power, and Magic in Nueva Vizcaya,” in Jesús F. de la Teja and Ross Frank, editors, Choice, Persuasion, and Coercion: Social Control on Spain’s North American Frontiers (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 95–119. Meredith E. Abarca’s book, Voices in the Kitchen: Views of Food and the World from Working-Class Mexican and Mexican American Women (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006), analyzes the ways economically marginalized women from the Spanish borderlands have used food to express themselves, support and nourish their families and the family unit, and create a female-centered world of interaction. For more information about the history of Indian fry bread and for recipes, visit whatscookingamerica.net/ History/NavajoFryBread.htm.

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CHAPTER FOUR

GENDER AND MANIFEST DESTINY, 1830–1870

T

he American cultural preoccupation with the masculine imagery of the “frontier”—cowboys, prospectors, cattle rustlers, bandits—has obscured the role of women within the process of conquest, colonization, and settlement. Spanish-Mexican, Canadian, Native American, Asian, European immigrant, and non-Indian women from the eastern United States converged, interacted, and forged new identities in the American West during the transformative period between the missionary era of the 1830s and the U.S. acquisition and conquest of the West. Long-time residents of the Spanish borderlands and of the Oregon Country, including Native women and women of mixed-Native and Spanish ancestry, resisted the onslaught of Protestant Euro-Americans during this period. Meanwhile, Euro-Americans of a dizzying array of backgrounds, ethnicities, and motivations flooded the Spanish-Mexican and Native American homeland, many of them believing it was their God-given right, or “Manifest Destiny,” to move west. The multifarious ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and perceptions of class among the Euro-American invaders and the resident Spanish, Mexican, and Native women of the West further complicates an analysis of gender relations. Poor Irish immigrant women came to western towns to better their fortunes, but in doing so, they contributed to an imperial wave that displaced Native and Spanish-Mexican women. Some African American slave women were taken west by their masters, and others ran away to the West to flee the ravages of the Civil War. In what became the state of Oklahoma, African Americans intermarried with the resident Native population—including the Choctaw and « 99 »

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The U.S. Congress commissioned Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, a German-born American artist, to create a painting for the stairway of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Leutze’s Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way was the result, a large painting that articulated as much about U.S. ideas of expansion and gender as it did the actual experience of American pioneers. The painting shows covered wagons of women and children following armed men on horseback, amidst a background of purple, snow-capped peaks. Leutze is perhaps best known for another of his paintings, Washington Crossing the Delaware. (Smithsonian American Art Museum/Art Resource)

Cherokee—that was forcibly displaced by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Wealthy women from the eastern United States accompanied their engineering, surveying, and mine-owning husbands west, but often not by choice. Thus, although these women created a definition of what a “white” West should look like, they were not always willing agents of Manifest Destiny, and they often spent as little time as possible in western locales if staying with relatives in the East was an option. These women experienced the West in ways very different from SpanishMexican ranchero owners, Mexican or Asian immigrants, or Native women trying desperately to hold onto their cultures. Educated white women used their writing skills to create a new, gendered travel narrative of the West and the Spanish borderlands that became popular reading in

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19th-century magazines and journals. If some white women were not willing agents of change, they were agents of conquest nonetheless. Women of European ancestry thus defined “whiteness” in the West in opposition to those whom they did not consider to be white, and they disseminated these definitions to the eastern United States in their writings about the West. African American women moved to the western United States before, but especially after, the American Civil War. Like other emigrants, these women sought better opportunities for their families, but they were also seeking escape from slavery and the postwar turmoil that characterized the American South during the 1870s and 1880s. For some African Americans, the trip west signified an opportunity to escape legal and de facto prejudice and to truly be free. Others were forced to come to western territories as slaves. Native American women, meanwhile, continued to provide food and comfort to their families and leadership to their tribes. Under assault from every direction, western tribal peoples reacted in individual and collective ways when confronting the explosion of non-Indian settlement to the Far West, the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountain West. Some contributed to armed resistance by their tribes; some encouraged their tribal leaders to accommodate and assimilate in order to maintain what was left of their land base. Some Native women left their tribal homes, married non-Indians, and became residents of new western communities where their children would be racially defined as white or mixed-race. Many Indian women during the mid-19th century embraced the attributes of Euro-American culture that they deemed valuable for their children and their families, and they found innovative and lasting ways to sustain their religious traditions and oral histories. Others maintained traditional tribal identities for themselves but sought nontribal formal education for their children. Between 1800 and 1870, the United States acquired, conquered, possessed, and incorporated the American West. The West emerged as a cultural icon in American thinking and became ground for an experiment in American democracy embedded in territorial expansion, free land, free labor, and defined gender roles.

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GENDER, JEFFERSONIAN IDEOLOGY, AND MANIFEST DESTINY In 1845, journalist John L. O’Sullivan used the term “Manifest Destiny” for the first time. In consecutive, influential pro-expansion essays, O’Sullivan advocated for the annexation of Texas and for U.S. claims to the Oregon Country. It was the “right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent,” O’Sullivan wrote, “which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us” (quoted in Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History, 31–32). O’Sullivan’s words reflected his pro–Democratic Party position and the debates over expansion that characterized the 1840s, but U.S. notions of territorial expansion and the role of women within the westward movement began much earlier. Indeed, European immigrants to British North America had been migrating westward ever since Jamestown was established in 1607 and Plymouth Colony in 1621. Pressure to move west came from internal factors, such as rapid population growth, and from external factors, including a desire to claim new lands. Although the expansionist fervor of the 19th century built on the ideas of the past, such as the American exceptionalism articulated by the Puritan minister John Winthrop in his 1630s sermon, “City on a Hill,” the 1800s westward movement acquired a specific character. Nineteenth-century Manifest Destiny was rooted in Thomas Jefferson’s views of American democracy, in the debate over the expansion of slavery, and in 19th-century views of women’s role and of the family. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and a Virginia plantation and slave owner, became the nation’s third president in 1801. Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory from France in 1803, at a cost of $15 million, thus doubling the size of the United States. This land deal came to about 3 cents per acre, but if adjusted for the relative share of the gross domestic product that the exchange represented in 1803, it would come to about $390 billion, or approximately $1,800 per acre. Louisiana added more than 530 million acres to the land mass of the United States, and the purchase affirmed Jefferson’s stance that the nation needed to ensure a future of accessible farmland to

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protect the stability of American republican institutions. In Jefferson’s time, concerns about the fragility of the American republican government experiment dominated the political dialogue. Jefferson believed the effects of corruption that had disabled European governments could be avoided, as long as the American government and its people could be allowed to expand across space. This kind of expansion could delay, Jefferson insisted, the development of the kind of class division and inequity that he witnessed while he served as ambassador to France. The landless poor of Europe had few choices, and Jefferson held that if a country possessed an impoverished, landless population and uncultivated land, it was depriving its citizens of natural rights. In the mid-1780s, nearly 20 years before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson wrote to his friend James Madison that it was “not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land” (quoted in Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic, 127). Implicit in Jefferson’s view of expansion and the movement west of small landowners were ideas of gender roles and family relationships. Property ownership was the privilege of white men in the early American republic, and voting rights were linked to property ownership. Although property requirements for voting quickly disappeared, women did not gain rights to property ownership in the United States until the end of the 19th century, and universal suffrage for women did not happen until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920. Thus, territorial expansion rested on American concepts of family, patriarchy, and land ownership. Women did not own property, but they provided for the children who helped to till the soil. Without women and without marriage, Jefferson’s concept of the westward expansion of American democracy was impossible. The yeoman farmer (who was, by definition of citizenship and property ownership, white) could not produce, or raise, republican citizens without a wife. To ensure the peopling of the future republic, more than accessible land was necessary. White women would be responsible for giving birth to, rearing, and educating virtuous sons capable of participating in the new political order. Scholars have defined this postRevolutionary role for women as the idea of republican motherhood. The period of fervent pro-expansionist politics generally associated with the Manifest Destiny movement occurred prior to the American

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Civil War, known also as the Antebellum period, and particularly before the Mexican-American War ended in 1848. But as Amy S. Greenberg has recently shown, “Manifest Destiny continued to be a vital force in American foreign relations and an object of faith among antebellum Americans after 1848, despite the fact that the war marked the end of substantial new territorial acquisitions of the period” (Greenberg, Manifest Manhood, 16). Expansionism as a concept lasted well into the 19th century, and it encompassed particular views of gender, race, and the proper roles of women (white and non-white). The ideas of Jeffersonian/westward expansion and 19th-century Manifest Destiny rested on patriarchy, heterosexual union, and white motherhood. They also relied, at least in part, on slavery, as the agriculture of Jefferson’s American South depended on slave labor for its profits. This racialized, gendered ideology was carried West by women as well as by men. It also gave white women a specific, sexual role in the implementation of expansion and Manifest Destiny. By the end of the 19th century, these expansionistic ideas had been translated onto a larger stage of imperial conquest in the Philippines and Hawaii, but by then the once compatible views of a white nation and expansionism clashed, since imperialism and nonwhite territorial acquisition were at odds with one another. American ambivalence to the acquisition of these non-white territories reflected the prevailing view that the American empire would be defined by gendered whiteness

SENTIMENTAL DOMESTICITY Historians of elite and middle-class women of the 19th century have studied the concept of “separate spheres” of gendered influence and authority. Elite men and women during the mid-19th century aspired to a structured, gender-role-specific environment in which the woman attended to the details of home life, and the man exercised political and economic authority outside of the home. Although this analytical framework does not apply to all—or even to most—women in 19th-century America, it was an aspiration for elite families and for those who wanted to achieve a certain level of status. Part of the appeal of the separate spheres ideal was that it could not be attained by the working classes. Working-class women had no choice but to work in textile factories, to

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The Four Seasons of Life—Middle Age, from Currier & Ives, illustrates an idealized domestic scene in which the wife and the female children welcome the husband and male child who have returned home from the world outside, 1868. (Corel)

take in laundry, or to take in boarders. Even within the middle and upper classes, historians have found that significant permeability existed between the spheres and that women’s activities at home supported male efforts in the larger civic and economic spheres. But in theory, the “true woman” was confined to the domestic sphere, and thus she did not encounter the corruption and degradation of commerce and politics. This made her the bearer of morality for the family—hers was the more pure experience. At the same time space and spheres were being defined by gender, the definitions of work, family, and consumption were changing in important ways. The 1820s and 1830s in the United States witnessed a significant economic shift away from an agrarian-based economy to a market-based one. Called by some the “Market Revolution,” this new economic climate meant that more and more Americans were leaving home to work in factories or at other on-site work locations. They were working for a set number of hours for a set wage. This was a dramatic shift from the schedule of

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farm work that had characterized all of North America before the American Revolution. People worked by the clock, not the sun; they left home to work, instead of going downstairs to the family store; and they used their earnings to buy manufactured goods, like soap, that they no longer had time to make. The upper classes had always participated in an active trade market, buying expensive clothing and home furnishings, for example. The Market Revolution transformed the lives of middle-class individuals, who could now afford to purchase furnishings, clothing, and items like watches and guns. Middle-class sensibility focused on the ability of the family to participate in the market economy. As a result, furnishings and clothing became marks of middle-class and upper-middle-class status, and they were the purview of women. As the pressures of a market economy, especially in New England and the Middle Atlantic states, drew men away from the home and began a long-term shift away from agriculture, Americans redefined the family. During the century before the American Revolution of the 1770s, family in North America had been characterized by extended relationships. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, nieces, nephews, and cousins often lived very near to one another and sometimes under the same roof. The colonial family had been part of the hierarchy of community, a chain that linked the individual to the whole. The family had also been the most basic economic unit. Families tilled ground, purchased land and slaves, and started businesses. The Market Revolution instituted a new economic building block—the factory or company—and as middle- and upper-class men competed in the new marketplace, women provided sanctuary at home. During the 19th century, the public sector became increasingly viewed as an anti-emotional, discipline-driven, competitive environment. Conversely, the home emerged as a refuge of sentimental love, companionship, and selflessness centered on the “nuclear” family (father, mother, and their biological children) rather than on the extended family unit. Childhood acquired a different connotation, as it became widely recognized that children needed a separate period of time to learn and absorb the requirements of adulthood. The pre–Revolutionary War idea that marriage served as an economic contract between two families was challenged by the emergent 19th-century view that marriages should be

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based on sentimental love, compatibility, and mutual affection. The freedom to choose their own husbands represented a liberation of sorts for middle-class, educated women. But it also placed tremendous emphasis on the home’s role as a domestic sanctuary and firmly planted the educated woman at home as keeper of the hearth and domesticity’s sentimental values. The development of the sentimental family emerged within a contradiction of American life. Domestic sanctuary could not be possible for slaves or immigrant women whose families relied on their labor for food. The interpretation that women were supposed to adhere to the “Cult of True Womanhood,” a commitment to the values of piety, purity, nursery, and hearth, has come under attack by historians who argue that the concept is limited only to those who could financially and socially afford to make such a choice. Still, the trend during the 19th century was toward smaller, nuclear-based families and an emphasis on the family’s regenerative, recuperative role as opposed to its economic production. Economic production shifted to men, who left the home in ever greater numbers to work in jobs increasingly characterized by wages rather than by farming. It was deemed unnatural for women to work, especially at hard labor. The laboring masses of women were victims of men who could not take care of them, in the view of many 19th-century middleclass individuals. Elaborate marriage and family rituals accompanied the transition to a nuclear family. Women were viewed as weak, even sickly. The proper expression of women’s sexuality was limited to monogamous reproduction. During pregnancy, women stayed inside, visited only with close family and friends (primarily sisters, mothers, and grandmothers), and endured a lengthy seclusion before and after the birth. A robust female sexual appetite was unnatural, unrefined, improper—even unhealthy. Fertility and childbirth were often viewed as akin to illness, as opposed to the virility and life-affirming views of women’s sexuality held by many Native American tribes (see Chapters Two and Three).

MANIFEST DOMESTICITY AND TEXAS As white, middle-class Americans moved west, they brought their ideas of gender, family, and morality with them. They would attempt to

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impose their own definitions of gender on the western landscape, though they often found that the landscape inhibited all but the struggle for survival. White women, as the bearers of domesticity and family life, were thought to hoist the largest burden in the process of occupying and domesticating the West. In the view of 19th-century Americans, “domesticity” had a double meaning. It referred to the sphere, or business, of the home, but it was also used to argue that women should have influence outside their houses, because the nation was also a home—a house of American republican democracy. Following this kind of rhetoric, women used the ideas of separate spheres and domesticity to establish some civic and public power, at least in matters that threatened the democratic values of the nation. Women abolitionists in northern states before the Civil War organized themselves around this principle, as did female reformers opposed to the ill effects of liquor and saloons on the family. Women active in reform organizations tended to be from white, middleclass, Protestant backgrounds, so their reforms often reflected their own class consciousness. If the nation was a home protected by female domesticity, then women could acquire a role in the expansion of the nation. When expanding the national home to include new territories, it would be the woman’s role to domesticate them. Nineteenth-century ideas of domestication thus included much more than simply washing the linens and changing the beds. White, middle-class women would accompany conquest and act as domestic civilizers. Domesticity became, in this context, an agent of Manifest Destiny, a civilizing force for “savage” regions conquered or acquired by the United States. The struggle for social, political, and cultural control of Texas, a province of Mexico and formerly part of New Spain, tested the ideologies of Manifest Destiny and domesticity at the height of their influence. When the Mexicans won their independence from Spain in 1821, they retained the seat of government at the old Aztec capital of Mexico City (Tenochtítlan). The Spanish had struggled to control their northern borderlands, and the Mexicans inherited the problem of securing the northern provinces. Few Spanish-Mexicans lived in Texas, where Comanche and Apache raiders held onto, often with violent means, their tenuous tribal control. Seeking to solidify Mexican possession of the

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northern province of Texas, or Tejas, the Mexican government granted Americans land along the Brazos River in what is today central Texas. Stephen F. Austin, through his father, Moses, received one of these substantial land grants, which was intended to settle northern Mexico with Mexican citizens. Americans who participated in the opportunity to own land in Texas agreed to adhere to the rules of settlement. Settlers were required to convert to Roman Catholicism, change their names to Spanish equivalents, and become Mexican law-abiding citizens. Anglo settlers (Texans) received more than 4,000 acres of land. By 1830, between 20,000 and 25,000 American settlers had migrated to Texas, many of them bringing along their African American slaves (slaves constituted 10–15 percent of the non-Indian population of Texas by 1835). The new American population outnumbered the resident Mexicans (Tejanos) by 2 or 3 to 1. The Americans clustered in communities that failed to adhere to the conditions of settlement, but the national Mexican government and the state governments of Coahuila and Texas were unable to adequately enforce the requirements. How did women who accompanied their husbands into Texas view their roles in the process of Manifest Destiny? How did they interact with the local Spanish-Mexican and Native populations? Texas during the 1830s and 1840s exhibited unprecedented diversity in its population. A small population of Mexican women of Spanish descent already lived there when American families from southeastern states such as Arkansas and Alabama migrated to Texas with their black slaves. White women on Texas plantations attempted to do the same work as plantation mistresses did elsewhere, but their conditions made the task more difficult. Plantation wives had many responsibilities, including overseeing household servants and slaves, directing the gardening, supervising the kitchen and meal preparation, and serving as midwives. Middle-class women also purchased materials for the household or made items that could not be purchased. In going about their domestic duties, white female emigrants to Texas often expressed feelings of isolation in their letters and writings. They felt isolated from community, from friends and family, and from a commercial marketplace where things like soap and cloth could be purchased. Mary Austin Holley, cousin to Stephen F. Austin, wrote a

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female-centered guide to Texas during the 1830s after a visit to see her Austin relatives during 1830–1831. Published in 1833, Holley’s Texas: Observations. Historical, Geographical and Descriptive in a Series of Letters Written during a Visit to Austin’s Colony, with a View to a Permanent Settlement in That Country in the Autumn of 1831, promoted American settlement but urged women to relax their expectations of domesticity. “Ladies in particular,” Holley wrote, “should remember that in a new country, they cannot get things made at any moment, as in an old one, and that they will be sufficiently busy, the first two years [of settlement], in arranging such things as they have, without occupying themselves in obtaining more” (quoted in Caughfield, True Women, 24). Holley found the temporary cabins in Austin settlement towns such as Brazoria coarse, but she believed Texas would prosper as more educated, refined families moved there. For Holley, “refined” meant wealthy, white, and American. Another white female settler, Sarah Ann Lillie Hardinge, viewed much of the Texas landscape as uncivilized and undomesticated. Her purpose there was to bring “civilization” to the area, and she viewed her role as teacher of the “Elementary and Ornamental Branches of an English Education” as necessary for the incorporation of Texas. Hardinge lived in Texas between 1852 and 1856. She kept a diary of her trip from Cibolo to the Texas Coast when her family boarded a ship to travel home to the Northeast. As an elite white woman, she traveled in relative comfort, accompanied by a driver and a “trio” of hired male workers to load and unload baggage, set up camp, and cook. She stayed, whenever possible, at the homes of other refined women, and commented on “the honest faces of the plantation slaves” at the estates that housed her. She appreciated the singular appearance of a plantation “enclosed by a hedge of ‘Cactus Stalk,’ the first of the kind I ever saw.” At Yorktown, she admired “corn, about a foot high, growing thrivingly, also other vegetables of quite a variety” (Hardinge Diary, www.cartermuseum.org/books/encountering/html/ journal.htm). But Hardinge complained about having to travel on the Sabbath, and she became weary of the trail and of passing through degraded living conditions. “We have now about thirty miles to travel through the prairie and being mostly ‘hog-wallow’ will be extremely rough and tiresome traveling—” she wrote on March 30, 1856; “We

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again passed many more, lifeless brute creations, in the distance saw a noble herd of deer but it is impossible to write legibly at present” (Hardinge Diary). Hardinge’s reference to the nobility of the inaccessible deer revealed her sense of isolation within what she viewed as a brutish landscape. When her party, including her husband and son, reached the coast, she expressed relief, joy, and optimism for the family’s future. After all, she wrote, “and I so do not think anything can seem a hardship after our experiences in Texas” (Hardinge Diary, March 31, 1856). For Hardinge to maintain her view of the ideals of womanhood, she needed to leave the degradation of the Texas frontier. Still, she admired those women who stayed to impose white womanhood and civilization. Although white women complained of the isolation, dirt, and fear that accompanied frontier life in Texas, many of them were attended to by African American slaves. The families that took advantage of purchasing new land in Texas often came from adjoining southern states, where rapidly expanding cotton plantation agriculture in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana made acquiring new land difficult. The explosion of cotton plantation agriculture in the Deep South contributed to the migration of Americans into Texas and supplied Texas with slaves. The initial infiltration of American settlers to Texas, under the leadership of Stephen F. Austin, included more than 2,000 whites and their 400 African slaves. Austin urged prospective settlers to indenture their slaves before coming to Texas, but many slave owners continued to view their relationship to their former slaves as one of ownership. Guy M. Bryan, one of the original American settlers to the Austin land grant and the nephew of Stephen F. Austin, wrote in his memoir that during the spring of 1831, “I came with my step-father and Mother to Texas. We, our family and negroes, travelled [sic] by land, having two horse wagons and carriage” (quoted in Abigail Curlee, The History of a Texas Slave Plantation, 1831–63, 5). The boy rode a mule the entire route from Missouri to Texas, while his mother (Austin’s widowed sister Emily Margaret B. Bryan) and sisters rode in the carriage. No mention was made of the transport of the slaves, but they likely walked beside the wagons or rode mules. Once in Texas, the women in the family stayed at a house in San Felipe, Texas, until the plantation house at Pleasant Bayou, near the Brazos River, could be built and appointed by the slaves.

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A white landowner oversees slaves picking cotton in Texas in this 19th-century engraving. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

White southern women awaiting removal to Brazos River plantations were attended to by their household slaves during the intermittent period. Texas slaves worked long hours in the hot sun, carving out fields of cotton, indigo, tobacco, and corn; planting fruit orchards; and building houses, barns, and chicken shelters. White Texans during the pre–Civil War period sold cotton and tobacco for profit, while they ate the corn and pork produced with slave labor. Nineteenth-century plantations in Texas and Louisiana, because of the difficult work associated with clearing land and constructing buildings in frontier locations, had a reputation as particularly brutal places to be a slave. By 1850, the population of Texas counted 59,000 slaves among its 213,000 residents. More than 50 percent of the total population was male, and the group’s median age was less than 20. Texans owned 12,198 plantations in 1850. The farms averaged a sizeable 952 acres each, and cotton and sugar were the most significant cash crops. The development of large plantations in Texas meant that its white

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population relied heavily on slave labor for the institution of its farm economy. As in other settlement communities, men outnumbered women, and in pre–Civil War Texas, white women of middle- or upperclass status were often viewed as rare and fragile, unable to perform difficult outdoor tasks. Meanwhile, African slave women toiled up to 14 hours in the hot sun, picking cotton, wringing clothes in vats of burning lye, or hauling water. The Mexican government outlawed slavery in 1824, but the practice continued in Texas. Mexican authorities lacked the resources to enforce the slavery prohibition but did curtail the sale of slaves. Free blacks from southern urban centers like New Orleans also migrated into Texas, where they served as indentured servants, or eked out a living as hired hands or serving tables and doing laundry in boarding houses or other service operations (see sidebar). Outside the jurisdiction of the United States, these free African Americans may have viewed Texas as a place of opportunity.

EMILY D. WEST Known in Texas as Emily Morgan, “the Yellow Rose of Texas,” Emily D. West was an African American woman who came to Texas during the 1830s to work at a hotel owned by an American, Colonel James Morgan. Morgan’s neighbors in the town of Morgan’s Point incorrectly assumed that West was a slave, one of many historical inaccuracies and uncertainties about her life. Studying West’s migration to Texas and her experience there raises more questions than it answers, which is often the case with women’s history. Some sources suggest that West was an indentured servant originally from Barbados. West must have come to Texas for the economic opportunity, for why else would a free African American woman living in New England choose to migrate to a place where slavery was commonplace (despite the fact that Mexican law forbade it)? West came to Texas at the height of the American-Texas independence movement. She became an ironic symbol of Manifest Destiny when in April 1836 she was taken captive by the Mexican general Juan Almonte and transported to Buffalo Bayou, where General Santa Anna’s camp prepared to attack Texas rebels under the command of Sam Houston. Texas

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“CIVILIZING” NATIVE TEXAS The institution of white female domesticity in Texas meant cleaning it of unwanted elements, including the Native American population. Groups like the Comanche and the Apache had been resisting SpanishMexican intrusion for centuries when the American Texans moved in. Texas’s nomadic tribes were well-armed, excellent horse riders. The Comanche had been part of the Northern Shoshone, a Great Basin tribal group. When the Spanish horse infiltrated what is now Colorado and Wyoming, the Shoshone groups living along the Platte River moved

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onto the southern plains and began to raid and trade with Spanish and Pueblo groups. Later known as the Comanche by the Spanish, these tribes had become expert raiders and were widely feared by Spanish settlers by the mid-1700s. Like other horse cultures on the plains, these nomadic groups moved often and maintained camps largely controlled by women, as the men were away raiding or trading. Comanche women also participated in raids, which appalled the sensibilities of white women who deemed themselves worthy of the precepts of feminine piety and submission. When white women became the target of Comanche raids and survived, their stories reaffirmed their view of the savage nature of their captors while emphasizing the civilizing role that white women could play in Texas. Accounts often portrayed Comanche men as brutal savages, Comanche women as uncivilized drudges, and both as callous and uncaring killers. Indeed, Texas during the American settlement period was a dangerous place as Native tribes tried to hold onto their culture and territory. Sarah Ann Horn watched as Comanche warriors killed her husband and her three-month-old daughter and then resisted as they attempted to take her captive. Horn later reported that the group cut off most of her hair, whipped and beat her, and then gave her over to a Comanche woman who mistreated her. Her Comanche mistress distrusted all whites, black slaves, and non-Indians in Texas, Horn noted. It is difficult to assess how much of Horn’s story was influenced by her own views of gender roles, but it seems clear that the Comanche tribal woman held a degree of female status foreign to Horn. Moreover, the Comanche woman was intimately connected to the violent nature of the conflict on the southern Great Plains. She probably understood that Horn represented a culture of fertility and an economy of household production that was displacing Native women and repopulating the Great Plains with Anglo Americans. Horn later escaped, but her experience with the Comanche proved that the tribal group viewed white women, and even African slaves, as agents of American invasion. By the 1850s, the Comanche and other Native groups, some relocated there by the Indian Removal Act of 1830, had been ravaged by incessant American immigration and diseases like

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smallpox and cholera. When the U.S. Congress annexed Texas in 1845, the population of the state was 142,000, a staggering increase over the 4,000 Spanish-Mexicans and 20,000 Indian people who lived there in 1821, especially considering that the Native population had been significantly decreased by the 1840s. The American invasion wiped out the Native population and flooded Spanish-Mexican influence. Texas annexation set off a war with Mexico that ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, a white female journalist and Irish Catholic settler, actively promoted Texas independence and annexation through her writing. She wrote columns for the Democratic Review and believed that at the height of American pro-expansionist fervor her writing reached 50 percent of the nation’s news readers. Cazneau usually wrote under a pen name, or did not sign her articles, suggesting that she felt pressure or ambivalence about the role of a woman in writing directly about topics of war and diplomacy. Cazneau’s biographer has called her the “most unusual and mysterious woman in the nineteenth-century” (Hudson, Mistress of Manifest Destiny, 6). American-Texas women had been directly involved in the Texas independence movement of the 1830s, and they contributed to the Mexican-American War in significant ways. White and black Texas women sewed uniforms, made ammunition, and followed the army, where in camp they served as cooks, laundresses, and sexual partners. Female camp followers were not new in American history. Women had served as cooks and nurses in George Washington’s Continental Army encampments during the American Revolution. But to some observers, the presence of white women in American military camps during the Mexican-American War attested to the civilizing mission of the U.S. war effort. Texas newspapers eagerly covered the story of white women in military camps, though the same papers said little about the presence and role of female slaves. The war between Mexico and the United States negatively affected the lives of Spanish-Mexican women in Texas and the borderlands. The U.S. soldiers often viewed Spanish-Mexican women as the enemy, even when they had been neighbors and supporters of white Texans. In at least one case, an elderly Mexican woman was beaten and robbed by

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army volunteers in her hometown of San Antonio. Her story appeared in the newspaper, but it is not clear if outrage on behalf of her white neighbors minimized the personal threat to other Mexican women during and after the war. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended hostilities between the Mexican government and the United States, and it gave all former Mexican citizens living in the Mexican cession area citizenship of the United States. It also made the United States a significant imperial power, as the Oregon Country had been peaceably transferred to the Americans in the Oregon Treaty with the British in 1846. The Oregon Treaty was, in large part, a response to the influx of American families to the region by way of the Oregon Trail.

WHITE WOMEN AND THE ACQUISITION OF THE OREGON COUNTRY NARCISSA PRENTISS WHITMAN AND MANIFEST DOMESTICITY When the United States acquired the Oregon Country in 1846, it was a place that already served as home to a sizable non-Indian American population. It also possessed a relatively long history of non-Indian infiltration and a cultural fascination for an expansion-minded American public, since the Lewis and Clark expedition had spent considerable time in Oregon and since its leaders had been the first Americans to explore and map the region on foot (see Chapter Two). During the 1830s and 1840s, the Oregon Country emerged as a destination for non-Indian families. American homesteaders and Oregon Trail travelers replaced the region’s first non-Indian infiltrators: Northwest Company and Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders, independent traders and explorers, and Jesuit and Protestant missionaries. As the transition from European fur-trading colony to American acquisition took place, gender, marriage, and domesticity were reconstructed in the region. The experience of Narcissa Prentiss Whitman illustrates the role played by white women in the conquest of Oregon and the complexity of changing roles for Native American women, Hudson’s Bay Company wives, and women on the Oregon Trail.

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Narcissa Prentiss was the idealistic, ambitious daughter of statusconscious middle-class parents, Stephen and Clarissa Prentiss. The Prentiss couple migrated to the upstate New York frontier in 1805, where Narcissa was born in a log cabin in 1808. Like that of so many other families, theirs was a story of upward mobility, middle-class ambition, and westward migration. Stephen established himself in the town of Prattsburg, where he eventually owned a distillery, sawmill, gristmill, and 67 acres of land. Narcissa Prentiss grew up in a frame wood house where the family could afford books and music, and she was given a formal education at Franklin Academy. Raised to believe women had specific civilizing roles to play in American democracy, Narcissa Prentiss chose to embark on a life of missionary work among the “savages” of the Far West. A broad-based evangelical movement known by historians as the Second Great Awakening drew in Clarissa Prentiss and influenced the rest of the family’s religious life. The emergence of new Protestant denominations and an emphasis on the role of churchgoers in converting new followers resulted in the creation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, an organization committed to establishing Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Reformed missions in the Far West and elsewhere. The board would not send a single woman to live among what it viewed as the savages of the Oregon Country, so Narcissa Prentiss was forced to marry. She embraced the marriage proposal of Marcus Whitman, a trained medical doctor who lacked the refined polish expected in a suitor of Narcissa’s class, but who represented a way to reach the missions of the Far West. Marcus and Narcissa Prentiss Whitman traveled west to join the annual American fur-trade caravan only a few months after their February 1836 wedding. Twenty-seven years old, Narcissa traveled with her new husband, several hired men, and another missionary couple, Henry and Eliza Spalding. Narcissa had once rejected Henry Spalding’s marriage proposal, when they had been students together at the Franklin Academy. The group made their way across the Great Plains, joined the annual fur-trade rendezvous at Green River, in present-day Wyoming, and then followed Hudson’s Bay Company traders to Fort Vancouver, the seat of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Oregon Country. The party bumped along in a wagon from Green River to Fort Hall, now in Idaho,

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where they were forced to convert the wagon to a two-wheeled cart. They discarded the awkward cart at Fort Boise, and journeyed the remainder of the route on horseback. Like the thousands of Oregon Trail women who would come after them, Spalding and Whitman found that not all of the possessions necessary for American middle-class consumption and lifestyle could be transported to the Far West. The party was greeted at Fort Vancouver by John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Oregon. McLoughlin’s views on Native relations in Oregon were well respected, for he had been the main source of non-Indian authority in the region since being appointed the leader of the Columbia District in 1824. Before the Oregon Treaty, the Columbia District included 600,000 square miles between the northern border of Mexican California and the southern border of Russian Alaska. McLoughlin’s wife, Marguerite Waddens, was the daughter of a Native American woman and a French-Canadian fur trader. As a practicing Catholic, a participant in the “custom of the country” (the intermarriage of non-Indian traders with Native American women), and the chief officer of a global British fur-trading corporation, McLoughlin had little in common with the Whitmans and little interest in their enterprise. Nonetheless, he received them with what was already legendary fairness. Narcissa and Eliza stayed at Fort Vancouver while Marcus and Henry readied the mission sites. At Fort Vancouver, Narcissa found a world of English gentility and mixed-race diversity entirely alien to her. The fort was a bustling headquarters, where French-Canadians, metís traders, Native Americans, and Scottish traders and their wives lived and worked. The European and Indian women of the fort maintained a European culture that incorporated Native elements. At dinner, English etiquette, the change of clean plates between courses, different polished silverware for each course, fine linens, and shining mahogany furniture governed meals, served by servants of Indian, mixed-race, or European heritage. What Narcissa did not see and could not know was that McLoughlin had instituted measures, many of which relied on female labor, to lower costs at the fort. Instead of importing expensive European items, the fort produced much of its own food. The extensive gardens that Narcissa admired thus fueled the economy of the fort and a larger English corporation.

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LOUISE SIUWHEEMTUK When Jesuit missionaries entered Coeur d’Alene Country during 1842 and established a Catholic mission—Sacred Heart—among the Schitsu’umsh people (also know as the Coeur d’Alene), they entered a political entity—the Oregon Country—still jointly held by the United States and Great Britain but controlled by local tribal chieftains. Many of the Coeur d’Alene people accepted the Jesuit mission. The reasons for Schitsu’umsh acceptance of Catholicism are complex. In many ways, the tribe accepted the presence of the missionaries and what they offered as much as they did the religion. The French-speaking, European-born (mostly from France and Belgium) priests brought access to European trade goods and firearms and new medicine during a time of rampant disease. They learned the Coeur d’Alene language, lived among the tribe, and engaged in the same subsistence practices (hunting and fishing) as tribal members. They taught tribal members to farm, and they encouraged conversion before life change (as opposed to Protestant missionaries, like the Whitmans, who demanded reform before conversion). The Jesuits did not come with families; as priests, they had taken vows of chastity. No women came to the mission, unlike the Whitman mission at Walla Walla and the Spalding mission among the Nez Perce, so Sacred Heart lacked the infusion of manifest domesticity that occurred at the other sites. Located in what is now northern Idaho, Sacred Heart did not become a major stopping-off point for Oregon Trail or other emigrant travel. But the Jesuits did bring their patriarchal views of power and religion, and they ignored the previous political power held by women within the tribe. Many tribal people professed Catholicism while maintaining their traditional medicine bundles in private. Not all of the Coeur d’Alene people welcomed the Jesuits or embraced Catholicism, but Chief Andrew Seltice’s policy of using assimilation (acceptance of non-Indian economy and religion) to maintain the tribe’s land base masked dissent within the tribe. The tribal woman Louise Siuwheemtuk represents the transition from traditional Schitsu’umsh life to the Catholic, agrarian world introduced by Jesuit missionaries. Like many of the other women in this volume, little is known of her life, and

Gender and Manifest Destiny, 1830–1870 the faint trace of it has been drawn by male interpreters. According to Chief Andrew Seltice’s (1819–1902) family history, Siuwheemtuk “was one of the first to receive baptism from Father DeSmet on June 3, 1842,” and she “forsook all tribal honors and prestige” to devote herself to mission service (Seltice, Saga of the Coeur d’Alene Indians, 53). The “honors and prestige” she possessed before the mission was established may have been the kind of political power that the Jesuits believed a woman could not have. Thus, Siuwheemtuk’s traditional power was converted into a more benign form of authority under the auspices of the Catholic mission. Siuwheemtuk became a teacher of Catholic catechism, and acted as a child care provider while mission Indians went into the fields to farm. She cared for and schooled up to 27 children at a time, many of whom stayed at her home. She rang the church bells at 4 a.m., supervised the children’s chores, and prepared their meals. Siuwheemtuk became known for administering to the sick and infirm and for supervising the choir during tribal masses. Siuwheemtuk died as a young woman, only a decade after the arrival of the Jesuit priests, apparently without children of her own. She was buried in the mission cemetery at the Sacred Heart Mission church site in 1853. The church, now know as Cataldo Mission, is the oldest extant building in the state of Idaho. Siuwheemtuk’s early death may have been the result of the introduction of European diseases, and it highlights the complexity of gender relations within the kind of power shift that occurred among the Coeur d’Alene. Siuwheemtuk may have found comfort in the Catholic faith and in administering to others while the world around her swirled with change. She may have embraced Catholicism for more practical reasons, deeming it expedient and useful within the confines of what could be negotiated. Both the Catholic tribal leadership and the Jesuit priests used her example to argue for the expansion of Catholicism among the Coeur d’Alene. Her childless life of service, or at least its portrayal as such in Catholic tribal and Jesuit writings, was suggestive of the role of nuns in the 19th-century Catholic Church. Considered a saint by some Coeur d’Alene tribal members, Louise Siuwheemtuk found a way to parley the transition wrought by non-Indian intrusion.

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Marguerite McLoughlin befriended Narcissa, taking her for weekly horseback rides and teaching her to make the feather mattresses that were customary at the fort. Julie Roy Jeffrey, Narcissa’s biographer, has written that the social and cultural climate of Fort Vancouver was perhaps the most luxurious experience of the young missionary’s life. It was certainly an enlightening experience for the young idealistic woman, whose views of race, gender, and civilized life must have been challenged during her weeks at the McLoughlin home. Perhaps making this time more special, Narcissa was three months pregnant when she arrived at Vancouver. Fort Vancouver represented the complexity of relationships of race and gender in Hudson’s Bay Company–governed Oregon on the eve of American expansion. Native American tribes in the Vancouver region and along the Oregon coastline participated in the lucrative beaver trade, a trade dominated by the fashion choices made by elite women and men in Paris, London, and other European capitals. McLoughlin’s policy was to expand trading posts to coastal tribes that were not yet participants in the trade. As in other fur-trading regions, involvement in the fur trade created both difficulties and opportunities for tribal people. The trade introduced products that tribes—including tribal women—wanted, such as pots, pans, knives, and beads. The consumption habits of women on two continents—Europe and North America—helped fueled the fur trade. Without demand for European manufactured goods, Native people would have had little initial interest in the trade. The demands of class and high fashion, moreover, created the market for North American sea otter and beaver pelts. The trade also introduced firearms, necessary as more and more tribes participated in the trade and non-Indians became more numerous, as well as alcohol, which caused social and cultural degradation. Reliance on the trade also reduced traditional subsistence patterns and created a codependent relationship between trading posts and the Natives who procured furs (see Chapter Two). Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding chose to build their missions among the Cayuse and Nez Perce nations, respectively. John McLoughlin warned Whitman not to try to proselytize among the Cayuse, as McLoughlin believed they would reject the Protestant effort. Whitman, however, maintained that it was his duty to work among all Natives.

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Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu by American painter William Henry Jackson. The mission site, located near present-day Walla Walla, Washington, became a favored stopping-off location for Oregon Trail travelers. The traffic introduced measles and other diseases to the Cayuse people, crippling their population and leading to the massacre of Waiilatpu missionaries. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Whitman built his mission on the banks of the Walla Walla River, near three Cayuse villages. The site, known as “Waiilatpu,” or “Place of the Rye Grass,” housed a sizable non-Indian population of 70 by 1847. The Whitmans’ commitment to establish white, Protestant, middleclass values among the Native population of the Northwest failed, as very few Cayuse chose to convert. From the perspective of female manifest domesticity, however, the mission could be judged a relative success. Waiilatpu became an important stopping-off site on the Oregon Trail, the route followed by approximately 250,000 American emigrants between 1840 and the U.S. Civil War. The Whitmans took in foster children, like the Sager family, whose parents had died tragically along the route. Oregon Trail travelers came to count on the hospitality, goods, and services available at the Whitman mission, but they also brought with them the diseases of the trail: measles, smallpox, cholera, and

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dysentery. In 1847, measles and other diseases ravaged the Cayuse community. An estimated 50 percent of the tribe perished in the pandemic, leading Cayuse leaders to reject the white medicine that seemed to cure white children and condemn Indian children. Other cultural differences laid the basis for the crisis of 1847. Narcissa Whitman had always struggled to understand Cayuse ways, and her efforts at tolerance were hampered significantly by a depression that set in after the death of her only daughter, Alice Clarissa. Born during the first year of the mission, Alice is considered to be the first child born of U.S. citizens in the Pacific Northwest. The joy at her birth was tragically overcome when as a toddler, the young child stumbled into the Walla Walla River behind her house and was drowned. The child’s death transformed Narcissa’s life. Whereas she had been an optimistic, bright, and healthy person, the young missionary became withdrawn and unwell during the ensuing years. Away from what some historians have called the “female world of ritual,” Narcissa struggled to come to terms with death. A horrible tragedy for any mother in any era, Narcissa Whitman was also removed from the rituals of death and mourning that characterized the 19th-century middle-class United States. Other women on the Oregon Trail expressed a heightened sense of loneliness and isolation. They were with their families, but in times of crisis and tragedy, they missed their female networks at home. Nearly 30 years after the death of Alice Whitman, Oregon traveler Katherine Dunlap wrote in her trail diary as her wagon crossed the deserts of the Interior West: “Oh, what a lonely, dark and desolate place to bury a sweet infant—We read the following inscription on the headboard of the death-sleeping infant: ‘Morlena Elizabeth Martess, died Aug. 9th, 1863, born July 7th, 1862. Friends nor physician could save her from the grave” (quoted in Schlissel, Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, 135). Dunlap further noted that her group had stopped to repair the grave marker. Narcissa’s depression contributed to her frustration with the Cayuse people. She complained that they stole from her garden, but she did not understand that exchange and reciprocity were essential characteristics of Cayuse culture. The Protestant missionaries also demanded life change before conversion, and they rejected all Cayuse religious practices and cultural beliefs, such as polygamy. Cayuse men, moreover, viewed farming

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as beneath warrior status. They questioned the role of a man who would spend his time farming, and wondered why Narcissa Whitman did so little work. From the point of view of Cayuse mothers, Narcissa’s tragedy may have seemed sad, yet familiar. Their own children had been dying of Euro-American diseases ever since the missionaries had arrived. October and November 1847 were particularly cruel months for Cayuse parents, some of whom, in their grief and suffering, began to believe that the Whitmans intentionally withheld medicine from Cayuse children or that they were infecting Native children rather than curing them. On November 29, 1847, two Cayuse leaders—Tiloukaikt and Tomahas—entered the Whitman house and demanded medicine for Native children and adults dying of American diseases. The argument was intended only to distract Marcus Whitman, who was killed by a tomahawk blow. Within an hour, the Cayuse killed 13 other members of the mission community, including Narcissa, who died of gunshot wounds. The gruesome event brought the tensions of the mission to an abrupt halt, ended missionary activity in the immediate region, and touched off a war on the Columbian Plateau that did not end until April 1850, when the Cayuse surrendered five tribal members to federal authorities as the masterminds of the attack. The intentional targeting of Narcissa Whitman revealed that the Cayuse failed to make a distinction between Marcus and Narcissa’s role in the demise of their culture and in the onslaught of Oregon Trail travelers. Narcissa Whitman’s violent death at the hands of the people she believed she was saving raised questions about the role and function of white women in the Oregon Country. Some accounts of what became known as the Whitman Massacre downplayed the role of the missionaries in the long-standing cultural conflicts that led to the violence. Moreover, Narcissa became eulogized as a woman devoted to God and to Manifest Domesticity. Cultural portrayals of Narcissa failed to reconcile the contradiction between her role as a white, middle-class woman and the challenges and demands of a life in Oregon Territory. Certainly, the Cayuse viewed her and other white women missionaries and pioneers as active participants in Manifest Destiny. In the end, Narcissa’s inflexible devotion to her own religious, cultural, class, and gender consciousnesses

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contributed to the problems at the mission site. As Dorothy O. Johansen and Charles M. Gates wrote of Narcissa, her violent demise “endowed her character with a saintliness neither she nor her immediate contemporaries would have recognized” (Johansen, Empire of the Columbia, 216).

WOMEN ON WESTERN TRAILS Much of the early scholarship about women in the American West focused on the experience of white women on the Oregon Trail (the pioneer route from Independence, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley in what is now Oregon State). Although an understanding of all female migrants is needed for a more holistic understanding of women in the American West, the experiences of white women on trails west and trails north (from Mexico) reveal much about societal expectations of 19thcentury women and about the kinds of communities these emigrants tried to build in their new homeland. Nineteenth-century women living in the midwestern United States may or may not have chosen to come west by themselves, but many of them came nonetheless. The settler families who moved east to west in the most glorified of American migrations often did so in stages. Families who traveled on the Oregon Trail had parents who had moved from Ohio to Wisconsin and grandparents who had moved from Virginia to Ohio. This kind of westward migration pattern came to epitomize the American frontier experience, thus effectively excluding from the westward myth the story of those who came east from Asia or those who came north from Mexico. White women writing about new homes on the frontier, writing memoirs of pioneer life, or writing letters home prompting other families to move west, helped to construct the image of the American West as a place in transition from savagery and wilderness—both ethnocentric constructs—to a place characterized by nuclear family homesteads and “civilization” advanced by white women (see sidebars for examples of white women writers). By writing about civilizing the West, white women constructed the narrative of domesticating the frontier. An early example of civilizing discourse was Caroline Kirkland’s memoir of pioneer life in Michigan during the 1830s. Kirkland’s book, A New Home, Who’ll Follow? (1839), paid particular attention to

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domestic matters and to the daily lives of women pioneers. Considered one of the first female western narratives to employ historical and literary realism, Kirkland’s book also countered masculine portrayals of the frontier by representing white female settlement as a progressive, civilizing force. Oregon Trail diaries also reflect the sentiment that white women viewed their role as a civilizing one, but the realities of trail life for women were often harsh. Although the press in the United States made much of the threat of Indian attacks on the trails, women on the Oregon Trail were at far greater risk from dying in childbirth or from disease. Historian John D. Unruh, Jr., in his definitive study of overland travel between 1840 and 1860, estimated that emigrants killed by Indians accounted for only 4 percent of the total number (around 10,000) of emigrant deaths on the trails. Unruh found that disease was the big killer, followed by accidents, especially drownings. Elizabeth Stewart Warner, one of 2,500 emigrants to migrate to Oregon during 1856–1857, wrote in a letter home of the dangers of the trail: “a woman was standing on the bank [of the Missouri River], she said to mother, do you see that man with the red warmer on well that is my husband and while she spoke the boat struck and went down and she had to stand within call of him and see him dronwd [sic].” After fording the river, Warner’s party came to “another woman with 8 children” who was standing beside the fresh grave of her husband. Warner noted that the woman’s oldest son was so ill that she could not travel, and the Warner party was forced to push on, despite protests from the women (quoted in Lillian Schlissel, Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, 92–93). Women’s diaries are filled with such stories and with passing tallies of fresh graves of children crushed under wagon wheels or dehydrated with dysentery. Between 1850 and 1854 the Oregon Trail was so crowded with travelers that grass for oxen and clean campsites were impossible to locate. During 1852 alone, approximately 10,000 overlanders made the journey to Oregon (for part of the trip, they were joined by the 50,000 who headed to California that year). Trodden grass, garbage, and fecal matter polluted popular campsites, which became breeding grounds for cholera and dysentery. Once trail travelers passed Fort Laramie in what is now Wyoming, they faced dangers associated with

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“mountain fever,” caused by ticks carrying Rocky Mountain spotted fever or Colorado tick fever. Still considered the most serious bacterial disease carried by western ticks, Rocky Mountain spotted fever causes a sudden onset of high fever, headaches, and muscle aches, followed by development of an often intense rash. Without prompt medical attention, the disease can cause death, even today. The relative availability of diaries and written accounts of white women on the Oregon Trail has obscured the hidden lives of women who traveled trails to California or those who left behind a past of slavery in the American South. Historians rely largely on written evidence, and African American migrants on western trails left fewer extant records, because they were fewer in number, they were less literate as a result of slavery, and their records were not viewed as important by white 19th-century archivists. The 1850 census enumerated only 392 black women in the nonslave states west of the Mississippi River, but African American women were the largest minority in the western states east of the Rocky Mountains—including Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado—before 1920. African American women, moreover, were not free from slavery in the American West. Slavery was legal in Utah until 1862, and although California’s constitution outlawed slavery, slave owners were allowed to transport their slaves through the region. Some African American women remained de facto slaves in California until the early 1870s. Isolation and distance from populations with sizable African American communities compounded discrimination and forced servitude, making it exceedingly difficult for black women to find recourse. In the 1870 census, African American women in Montana numbered only 51 out of a total of 183 African American people. Although this number may represent an undercount because of the vagaries of census definitions, these women were clearly isolated by geography and numbers. Moreover, African American women did not find that western places were more racially neutral. Streetcars, stagecoaches, hotels, restaurants, and other facilities were all effectively segregated during the 1840s and 1850s in Colorado, Kansas, and California. During the 1860s, African American women, including Mary Ellen Pleasant, sued the streetcar lines in San Francisco and ultimately won the right for black passengers to ride.

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A street in Creede, Colorado, ca. 1893. (Image, Courtesy Colorado Historical Society, [CHS.X4709], all rights reserved)

With the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in northern California in 1848, Oregon Trail migrants were joined by thousands of “forty-niners.” The discovery came after the peace treaty ending the Mexican-American War; thus, the gold rush enriched the United States, not Mexico. Despite the fact that on paper, the United States now controlled California, the region was a place populated by Spanish-Mexicans, remnants of the Franciscan missionary system, and a struggling Native American population. In 1849 and 1850, more than 69,000 people migrated to the gold fields via the California Trail. By 1860, more than 200,000 had done so (compared to around 50,000 for the Oregon Country). While some of these individuals were European immigrants, the majority were male residents of the United States. They converged on a region receiving a significant immigration from Asia, Latin America, and Mexico. Although the gold rush is often characterized in U.S. history textbooks as an episode within Manifest Destiny and westward expansion, it was a truly global event. Those going to California differed in background, race, and ethnicity, but they had something in common: they were mostly male. While Oregon migrants comprised mainly families, California migrants

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were most often single men. As a result of the western gold rushes and later extractive economies that attracted men, the gender ratio in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains remained imbalanced well into the 20th century. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1850 there were 593 white women for every 1,000 men in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states and territories. By 1920, the ratio was evening, and there were 884 white women for every 1,000 men. In gold-rush California, Mexican and Spanish-speaking women initially outnumbered other female groups, but they were themselves outnumbered by Mexican men. In California’s southern mine towns, south of Sacramento, there were only around 800 non-Native women in 1850, out of an emigrant population of 29,000. Mexican women who migrated to California gold-rush towns found economic opportunity cooking for their own traveling parties; selling tortillas, beans, and chilies; mending clothes; and doing laundry in the early tent towns. They also found rape, brutality, and discrimination at the hands of Anglo forty-niners, who routinely used blunt violence to drive out Mexican, Latin American, free African American, and Asian miners. The gold rushes in California attracted significant numbers of Asian migrants, largely from China. The influx of Asians altered the demography of the American West and would ultimately lead to a permanent population. Many Asians, however, viewed the gold rush as a temporary opportunity to boost their fortunes before returning to their homelands. Thus, Asian immigrants rushing to California were often men like Coon You, a 1850s migrant from Guangdong who left a wife in China. Small minorities of Asian immigrants to gold-rush California were female, and an even smaller group of these were servants or wives of Asian businessmen. Most of the remainder—in 1860 there were as many as 400 Chinese women in California’s southern mines—were unwillingly working to provide economic support for families back home by selling sex in San Francisco, Sacramento, or Stockton. As historian Susan Lee Johnson put it in her account of the social environment of the California gold rush, the financial contributions of Chinese prostitutes “generally took two forms: First, procurers paid parents a price for each daughter sold, and, second, remaining family members gained when there was one fewer mouth to feed” (Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp, 86).

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A woman peers out of a doorway of a Chinatown “bagnio,” or brothel, in San Francisco during the 1890s. (Chinese in California, 1982.104, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley)

The practice of selling daughters to Chinese and foreign agents for work as prostitutes in the United States continued with successive gold and silver rushes throughout the West. For women like Lalu Nathoy, an immigrant from Mongolia or China, the trip to the United States meant years of degrading prostitution. Sold by her parents during a famine, Nathoy arrived at a brothel clearinghouse in San Francisco in the early 1870s. She was then smuggled from San Francisco to Portland, where she traveled by boat to Lewiston, Idaho, and then by pack train from Lewiston to Idaho’s booming mining community of Warrens. Later known as Polly Bemis, Nathoy’s extraordinary life ended with property ownership and marriage to a white American, Charles Bemis (see Chapter Five). Bemis’s story was unusual. Most young female Chinese prostitutes worked, endured abuse, gave birth, fell in love, introduced traditional Chinese dishes, struggled to feed their children, and died—

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often young, of disease and hunger—without leaving a trace of their individual trails for historians to follow. The fact that California entered the union in 1850 as a free state made it, and the opportunities associated with the gold rush, attractive to free blacks who wanted to avoid difficulties associated with a tighter Fugitive Slave Act. Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, which also allowed California to enter the Union as a free state, the Fugitive Slave Act created a federal agency for hunting escaped slaves and did not include a statute of limitations. Thus, slave owners could go after black Americans who had been living as free for decades. Free black abolitionists Mary Ellen Pleasant and her husband, John, moved from Massachusetts to the San Francisco area during the 1850s or 1860s. They came to take advantage of opportunities, and Mary Ellen Pleasant became a prominent social leader and businesswoman. Her 1866 case against the San Francisco streetcar company was successful in the lower courts, but was later overturned by the California Supreme Court. The lower court had held that Pleasant’s right to public transportation had been violated and awarded her $500. Pleasant continued her advocacy, even while she joined the city’s financial, if not racial, elite. Pleasant’s San Francisco boarding house became a frequent haunt for San Francisco politicians, businessmen, and investors. Pleasant’s own investments eventually included gold and silver mines, including Nevada’s famed Comstock Lode. She built an opulent Victorian mansion valued at $100,000 in 1877. By the time of her death in 1904, Pleasant was an icon of San Francisco society, though she had spent a considerable portion of her fortune defending herself against accusations of voodoo and sexual liaisons in court and in the press. Biographer Lynn M. Hudson believes Pleasant’s fortune was worth around $1 million at the time of her death.

CONCLUSION Non-Indian women participated directly and indirectly in the conquest and acquisition of Texas, Oregon, and the American West as a whole. In their letters, diaries, and experiences, these women shaped the nation’s cultural views of the emergent American West. The written images of western landscape, Native women, and the domestication of

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Photo of partial wagon train passing through Loup Valley, Nebraska, 1886, captures the fatigue of the overland journey. (National Archives)

the West, created by non-Indian women, shaped the nation’s view of relations. Only accounts by white women were deemed important enough for publication, effectively creating a civilizing discourse that left out the experiences of Latino, Mexican, Spanish-speaking, Native, and black women. At the same time, African American women made up a significant female minority in the American West, though they received little attention, as they did not fit the female ideal of Manifest Destiny. Meanwhile, Spanish-speaking women and Mexican immigrants struggled with the transitions wrought by the gold rush, and Asian and African American women contributed to a new culture in the West of San Francisco, Sacramento, and other mining supply centers. Non-Indian women continued to play dominant roles in the conquest of western territory as the new American West experienced additional gold and silver mining rushes, the building of the transcontinental railroads, multiple statehoods, and the incorporation of the Mormon culture region.

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BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY Manifest Destiny has occupied a large space on the shelf of American history books. The danger of writing a chapter such as this is that the history of women in the American West—a vastly complex and multicultured topic—will be lost within the massive grand narrative of westward expansion. I have tried to present the role of white women in the context of global migration to the American West, although sources in English are still emphasized in the literature. More work needs to be done on the experiences of non-English-speaking women migrants and African American women in western places. The written record of the westward U.S. expansion is voluminous. One of the classic interpretations is that of Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (New York: Vintage Books, 1966). Thomas Jefferson’s biography and political thought has occupied an even larger space on the shelf. In understanding Jeffersonian views of expansion over space rather than time, I have relied on Drew R. McCoy’s analysis in The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (New York: W.W. Norton, 1980). Bernard W. Sheehan evaluates Jefferson’s role in the Louisiana Purchase in “Jefferson’s ‘Empire for Liberty,’” Indiana Magazine of History, Volume 100 (December 2004): 346–363. To determine the relative value of monetary transactions in the past, visit Samuel H. Williamson, “What Is the Relative Value?” Economic History Services, June 2006, measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/. A contemporary woman’s interpretation of the role of women in the early republic can be found in the writings of Judith Sargent Murray; see Sharon Harris, editor, Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Now a classic, Linda K. Kerber’s Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986) defined the term “republican motherhood.” See also Amelia Howe Kritzer, “Playing with Republican Motherhood: Self-Representation in Plays by Susanna Haswell Rowson and Judith Sargent Murray,” Early American Literature, Volume 31, Issue 2 (1996): 150–166. Barbara Welter’s highly influential thesis of the “Cult of True Womanhood” (Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860,” American Quarterly, Volume 18 [Summer 1966]: 151–174) influenced a generation of women’s scholars and has spawned many books, articles, and theses. Welter’s thesis was, in many ways, to U.S. women’s history what Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis was to scholars of the American West. It remains very difficult to write about the historiography of either topic without citing Welter and/or Turner, respectively, despite a chorus of revisionist dissent. Although scholars continue to debate the validity of Welter’s initial analysis, most agree that the construction of gender and of gender roles in 19th-century America included the characteristics identified by Welter. As stated by Nancy A. Hewitt in a revisionist essay, “In

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Welter’s hands, then, the cult of true womanhood illuminated the complex gender dynamics through which nineteenth-century middle-class society was constructed. . . . By the end of the century . . . the cult’s inherent contradictions . . . combined with larger social forces to transform women’s roles and enlarge the scope of their activities” (Hewitt, “Taking the True Woman Hostage,” Journal of Women’s History, Volume 14, Number 1 [Spring 2002]: 156–162). Certainly, the cult of true womanhood did not apply to immigrant women, slave women, or Native American women in the southern borderlands—these women did not organize their mental maps of their roles and function in society in conjunction with the cult. The cult’s usefulness for understanding the clash between non-Indians and Native Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and others in the mid-19th-century West, however, remains intact. Part of the cult’s function was to differentiate white, middle-class women from the unrefined and to define “whiteness” as a distinct racial category. Not all white women adhered to the cult or viewed their roles in the same way, but the prevalence of the ideas identified by Welter and subsequent scholars nonetheless influenced ideas of gender norms and proper female behavior. They also affected the functioning of relationships in the American West and the gendered application of Manifest Destiny, though they were not singular contributors. Other classic works that analyze and articulate ideas of separate spheres, true womanhood, and sentimental domesticity include Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America, especially the included essay “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Linda K. Kerber, “Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman’s Place: The Rhetoric of Women’s History,” Journal of American History, Volume 75 (June 1988): 9–36; and Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830–1870 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982). Amy S. Greenberg’s Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005) examines the importance of the ideology of Manifest Destiny after the Mexican-American War, focusing on the rise of unsanctioned attacks by private American mercenaries (known as filibusters) throughout the western hemisphere. Greenberg finds that “the filibustering and diplomatic efforts to annex new lands in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America . . . undermine the assertion that Manifest Destiny was conceptualized in strictly continental terms in the middle of the nineteenth century” (274). Such ideas, Greenberg notes, were also grounded in gendered identities; filibustering, for example, represented a shift to “martial manhood,” the aggressiveness of which marginalized the role of women in the ideology of imperialism. For an examination of gender, whiteness, and imperialism in the latenineteenth century, see Eric T. Love, Race Over Empire: Racism and U.S.

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Imperialism, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). For a classic study of the creation of whiteness in American culture, see David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, Revised Edition with an introduction by Kathleen Cleaver (London: Verso, 2007). The ideology of Manifest Domesticity is articulated by Amy Kaplan, “Manifest Domesticity,” American Literature, Volume 70, Number 3 (September 1998): 581–606. “Thus another part of the cultural work of domesticity,” Kaplan wrote, “might be to unite men and women in a national domain and to generate notions of the foreign against which the nation can be imagined as a home” (“Manifest Domesticity,” 582). See also Albert L. Hurtado, “Settler Women and Frontier Women: The Unsettling Past of Western Women’s History,” Frontiers, Volume XXII, Number 3 (2001): 1–5; and Glenda Riley, Taking Land, Breaking Land: Women Colonizing the American West and Kenya, 1840–1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003). Classic interpretations of economic change in the 19th century include Herbert G. Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), and Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg explored change in middle-class U.S. families in Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life (New York: The Free Press, 1988). I have relied on Adrienne Caughfield’s interpretation of the role of women in Texas in True Women and Westward Expansion (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005) and that of Linda S. Hudson in Mistress of Manifest Destiny: A Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807–1878 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 2001). For demographic data about Texas, Oregon, and the American West, see Walter Nugent, Into the West: The Story of Its People (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999) and the Texas Almanac at www.texasalmanac.com/history/early/1857Population.pdf. Sarah Ann Lillie Hardinge’s diary appears online at Encountering Texas, 1846–1856: Teaching Guide, Amon Carter Museum, www.cartermuseum.org/books/encountering/html/journal.htm. For the classic account of antebellum slave life, see Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1976). The history of the establishment of the James F. Perry and Emily Margaret B. Bryan plantations in 1830s Texas can be found in Abigail Curlee, “The History of a Texas Slave Plantation, 1831–63,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Volume 26, Number 2, www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/ v026/n2. I have relied on Julie Roy Jeffrey’s Converting the West: A Biography of Narcissa Whitman (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991) for an understanding of Narcissa Whitman’s view of her role in U.S. expansion. See also

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Carlos Schwantes, The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989); Dorothy Johansen and Charles M. Gates, Empire of the Columbia: A History of the Pacific Northwest (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957); Clifford E. Trafzer and Richard D. Scheuerman, Renegade Tribe: The Palouse Indians and the Invasion of the Inland Pacific Northwest (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1986); and the recent work by David Dary, The Oregon Trail: An American Saga (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004). John McLoughlin’s biography appears in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, available online at www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId= 38206. No other area of study in western women’s history has received as much attention as white women on the Oregon Trail. Before the 1970s, most of the published accounts of white pioneers represented them as honorable heroines in the tradition of the pioneer mother. The classic example is that of Dee Brown, whose book Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old, Wild West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1958, 1981) was published during the 1950s, when gender roles in the United States were more proscribed than they had been in previous decades. Brown’s account of noble pioneering cast women as true civilizers. The book continues to sell, despite its dated and ethnocentric arguments, and as of December 2006 had garnered largely favorable recent readers’ reviews on Amazon.com, suggesting that this interpretation retains a place with the reading public, if not within academia. Two books published in 1979 helped to change the course of the field. John Mack Faragher’s Women and Men on the Overland Trail (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979, Second Revised Edition 2001), used analysis of overland diaries, memoirs, and folk songs to analyze and compare gender roles and perception of gender on midwestern farms with that on western trails to the Far West. Faragher argued that the experience of women in both settings was limited to the domestic space and that the West did not provide new opportunities for women. Also published in 1979, Julie Roy Jeffrey’s Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1880 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1979), looked at a larger temporal and geographic area. Jeffrey’s work found that, although the West was not generally empowering for women, some did take advantage of opportunities and became active agents in their own communities. In Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), Lillian Schlissel argued that women’s diaries portrayed a different kind of West than that experienced by men, though the book did not present its findings within an interpretive or theoretical framework. Sandra L. Myres’s Westering Women and the Frontier Experience (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982) reexamined the lives of white female pioneers, including their views of Native Americans and of “homemaking.” Myres found that while not all women viewed the West as liberating, many western women achieved a level of

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political and social independence that would have been impossible elsewhere. All of these works explored the role of white women within the Turnerian tradition: the women were moving from the East to the West, and books were asking whether the West was liberating. All have been criticized for their ethnocentric foci. Still, the source material—diaries of white women—remains essential to understanding the larger western story for women. Caroline Kirkland’s story about pioneer life in Michigan has received significant attention from literary scholars in recent decades. Kirkland’s entire narrative, with an interpretive introduction by Sandra A. Zagarell, was reprinted in 1990 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press). Since then, the narrative has interested literary scholars concerned with the emergence of realism in American writing. For a literary analysis of western women writers, see Nathaniel Lewis, Unsettling the Literary West: Authenticity and Authorship (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003). For demographic information about the trails, including disease, death, and decadal scales, see John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–60 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982). For a detailed account of the experience of Polly Bemis, see Ruthanne Lum McCunn, “Reclaiming Polly Bemis,” Idaho Yesterdays, Volume 46, Number 2 (Spring/Summer 2005): 22–39. Demographic information about African American women in the West came from Lawrence B. de Graaf, “Race, Sex, and Region: Black Women in the American West, 1850–1920,” Pacific Historical Review, Volume 49 (1980): 285–313, and Glenda Riley, “American Daughters: Black Women in the West,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Volume 38 (Spring 1988): 14–27. Although scholarship about African American women in the American West has been slow to develop, recent efforts have expanded an understanding of this underrepresented group, including Lynn M. Hudson’s “Mining a Mythic Past: The History of Mary Ellen Pleasant,” in Dee Garceau-Hagan, editor, Portraits of Women in the American West (New York: Routledge, 2005), 21–34; Quintard Taylor and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, editors, African American Women Confront the West, 1600–2000 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003); and Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the West, 1528–1990 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999). Information about women in pre–gold rush California can be found in Albert L. Hurtado, Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender, and Culture in Old California (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999). For a new and thorough picture of the complexity of social life within the California gold rush, see Susan Lee Johnson, Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000). For a review essay of recent works about gender and the borderlands, see Benjamin Johnson, “Engendering Nation and Race in the

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Borderlands,” Latin American Research Review, Volume 37, Number 1 (2002): 259–272. Emily D. West’s story appears in Adrienne Caughfield, True Women and Westward Expansion (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005). Louise Siuwheemtuk’s life is outlined in Chief Joseph Seltice, Saga of the Coeur d’Alene Indians, Edward J. Kowrach and Thomas E. Connolly, editors (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1990). The Seltice book is based on the writings and oral tradition of the Seltice family, and presents a pro-Catholic, proassimilation viewpoint. See also Laura Woodworth-Ney, Mapping Identity: The Creation of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, 1805–1902 (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2004), and Rodney Frey, Landscape Traveled by Coyote and Crane: The World of the Schitsu’umsh (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001) for historical analyses of the Coeur d’Alene people, their homeland, their historical relationship to the federal government, and their current reservation. The tribe’s official Web site can be viewed at www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/overview.shtml.

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CHAPTER FIVE

POLYGAMY, PROSTITUTION, AND WOMEN IN MORMON AND MINING SETTLEMENTS, 1840–1890

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s the sun came up on a frozen morning in January 1863, a group of Union troops under the command of Colonel Patrick Connor attacked a small encampment of Northwestern Shoshone people in the Bear River area in what is today southeastern Idaho. Far to the east, two great armies opposed one another in Virginia’s fields and meadows. Southwest of Bear River, in what was still part of Utah Territory, silver discoveries had spurred a mining rush and created the community of Virginia City (later in Nevada). At the time of the attack, Connor’s actions were overshadowed by Civil War battles, mining rushes, and the politics of Abraham Lincoln’s administration. Even in retrospect, the incident at Bear River has received little scholarly attention. Despite its lack of attention in the historical record, the tragic event reflected the convergence of religion, Euro-American settlement ideology, and 19thcentury ideas about gender. Likely the greatest episode of genocide in American history, the Bear River Massacre, as it came to be called, was the culmination of a story about westward migration, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) settlement, Civil War politics, mining rushes, and the clash of conflicting definitions of “home” and “civilization.” Implicit in the conflict over definitions of settlement, land use, and homemaking were perceptions of gender and women’s roles. Connor’s men had been dispatched from Fort Douglas, Utah, more than 100 miles south of the Bear River site. Connor’s California « 141 »

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volunteers had established the army camp on a ridge east of Salt Lake City in 1862. The arrival of the non-Mormon soldiers rankled locals by providing a market for red-light-district activities—particularly prostitution—but it also offered a source of federal protection for Mormon pioneers spreading northward from Salt Lake City. Throughout the 19th century, Mormon leaders sought to expand the influence of the religion and its physical presence in the Intermountain West, sending organized pioneer groups to establish new settlements. In what is now the border region between northern Utah and southern Idaho, these pioneer advances confronted the Shoshone-Bannock peoples, powerful Native groups who had been living along the rivers and in the valleys of the Great Basin for thousands of years. By 1860, they had adapted the horse to their purposes and had become one of North America’s great horse cultures. Oregon Trail traffic had cut a huge destructive swath across their lands, and now they faced consistent and concerted Mormon pioneer thrusts. They also faced competition with other tribal groups, particularly the Blackfoot of what is now western Montana, for dwindling buffalo herds. Shoshone-Bannock groups foraged across wide territories in search of game, seeds, berries, and other food products. The arid high-desert climate of their home meant that without large subsistence territories, they could not procure enough food for their people. With the constant arrival of new non-Native settlers, and the competition for shrinking territory and buffalo herds, some groups experienced terrible deprivation and dramatically reduced birthrates. Women could not procure enough food to maintain fertility or sometimes even to nurse their babies. Desperation and starvation had led them into direct conflict with Mormon and non-Mormon pioneer settlements. The threat of confrontation in the Cache Valley and its environs led Connor to advance against Shoshone encampments. Aided by Mormon scouts, Connor’s troops approached the Bear River Shoshone village and waited until dawn to attack. Two hundred Union soldiers bore down on the encampment, where Northwestern Shoshone leaders Sagwitch and Bear Hunter were housed along with dozens of other Shoshone families. The Shoshone camp was placed within a ravine with high embankments, crossed with Shoshone access trails. Connor’s men cut off the trails and the head of the ravine,

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eliminating the options for escape. Extant government and settler accounts suggest that the ensuing battle lasted for about two hours. Shoshone warriors fought back, and the fighting was brutal, fierce, and at close range. When Shoshone fighters ran out of ammunition, Connor’s men began killing unarmed men, women, and children indiscriminately. The battle turned into a bloody rout that did not end until nearly every Shoshone person was maimed, raped, and slaughtered. Connor’s unit lost 23 men, all early in the battle; at least 40 of the volunteers were wounded. The number of dead on the Shoshone side was dramatic and horrifying. Although it is difficult to ascertain specific numbers, it is clear that the Shoshone loss of life was shocking to those who commented on it at the time. Connor stopped counting Shoshone bodies on the battlefield, which was actually the ground of the Shoshone village, when his total reached 224. Historian Brigham Madsen, author of one of two scholarly books on the subject, The Shoshone Frontier and the Bear River Massacre (University of Utah, 1985) estimated that the Shoshone dead numbered around 250. Madsen was the first to refer to the episode as a massacre. Non-Indians who knew of the event called it the “Bear River War,” a sadly misleading term that fueled lasting resentment in the region. The Civil War Battle Sites Commission, an entity of the National Park Service, totaled the number of Shoshone dead and wounded at 384. The most recent work on the massacre, Kass Fleisher’s The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History, estimated the number of Natives slaughtered at 280. The encampment housed 450 Native people, and all accounts of the attack emphasized that few Shoshone survived. As many as 300 Shoshone people may have died that day, many of them women and children. Even the conservative estimate of 250 killed makes the Bear River Massacre the single largest episode of killing of Native Americans in U.S. history. By comparison, the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 witnessed 130 Cheyenne dead, and 146 Oglala Lakota died at Wounded Knee in 1890. Connor did not give detailed accounts of the dead in part because he did not want to bring attention to the large number of women and children who were among the Native casualties. Nor did he mention that his undisciplined troops, many of whom came from failed gold

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mines in Northern California, systematically raped and tortured Shoshone women as they were dying or attempting to escape the carnage. Most historical accounts of the massacre have left out the rape episode. But the rape reveals that the Bear River Massacre reflected not just an effort by the United States to assert military control, or to support the definition of homemaking represented by white families and white land use, but it was also an effort to control the complex gender politics of the region. To rape Shoshone women, in the view of whites, was to destroy the Native family and the autonomy of Shoshone women, not just Native warriors. Rape was used as a tool by non-Indians throughout the Great Basin region, as evidenced by the narratives of rape in the autobiography of Sarah Winnemucca, a Northern Paiute woman born in 1844 in what is now western Nevada, near where the Comstock Lode would later produce vast amounts of silver. The stories of crimes against women in Winnemucca’s writings suggest that sexual violence against Native women was part of a larger colonial interaction. White men appropriated Indian women’s sexuality as part of the process of conquering Native territories. The silence on the rape incident also reflected national sentiment about the Mormon religion. Mormon community members in the Bear River vicinity viewed the rape and mutilation of female bodies as further evidence of the depravity of non-Mormon men. The climate in northern Utah, however, ensured that their stories did not reach national press outlets. The growing non-Mormon and local Latter-Day Saint (LDS) population had been locked in a debate about the definition of marriage and the meaning of white female morality (neither side considered the impact of any of their actions or views on the Native women their populations were displacing). The church sanctioned polygamy, or plural marriage, which outsiders viewed as little better than prostitution. Mormons, on the other hand, viewed the presence of prostitution in Salt Lake City as the direct result of the low morals of the new non-Mormon population. Strong anti-Mormon sentiment within the nation and the Republicancontrolled Union restricted the ability of the Mormon press to express national outrage about the behavior of Connor’s troops, on or off the battlefield, as such an expression was viewed as a sanction of polygamy and LDS institutions. For Republicans, a relatively new political party in

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Sarah Winnemucca (ca. 1841–1891), the daughter of Paiute Chief Winnemucca, and author of an autobiographical history of the Paiute people, Life among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). Winnemucca became a well-known speaker during the late 19th century, and is widely cited as the “first Native American woman to publish in the English language.” (Nevada Historical Society)

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1863, polygamy represented, along with slavery, one of the “twin relics of barbarism” (quoted in White and White, “Polygamy and Mormon Identity,” 167). Anti-Mormon newspapers were unwilling to emphasize a story that questioned the morality of Union-affiliated troops, particularly if the questioning came from Mormon sources. The Bear River Massacre story has much to say about power, gender, and the settlement of the Interior West. The Union-affiliated troops that engaged in the massacre were volunteers from the new state of California. California’s population had skyrocketed because of the gold rush of 1849 and subsequent mining and business opportunities. The unit was stationed in Utah, where Mormon pioneers came to seek refuge from discrimination and persecution elsewhere. The Mormons had created more than a religious settlement. Their presence in the region, and studied missionary efforts, had shaped what historians call the “Mormon culture region.” During the 19th century, the spread of Mormon cultural influence centered on Salt Lake City but reached north as far as the Salmon River area in what is now Idaho; southwest to what is now Las Vegas, Nevada; east into present-day Colorado and Wyoming; and south into what is today the state of Arizona. The influence of the Mormon culture went beyond geography, as commentators and writers of the time period often wrote about the cultural boundaries of the region. Elinore Pruitt Stewart, writing about her life as a non-Mormon homesteader to western Wyoming in the early 20th century, made frequent reference to Mormon culture and to her LDS neighbors. Stewart’s Letters of a Woman Homesteader remains one of the most widely distributed books of pioneer life (see sidebar in Chapter Six). The conflict between the Shoshone people (the Northern Shoshone were one of several Shoshone bands) and their Mormon neighbors that ultimately led to the Bear River episode had begun two decades earlier, when the first Mormon pioneers trickled into the Salt Lake region. The tension was heightened by the arrival of non-Mormons to burgeoning mining communities. By the end of the 19th century, the complex dynamics of Mormon settlement and expansion, coupled with the boomand-bust nature of many mining communities, produced new patterns of work, marriage, social interaction, and gender roles within the Interior West. These transformations applied to women coming into the

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region from the United States and elsewhere and to the aboriginal women whose families had made the West home for thousands of years.

MORMON MIGRATION Founded by Joseph Smith during a period of religious revivalism in U.S. history known as the Second Great Awakening, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormons, emerged as an organized religion in 1830. The early church moved from upstate New York to Ohio, Missouri, and finally settled in Illinois. The young establishment suffered discrimination and persecution at every stop, prompting it to move on. In Missouri, some viewed the church members as abolitionists, which embroiled them in the 1840s debate over the expansion of slavery. In 1830s Illinois, the Mormons built a temple at Nauvoo, where they planned to settle permanently. Joseph Smith’s dry goods store was the center of Mormon activity before the erection of the temple. The store witnessed the first meeting of the Mormon women’s group, the Relief Society, founded by one of Joseph Smith’s plural wives (see sidebar).

JANE ELIZABETH MANNING JAMES Jane Elizabeth Manning was one of a handful of African American converts to the early Mormon Church. Manning joined the LDS faith in 1842, after hearing a Mormon missionary speak in her hometown in New England. Manning was born to free black parents in Connecticut in 1813; all of the New England states had outlawed slavery by 1800. In 1842, Manning was a servant to a local family and the single parent of a mixed-race child, a son who may have been the child of a Methodist or Presbyterian minister. Manning’s son lived with her mother, in an arrangement not unfamiliar to 21st-century American families. After she attended the Mormon proselytizing meeting, Manning was baptized and then traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois, then the center of the Mormon Church. Travel for a free black woman was a dangerous undertaking in 1813, as she could be stopped at any point and interrogated about her nonslave status. The 1840s saw increased tensions between slave and non-slave states and the passage of fugitive slave laws. All traveling African Americans were viewed as

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Women in the American West potential runaway slaves. Manning traveled with family members, including her mother and her son, Sylvester. The party was, indeed, detained in Illinois until they could convince authorities that they had been born free in New England. Manning arrived at Nauvoo exhausted from a journey that included riding on barges via the canal system, then an 800mile walk from Buffalo, New York, to Nauvoo, Illinois. Like many other LDS converts who joined the Mormons in Nauvoo, it would not be Manning’s last long migration on foot. Manning worked as a servant for the Joseph Smith household until political unrest resulted in the closing of the Smith household and the subsequent murder of the Mormon leader. Emma Smith, one of Joseph’s wives, trusted Manning with the cleaning of sacred clothing and invited Manning to be adopted into the family. Manning declined, a choice she would grow to regret. When Brigham Young became leader of the church, Manning joined his household and married a black Mormon convert from New Jersey, Isaac James. When Young began the Mormon relocation to the Great Salt Lake, Manning made the difficult choice to accompany her husband and leave her son and mother behind in Nauvoo. Isaac and Jane Elizabeth James were the first free blacks to join the Latter-Day Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. Like all Mormon settlers, they struggled during the harsh 1847–1848 winter, and then fought off the hoards of crickets, now known as Mormon crickets, that descended on the valley during June 1848. Despite food shortages, illnesses, and crop failures, Jane Elizabeth gave birth to six children between 1848 and 1860. Through backbreaking work, the family achieved a modicum of financial success, and by the Civil War they owned a house, a wagon, and a number of farm animals. In 1870, Isaac chose to divorce Jane Elizabeth, thus crushing her financial stability. Although she never again achieved the security she obtained during the 1860s, Manning remarried and participated in the LDS Women’s Relief Society. Family misfortune and financial problems continued to plague Manning, who continued to work into her eighties. As she aged and faced the untimely deaths of children and grandchildren, Manning began to petition the Mormon leadership to grant her church endowments, a ritual necessary for believers to enter the highest level of the celestial kingdom.

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Mormon teachings forbade blacks from receiving endowments, but Manning launched a letter campaign to the church president, arguing that she should receive endowments because of her unique relationship with the Joseph Smith family and her status as a pioneer of the early church. A series of letters back to Manning chronicle the Mormon Church’s position on blacks. The letters, sent by successive church presidents, rejected Manning’s petitions on the grounds that granting the endowments violated religious law. Manning died in 1908, never having received the endowments she believed she was entitled to. Seventy years later, in 1978, the presidency of the Mormon Church lifted the ban on African American men joining the priesthood, and in 1979, the church finally granted Manning her endowments. After walking from Buffalo to Nauvoo, and then from Nauvoo to Salt Lake, Manning could not have known how long a journey it would be for her spiritual pioneering to reach fruition. Manning’s failure to achieve her goals during her lifetime, according to one of her biographers, was the direct result of the church’s “rigid adherence to racial proscriptions” (Coleman, “Is There No Blessing for Me?” 156).

Mormons in Illinois lived communally and many outsiders viewed them as isolationists. They were also distrusted for what appeared, on the outside, to be undemocratic bloc voting. At a time when U.S. culture increasingly valued individualism, democracy for all white men, and the nuclear family, Mormons seemed a dangerous threat to the social order. When rumors spread of Joseph Smith’s intention to run for president of the United States, Nauvoo community members turned against the Mormons. Joseph Smith and one of his close associates were jailed and then brutally killed by a mob while being held in jail. Within months, Brigham Young took over leadership of the church and provided stable leadership until his death in 1877. It was under Young’s guidance that the group would embark on the most significant religious migration in U.S. history, a journey that would tie the Mormons to the settlement of what would become the American West and place them at the center of a struggle between U.S, Native American, and Mormon definitions of “home.”

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THE MORMON TRAIL The Mormon migration to what would become Utah is unique among western trail movements. Unlike the largely spontaneous Oregon Trail and California Trail migrations, the Mormon move west was a highly organized venture. Mormon Trail travelers were focused on a single, communal goal: to create a religious community in Northern Mexico away from the jurisdiction and discrimination of the United States. They accomplished this through a series of migrations on the Mormon Trail, which extended from the Winter Quarters starting point in Iowa, across the plains to Fort Bridger, and then on to the Great Salt Lake. Mormon Trail companies were organized by the church, and at stopping-off places like Winter Quarters, the church instituted Mormon courts to settle disputes. These ecclesiastical courts originated in Nauvoo but moved west during the Mormon migration. Mormon Trail travel was more organized and more focused than other overland travel, but daily experience on the route mirrored that of Oregon Trail travelers. Mormon Trail emigrants fought off mosquitoes, bumpy roads, high-water crossings, and numerous illnesses, including cholera, dysentery, and influenza. While Mormon Trail travel generally reflected that of the Oregon Trail travelers (see Chapter Four), the Mormon handcart experiment differed from the experiences of other migrants. Handcarts were an inexpensive alternative to wagons, which required emigrants to come up with the significant upfront cost of outfitting a team of oxen and buying a wagon. Immigrant converts to Mormonism from Scandinavia, England, and Wales could not afford wagons and thus relied on this improvised option for the way west. Handcarts were designed to be pulled by human effort, and they could accommodate many of the supplies needed for the journey and to set up the homestead upon arrival. Brigham Young organized handcart companies beginning in 1856, and between that year and the eve of the Civil War, approximately 3,000 emigrants in 10 companies pulled handcarts from the Midwest to Utah. For the most part, the handcart companies provided an inexpensive and successful alternative to wagon train travel, though several companies met with disaster when they embarked too late in the season.

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For example, the Willie and Martin companies departed in late August, far too late in the season to avoid at least a few isolated storms along the route to Utah. Both companies bogged down in freezing temperatures and blinding blizzard conditions in what is now Wyoming. A formidable opponent even in the 21st century, Wyoming winter weather forced the companies to kill their livestock for food and to consume whatever rations they had left for the remaining voyage. Brigham Young sent rescue parties to save the companies, but the Martin Company lost 145 people to starvation and exposure, and the Willie Company lost more than 60. Many of those who died were immigrant women and their children. Survivors were forced to have fingers and toes amputated due to frostbite. Handcart travel ceased after 1860, when Mormon officials began using large ox-team trains sent from Salt Lake City to pick up emigrants in Missouri and to haul them and any waiting freight back to the Great Basin.

SLAVERY AND RACE IN MORMON COUNTRY Utah was the only territory to legally sanction slavery. Three African American slaves accompanied Brigham Young during his first exploratory journey into what became Utah Territory. Two years after Young established the Mormon presence in the Salt Lake Valley, about 4,200 people lived there. Of these, at least 50 were of African descent. Most were slaves, brought to Utah by Mormon converts from the American South. Records show that most of the southern slave-holding emigrants settled in the southeastern section of Salt Lake Valley known as Holladay-Cottonwood. There, they eked out homesteads, irrigation systems, and functioning farms with the help of their slaves. Survival was difficult during the first several years, and slaves and masters alike subsisted on what they could gather from the desert, including edible thistle weeds, sego lily roots, and berries. Slaves lived in temporary housing not unlike what their masters inhabited, or, in smaller households, slaves lived in the same dugout dwelling with their masters until larger, more permanent structures could be built. An African American woman, Hannah Smith, performed midwifery duties for whites and blacks alike in the Holladay-Cottonwood district.

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Brigham Young’s compound in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, ca. 1859. (Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society, all rights reserved)

After Utah became a territory, church leaders moved to officially legalize slavery. The Compromise of 1850 dictated that Utah Territory residents would decide for themselves, under the principle of popular sovereignty, whether they wanted to be a slave or a free region. In 1852, at the behest of Brigham Young, the Utah territorial legislature enacted the Act in Relation to Service, a legalization of slavery that placed more regulations on slave owners than on slaves. The Utah law required slave owners to provide proof that their slaves had come into the territory through “their own free will and choice”; to adequately feed, clothe, and shelter their slaves; and to provide recreational activities. Slave owners were urged not to require unreasonable work hours, and they were required to provide formal schooling for their slaves. The law also included a gendered component. The southern plantation system was widely criticized by northerners and abolitionists for the tendency of patriarchal plantation owners to use their female slaves as unwilling sexual partners. The result of these unions—or rapes, depending

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on the case—was a significant number of mixed-race children on southern plantations. Plantation owners sometimes took care of these children; much of the time, they did not. The Mormon Church’s belief in the duty of parents to rear children, and the connection between women’s fertility and the role of marriage in the afterlife, led the Mormon-controlled territorial legislature to outlaw sexual intercourse with slaves under punishment of up to $1,000 in fines and the confiscation of their slaves. Little is known about the lives of individual slaves and free blacks who traveled to Zion on the Mormon Trail. Those who converted to Mormonism and traveled to Utah as free blacks must have believed a new religion and a new start in the desert would signal a new chance for freedom. The hope for expanded freedom was certainly part of the motivation for Jane Elizabeth Manning James, an African American woman who became one of Utah’s earliest non-Indian pioneers. Although she was one of the few free blacks who migrated to Utah, she was hoping for increased participation in the community and in her chosen faith. The reason we know quite a bit about her is because throughout her life she struggled to be accepted by her faith, and she left a paper-trail record of her legalistic and protracted endeavor to be accepted by the Mormon Church (see sidebar). The vast majority of African American women in Utah did not leave the kind of paper trail that Jane Elizabeth Manning James did. Silent to history, they toiled in Mormon households, working mostly as house slaves. They butchered, plucked, and boiled chickens for dinner; swept floors of dirt and boards; and made and mended clothing. They married, had children, and shaped social institutions through participation and community networks.

WOMEN, POWER, AND POLYGAMY Mormonism emerged during a period in U.S. history that was characterized by great social, cultural, and economic change. Colonial and post–Revolutionary War American society had been dominated by agricultural production, and family life—parents, children, grandparents, extended relatives—was organized around the seasonal rituals of farm labor. As the United States began shifting its economic focus from small family farming to industry, trade, and the consumer market during the

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early 19th century, the focus of the family changed. In the past, “family” meant cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and everyone else who was connected through blood or marriage. Advances in transportation and the need to leave home to earn a wage instead of walking downstairs to work in the family store, or walking outside to feed the pigs, ultimately meant that fewer people maintained consistent ties with extended family. Throughout the early 19th century, Americans placed increasing emphasis on the significance of the “nuclear family”: one man, one woman, and their biological children. This shift came as fewer children were needed to work as people moved off the farm and as more Americans moved away from family and former homes to take advantage of new lands opening or new economic opportunities. The United States, particularly in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, was also rapidly urbanizing, and in some locations more people lived in cities than in the countryside. By the end of 1900, the average number of children born to U.S. mothers had been reduced by nearly half, suggesting that throughout the 1800s families actively sought ways to limit birthrates. Joseph Smith’s new religion supported Victorian views of gender while challenging the construction of the American nuclear family. The church did not express its sanction of polygamy to the public until 1852, but church leaders had been engaged in the practice since the 1840s. Less than 25 to 30 percent of Mormon men and women would ultimately engage in the practice during the 19th century. But in the press and in the public consciousness, Mormonism was linked to polygamy, and the church’s defense of plural marriage convinced non-Mormons that the group posed a threat to Victorian culture. Discourse about plural marriage appeared in print throughout the United States at midcentury, and the issue was tinged with both judgment and fascination. In response, Mormon advocates argued that polygamy “would ensure that all women in the community had the opportunity for marriage and . . . children, thereby ‘eliminating a class of women’ whose single status made them victims of sexual and economic exploitation” (White and White, “Polygamy and Mormon Identity,” 167). Like other utopian movements during the 19th century, Mormons believed their challenge to traditional marriage would cure social problems like prostitution, child poverty, and abandoned children.

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The Mormon view of plural marriage used the Victorian stereotype of the sexual man and the asexual woman to argue in favor of polygamy over monogamy and male privilege over female agency. Nineteenthcentury Mormon views of womanhood emphasized fertility and obedience, while their views of ideal manliness highlighted virility, potency, and procreation. According to historian Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz’s interpretation in Rereading Sex (Vintage Books, 2002), 19th-century Mormons “assessed their position in the [church] by the numbers and strength of their offspring” (253). Leadership in the Mormon hierarchy was linked to masculine virility and sexuality. The Mormon Church’s view that women could not hold the priesthood was likewise connected to their roles as agents of male procreation, a role that required that they seek protection from sexual advances during extended periods of pregnancy and lactation. Polygamist families in Mormon country constituted a distinct minority, but the Mormon-controlled government in Utah sought to protect the marital rights of plural wives and their children over the rights of the majority, a choice that influenced the construction of property and inheritance law in Utah until 1890. Even after the transfer of Utah to the United States after the Mexican-American War, Utah officials worked without interference in their efforts to protect the legal rights of polygamous families. Brigham Young served as the territory’s first governor, and the territorial legislature was made up of members of the church. The Utah legislature rejected U.S. common law in 1854. As historian Carol Cornwall Madsen has shown, the rejection of common law relative to marriage was a legal sanction of polygamy, as common law forbade the marrying of more than one person at a time. Moreover, Mormons in Utah could simply avoid the courts by going through the church’s ecclesiastical court system. Local bishops presided over the lower courts, and representatives from individual wards (the Mormon equivalent of a district, or parish) made up the high council court. The president of the church served as the highest level in the court system, and cases sometimes originated in his office. The prominence of Mormon ecclesiastical courts in determining disputes in marriages and issuing bills of divorce created a system that, in practice, was more lenient for women than any system outside Utah.

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While press outlets in the United States decried polygamy as a prison and degradation for Utah women, the protection of polygamy yielded a more flexible marital system. Based on their view that the only successful marriages were based on communion and compatibility, and that children should not be reared in a contentious and/or violent household, both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young advocated a marital system that privileged women’s choice. Moreover, if women were unable to voluntarily leave polygamous marriages, then the external view of polygamy—that it was a barbaric system of enforced drudgery—would be partially upheld. The connection between women and fertility meant that ecclesiastical courts generally allowed women to divorce but looked askance at male requests for divorce. As articulated by church president Brigham Young in 1861, the church principle rested on the conviction that “When a woman becomes alienated in her feelings and affections from her husband, then it is his duty to give her a bill and set her free” (quoted in Madsen, “At Their Peril,” 42). Men deemed unworthy of their wife’s (or wives’) affections automatically lost their rights to marriage, plural or not, and the wife/wives did not have to seek official bills of divorce. In addition to a relatively flexible divorce system, Mormon Utah outlawed the dowry system, which gave wives a legal interest in onethird of a husband’s estate while living and one-third of his estate upon death (unless he specified otherwise in a will). Rejection of the dowry system helped to equalize property inheritance for plural wives and their children. This protection was swept away by a series of federal acts that targeted polygamy in Utah and made it very difficult to protect the property rights of plural wives, though the inheritance rights of the children of plural wives remained intact. The Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 dissolved the Mormon Church’s corporation, provided for the seizure of church property, and ended the Perpetual Emigration Fund, which had been used to fund the immigrant handcart companies, because of the church’s support of polygamy. Plural marriage was prohibited by the law, punishable with fines ranging from $500 to $800 and imprisonment for up to five years. The Edmunds-Tucker Act also contained provisions relating directly to gender. The act outlawed the “unlawful cohabitation” of men who

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lived with more than one woman, in or outside of marriage; the Utah Commission later added the words “in the marriage relation” to the definition, thus targeting only polygamous Mormons. Mormon leaders lobbied for the act to apply to prostitution and adultery, but Congress intended to attack polygamy, not general morality. The act effectively stripped plural wives of their marriages and any property that they would have inherited. Plural wives seeking property inheritance from a late Mormon husband suddenly could not get financial support, as their status had become akin to that of a prostitute (which was precisely what the framers of the Edmunds-Tucker Act had in mind). Former plural wives had to rely on the kindness of their children, who had retained their inheritance rights. Finally, the Edmunds-Tucker Act required that Utah issue civil, rather than religious, marriage licenses. Before 1887, all marriage licenses in Utah had been issued by the Mormon Church, which thus controlled marriage. The Utah territorial legislature had granted women the right to vote in 1870—in part to counter burgeoning non-Mormon votes— but the Edmunds-Tucker Act revoked that right. By disenfranchising Mormon voters, the act lowered the status of plural wives below that of adulterous men and men who purchased sex, as they could still vote and retain their property. The act also targeted Mormon children and Utah’s school system by removing textbook choice from local control. The act was enforced by U.S. marshals within Utah and by the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal government’s right to seize church property under the Edmunds-Tucker Act in The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States. Congress did not formally repeal the Edmunds-Tucker Act until 1978. Anti-Mormon legislation was accompanied by an onslaught of nonMormon settlement to northern Utah. As mining camps and homesteading attracted large numbers of non-Mormons, the anti-Mormon Liberal Party gained political control of the formerly Mormoncontrolled enclaves of Ogden and Salt Lake City. In response to local political pressure and the threats implicit in the Edmunds-Tucker Act, LDS President Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto of 1890, which reversed the church’s position on the practice of plural marriage. Some

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A Mormon family of the 1870s, with a husband, two wives, and nine children. The Cullom Bill, which was introduced in late 1869 but did not gain passage, would have outlawed polygamy as practiced by Mormon families in Utah Territory. (Corbis)

prominent Mormon leaders switched from the national Democratic Party to the Republican Party, denounced polygamy, and began lobbying for Utah statehood. Utah became a state in 1896, with a constitution that outlawed polygamy and upheld religious freedom. The Mormon Church in Utah influenced not only the marriage and property rights of women but also their fertility patterns. Although 19th-century American women generally had fewer babies than did their mothers and grandmothers, the opposite was true of Mormon families. Mormon thought was predicated on a return to agrarian life and larger families. The essential component in Mormon progression from the East to the West was the children-oriented heterosexual coupling. Secondgeneration Mormon families—the children of the 1840s migrants—had more children on average than other Americans during the 1860s– 1880s. One reason for the high birthrate among Mormon women was the average marriage age. Women in the Mormon culture area married early, half before they turned 20. A woman who marries at 20 has more

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years to reproduce than a woman who marries at 25; women in Mormon communities, then, spent more of their lives pregnant and nursing than did non-Mormon women, on average.

RUSH TOWNS AND SOCIETY While Mormons built religious communities and irrigation systems, other groups came in large numbers and settled within—and just outside the margins of—the Mormon culture area. Attracted by a succession of mining booms in the mountains of California, Nevada, Colorado, Montana, and Idaho, Asian immigrants and young men from the eastern United States flooded mining regions. These new arrivals interacted with local Hispanic, Spanish-speaking, and Native American populations within towns that boomed one day and collapsed the next. Boomtowns could flourish overnight, ballooning from 2 residents to 400 within a span of days, and then experience just as precipitous a decline within six months. Towns like Virginia City, Montana, and Virginia City, Nevada, fueled settlement in neighboring communities, which themselves became either new mining towns or supply stations. Within this volatile settlement climate, women found a mix of opportunity, violence, and exploitation. Women skilled at running boarding houses or laundries could turn their fortunes, earn their own money, and perhaps leave a difficult past behind while blending into the chaotic social environment of 19th-century mining communities. Women who wanted to cover their tracks away from a divorce, abusive husband, or bad choices could potentially do so along the muddy streets, temporary ramshackle buildings, and brutal settings of Kellogg, Idaho, or Leadville, Colorado. Immigrant women, from Western and Eastern Europe, China, and elsewhere converged on these communities looking for opportunity, but sometimes they were forced to work as de facto slaves, as in the case of Lalu Nathoy, a young woman from China or Mongolia who was sold in China and forced to work for a saloon owner in Warrens, Idaho. Later known as Polly Bemis, Lalu escaped when she developed a relationship with Charles Bemis, a white man, who encouraged and aided her. Nathoy married Bemis, owned and operated a boarding house, and became a well-known settler in the Salmon River region of Idaho.

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Mining centers differed dramatically from Mormon settlements in gender ratios and marriage patterns. Although Mormon communities tended to be roughly balanced between the genders, or favored the female population, early mining communities were predominately male in character and in image. Founded in 1865 by refugees from Montana’s booming Virginia City, Helena represented the “Last Chance Gulch” for its male founders. More than 3,000 people lived in Helena by 1870. A majority were male; for every 100 women between the ages of 31 and 40, there were 595 men. Helena was a town made up of single men— more than 70 percent of its population was single in 1870, and “wholly male” households made up 39 percent of all household types (Petrik, No Step Backward, appendices). In Virginia City, Nevada, the roaring mining community that grew up around the famed Comstock Lode, women made up only 5 percent of the population in 1860, just over 30 percent in 1870, and about 42 percent in 1880. Virginia City’s female population grew as the settlement matured. By 1900, women made up 47 percent of the population. Census records must be used with caution when dealing with women’s history, however, as census enumerators often failed to count all households, relied on the head of household, and did not find people who did not want, for whatever reason, to be counted (see Chapter One for more about using census records). Still, census records can be revealing in a comparative context. Although both Helena, Montana, and Virginia City, Nevada, attracted more men than women, at least during the early decades of settlement, Salt Lake City was more gender balanced from the beginning. Because Utah was settled by Mormon families and some single women immigrants, there existed no male-dominated gender imbalance there. Indeed, Eliza R. Snow (see sidebar) could hardly have made the argument that polygamy ensured that all women would have the chance to marry if the territory had consisted mostly of men.

KEEPING HOUSE, SELLING SEX, AND DEFINING HOME Some women in the West’s 19th-century mining boomtowns redefined domesticity, pushed the boundaries of acceptable sexual norms, and created wage opportunities for themselves and their daughters. Others

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Virginia City, Nevada, ca. 1867. This view shows the haphazard street pattern typical of many western mining rush communities. (National Archives)

ELIZA R. SNOW At once an advocate for polygamy and a powerful influence within the Mormon Church, Eliza R. Snow has been a polarizing and enigmatic figure within the history of the 19thcentury Mormon Church. Snow was a plural wife to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, founders of the Mormon Church. She was born in Massachusetts in 1804, and like many of the families chronicled in sidebars in this textbook, hers had moved successively west. Shortly after Eliza was born, her family moved to Mantua, Ohio, where her father became the town’s justice of the peace. Eliza’s family was solidly middle class, and she received a formal education. By the time she was in her twenties, Eliza was a locally accomplished poet, and her work appeared in the local paper’s poetry section. She would continue to publish poetry throughout her life. Eliza’s family encountered Joseph Smith and his new faith when, during the early 1830s, Smith moved to Hiram, Ohio, only a short distance from the Snow family farm. Eliza, her

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Women in the American West parents, and her sister converted to Mormonism. When Smith’s faithful moved to Kirtland, Ohio, Eliza went with them, where she worked as a governess in the Joseph Smith family home. In June 1842 she entered into a secret, polygamous marriage with Joseph Smith. When Smith was assassinated in 1844, Eliza married Smith’s successor, Brigham Young. By 1847, she was headed west to Young’s new Zion, located in what is now northern Utah in the heart of the Salt Lake desert. Unlike the vast majority of her female Mormon peers, Eliza remained childless. She lived in the Young family home, however, and poured herself into work for the church. In 1866, Young asked her to lead the Ladies’ Relief Society in Utah. Snow’s specific charge included visiting rural locations, setting up relief meetings, and recruiting members. Snow’s tireless organization expanded relief society membership and participation. She remained in the post as president of the Relief Society until she died in 1887. By then, the Relief Society had more than 20,000 members. Eliza Snow’s experience as a 19th-century Mormon pioneer woman was hardly typical. She was married to both the founder of the church and to the man referred to still as the “Mormon Moses,” Brigham Young. Yet Snow had no children, despite the Mormon emphasis on child rearing as the important calling for women. One of Snow’s biographers, moreover, notes that she may have taken part in early priesthood rituals and that she was a partner to Brigham Young in his decisions. Snow seems to have negotiated a bridge between the lessdefined power structure of the early church and the rigid requirements that followed and excluded women. In the end, however, she did not advocate for expanded rights for women, though she did argue that Mormonism had afforded women the ultimate right: the right of matrimony. Snow believed there were more women deserving of husbands than there were appropriate men, so polygamy in this context was a force for equality: it gave all women the chance to marry and to have children. Snow’s implication was that most women were more moral than men, thus, the discrepancy between marriageable women and men. This view supported the Mormon Church’s stance that a woman’s greatest contribution came through her fertility. As Snow’s biographer wrote, “Plural marriage, polygyny, was [Snow’s] answer to the feminists who pled the cause of women in Utah” (Beecher, “The Eliza Enigma,” 42).

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rejected what they viewed as the loose morals of mining communities and launched reform movements aimed at changing the sexual climate. Many of the women coming into mining communities, moreover, were not born in the United States. Irish, Eastern European, Italian, Chinese, and Greek immigrants came to take advantage of the booming mining industry in the West’s mountain communities. In Storey County, Nevada (the location of the Comstock Lode), the percentage of residents born outside the United States was 41 percent in 1870 and 37 percent in 1880. The majority of Virginia City’s immigrants came from Ireland. Irish immigrants accounted for nearly 21 percent of Virginia City’s population in 1870. Butte, Montana, also had a large Irish immigrant population. By contrast, the majority of immigrants to many Rocky Mountain mining communities in Idaho and Montana came from China. Helena’s immigrant population was dominated by the Chinese. In 1870, more than 20 percent of the population came from China. Immigrant groups did not necessarily share the same traditions, marriage practices, and/or gender beliefs as their American Mormon or their American non-Mormon neighbors. Although social changes and population pressures were happening throughout the late 19th-century and early 20th-century United States, they appeared more dramatic in mining communities, in part because of skewed gender ratios, volatile population fluctuations, and lack of consistent law enforcement. Marriage and divorce, prostitution, and domestic living conditions all provide windows into the ways Mormon and mining communities understood, regulated, and institutionalized gender and sexuality. The pervasive popular stereotype of women in mining towns is that of the madam, or brothel owner, and prostitute. Most women in mining communities, however, did not work as prostitutes and did not achieve fame and fortune as glamorous and benevolent brothel owners. Most spent their days scrubbing their own or other people’s houses, boiling dirty laundry, or cooking meals for large numbers. In this sense, at least, the daily lives of women in mining communities were not that different from the daily experience of Mormon women pioneers or female pioneers elsewhere. The scant female population that lived in Helena lived with men, which suggests that most of these women were

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married or attached. Only three percent and four percent, respectively, of Helena’s nonfamilial households comprised single women living together or single women living alone, while 34 percent of all Helena households in the 1870s were either nuclear family, extended family, or two-family households. In early Helena, Montana, most women did not perform work outside their own houses. Historian Paula Petrik’s analysis of women’s occupations in Helena in 1870 found that out of a female adult population (over 18) of 489, more than 70 percent were “keeping house,” 20 percent were employed outside the home, and 7 percent listed no occupation. Likewise, Virginia City’s female population worked mostly inside their own homes or dwellings (though they may have been taking in work for others). In 1870, the vast majority—more than 1,500 women—were engaged in “keeping house,” “keeps house,” or “housekeeping.” The housekeeping category beat the next closest occupation— “none listed”—by a ratio of 15 to 1. In the 1880 census for Virginia City, Nevada, more than 2,600 women responded that they kept house; the next most frequent occupation responses were “at home” at 319 and “none listed” at 223. Both Virginia City and Helena shared another demographic characteristic: the women who kept their own houses were more likely to be white and nonimmigrants. Although most Irish female respondents on the Comstock marked keeping house, the ratio between servitude and keeping house was much smaller than for all women, and for Chinese women, the ratio between keeping house and prostitution was almost even. What were conditions like for women who lived in mining and mining-supply communities? What kinds of houses were they “keeping”? Mining communities often followed a well-chronicled boom-bust cycle, during which the initial, young, mostly male residents would construct shanty houses along waterways, gulches, and claims. These were temporary dwellings, intended to provide shelter while the miner tapped out the gold and then departed. The shacks were assembled with boards, paper, and anything else available; they were stifling and insect prone in the summer and stale and frigid in the winter, especially as most mining communities were situated at high altitudes. The wellknown writer and illustrator Mary Hallock Foote traveled throughout

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the mining West during the 1870s with her engineer husband, Arthur DeWitt Foote. The Footes lived in Leadville, Colorado, during the late 1870s, where they built a modest cabin described by Mary Hallock Foote as “one room, lined with building paper which had an oakgrained side and a reverse of dark brown; one width of brown we used as a wainscot, and the walls were covered with the oak side put on like wallpaper . . . . There was no kitchen; there was no bedroom—the woman went to work on her curtains again and made a sort of drapery for her couch, which was called the bedroom” (Foote, Victorian Gentlewoman, 178). The Footes’ cabin was an elaborate home nestled among the cabins that dotted the Leadville terrain. The miners’ shacks and storefronts of the main streets of mining communities huddled together along crooked streets, haphazardly facing different directions and blocking the construction of linear thoroughfares. Early Deadwood, South Dakota; Virginia City, Montana; and Virginia City, Nevada all—according to faded photographs housed at the National Archives and Records Administration and the Denver Public Library—had the appearance of dwellings and buildings thrown into gulches along jagged streets. The unstructured character of boom and bust streets and architecture also reflected the lives of the inhabitants of explosive mining communities. Women in western mining communities, like women living on the borders of maledominated army barracks, made their living through their interactions— marital, economic, or service oriented—with men. Some of these women were prostitutes. The image of the western prostitute has subjugated other views of womanhood during this period, but certainly prostitutes in western places like Virginia City, Montana; Laramie, Wyoming; and Salt Lake City, Utah, were part of a booming business. The extent to which the sex workers themselves received financial reward, or chose their own occupations, varied widely, based on age, immigrant status, race, and geographic location. Western communities in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho were part of a vast network of sex slaves bought, sold, and traded in the port cities of Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco, California. These women—mostly Chinese immigrants—were often purchased before coming to the United States. They were transported to the Pacific

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Miners holding candles pose in a mine building, possibly in Leadville, Colorado, between 1890 and 1920. (Denver Public Library/Western History Collection, X-60920)

Coast, placed in crowded, unsanitary, and reeking holding pens, and then sold to the highest bidder. Dispersed throughout western mining towns in California and the Pacific Northwest, these women had very few economic choices, and they left virtually no written record of their experiences. They lived mean existences in seedy brothels, second-story rented rooms, and alley basements. The de facto acceptance of prostitution throughout the late 19th-century West contributed to a flourishing trade in sex slaves. For other groups, prostitution represented different opportunities and experiences. In 1870s and 1880s Helena, Montana, opportunities existed for white women who purchased and managed houses of prostitution. Paula Petrik found that Helena’s 37 property-owning prostitutes were involved in 44 percent of the property transactions undertaken by

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women between 1865 and 1870. Many of these transactions represented loans or mortgages based on the value of the beds, sheets, furniture, and pillows in the rooms in sex-trade establishments. About 60 women participated in proprietary prostitution in Helena by 1870. On average, they were 28 years old, were born in the United States, and reported having personal wealth, property, or both. Before 1890, prostitution in Helena was a woman’s business, and it was big business. By contrast, women involved in prostitution in Helena’s Chinatown did not own property, and some were considered the chattel of male proprietors. Although Helena’s madams could afford to live well, they were unable to break into the respectable classes of society. Moreover, their wealth was based on the exploitation of young women whose nights consisted of nine hours of work and whose days often found them drinking in local establishments. Evidence suggests that Helena madams had connections to other western establishments, with whom they swapped working girls within a network of female-dominated underworld activity. Salt Lake City, too, despite its origins as a Mormon-founded community, housed a bustling sex trade. Salt Lake’s view of prostitution echoed that of other western centers. A policy of official toleration, based on the economic value of the sex trade and inequities in the enforcement of regulatory laws, existed between 1870 and the 1890s (Nichols, Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power, 87). In California’s booming Southern Mines, the 800 women enumerated in the 1850 census population of 29,000 found numerous outlets for economic transactions based on sex. There, however, as Susan Lee Johnson has found, proximity to women was often as frequently purchased as the sex act itself. In mining towns south of Sacramento, California, French immigrant women found opportunities as dance hall girls and saloon servers. These occupations did not require that sex be exchanged for money to be exchanged. Moreover, immigrant women participated directly in the economy of the Southern Mines, not just through prostitution but also by buying and selling dance houses and saloons. The names of French women “abound in Gold Rush legal proceedings” (Johnson, Roaring Camp, 77), though they did not leave behind written records of their lives. In Sonora, California, a French immigrant woman named Anna Lyons worked in a dance house and saloon

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maintained by a woman named Rose Cartier, also a person of French descent. Another woman, Emilie Henry, managed a successful saloon in another of the small mining communities that defined the urban landscape of northern California at mid-century. Native American women, too, participated in the booming western sex trade. In gold rush–crazy British Columbia, Canada, Native women—some as young as 12— became the object of commerce in Victoria’s saloons. Historian Jean Barman found that definitions of prostitution, when applied to Native women, varied from the sale of sex in back rooms of saloons to cohabitation with a non-Indian man. These definitions were always imposed by non-Indian men or women. The relatively fluid sexual environment in which Native women in Victoria lived came under the scrutiny of regulation in 1871 when British Columbia became a Canadian province. Government officials, missionaries, and aboriginal men joined forces to bring Native women’s sexuality under control and Native women back into their houses. Marriage was viewed as the key to desexualizing Native women, and Victorian domesticity the lock. Yet, as Jean Barman points out, the campaign to tame aboriginal women’s sensuality “so profoundly sexualized Aboriginal women that they were rarely permitted any other form of identity . . . . By default, Aboriginal women were prostitutes or, at best, potential concubines” (Barman, “Taming Aboriginal Sexuality,” 253). Thus, the sexualization of Native women and the concurrent desexualization of English and European women functioned as tools in the European colonizing process. Throughout the American West—from Spokane, Washington, to Prescott, Arizona—prostitution flourished when it took place in an area separate from the streets where elite residents lived. Mansion districts and red-light districts thus did not mix—except maybe in terms of clientele—but they coexisted. Indeed, historical geographer Philip Hubbard’s groundbreaking study of urban sex trade suggests that redlight districts enabled prostitution by giving it a space within which to function. In other words, regulatory laws and geography-based enforcement effectively moved the disorderly from the orderly family life. The spatial structure of red-light districts and the impact of regulatory laws represented late Victorian attempts to legitimize the heterosexual family,

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marginalize female sex workers, and segregate sexual threats to heterosexual patriarchy. The urban constructions of red-light districts and elite residential/business neighborhoods began to break down in every municipality during the 1890s. Expanding railroad traffic brought a greater mix of people to the West’s urban centers; male proprietors took over the sex trade, forcing female entrepreneurs out; and chamber of commerce and city leadership groups changed their view from enforced legality to illegality. Some of the pressure behind the shift came from white women’s groups who aimed their municipal housekeeping arsenal at women they viewed as dangerous to the health of the community and their husbands (see Chapter Six for more about women’s reform movements). Both as an opportunity and as a forced subjugation, prostitution declined in American western cities after 1890. It was again rejuvenated in the 20th century, but at that time it was tightly regulated and connected to the tourism industry centered in Nevada, in places that were once part of the Mormon and mining culture areas.

NATIVE WOMEN AND COMMERCE IN MINING TOWNS Western mining communities encroached on Native lands in such a dramatic, sudden, and overwhelming fashion that boomtowns sprang up, literally overnight, adjacent to and within long-standing Native village sites. In Nevada’s Virginia City, Northern Paiute women lived with their families just on the outskirts of town, in village locations that had been there long before the arrival of the miners. Northern Paiutes—particularly Northern Paiute women—participated in the commercial life of the city, creating a market economy that redefined the Native choice of dress (which was still distinctively Paiute), the relationships between Indians and non-Indians, and the economic power of women. When faced with the problem of procuring enough food from a shrinking gathering area, Native women sought employment in the whirlwind of commercialism that characterized early mining communities. Northern Paiute women found work in Virginia City as laundresses or servants in the community. Northern Paiute men worked for wages as well, chopping wood or doing odd jobs for households. With the cash

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Native American woman in Virginia City, Nevada, with cradle board on her back. (Nevada Historical Society)

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they earned, Northern Pauite women purchased clothing, such as calico dresses and fancy shawls worn as headscarves, and household items, such as pots, pans, and knives. Northern Pauite women also took on the task of visiting the town’s food vendors and collecting the previous day’s vegetables, bread, and fruits. This activity corresponded to the women’s traditional role of gathering food for the family. In the Great Basin, because of the harsh nature of the variable climate and scarcity of game animals, Native women historically provided most of a family’s and/or tribe’s food. Women in Great Basin tribal groups procured plants, berries, and seeds and prepared them for consumption. Roots and berries were dried or cured for storage. Women also made necessary items such as tightly woven baskets to carry water, food, and their children. With the advent of participation in Virginia City’s economy, Northern Paiute women retained their culture and the rhythm of their economic cycles, but they earned wages instead of digging for food. During the winter months, Native women went to work in Virginia City’s laundries, restaurants, and boarding houses. This was the difficult, 14-hour-day work also performed by Irish and Chinese immigrant women. For Native women, this meant spending long hours away from the village, their children, and their culture. These women absorbed some of the practices of non-Indians, as suggested by Smithsonian Institution archaeological excavations of the 1880s Northern Paiute village outside Virginia City. The excavations uncovered the presence of nonIndian toys, including jacks, toy saucers, and American baby dolls, suggesting that the trade with Virginia City enabled at least some Northern Paiute people to purchase luxury items. Apart from the occasional foray into Euro-American consumer goods, however, Northern Pauite women’s commercial activities in Virginia City were essential to the survival of their families and their cultures. With much of their land and former resources stripped, Northern Pauites were forced to rely on alternative income sources. As always, Northern Pauite women gathered the majority of their family’s subsistence, not through traditional methods of digging for roots, making household items, and scouring the countryside for edible plants, but rather through wages and through what historian Eugene M. Hattori has called “urban foraging” (Hattori, “And Some of Them Swear Like Pirates,” 245).

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AFTERMATH OF THE BEAR RIVER MASSACRE The massacre at Bear River, Idaho, inaugurated a period of forced integration between the Northern Shoshone and their Mormon neighbors. The region continued to exhibit a mix of influences, including non-Mormon miners and soldiers, Native people, and Mormon settlers. Connor’s attack laid open the Cache Valley to more settlement, and the region was soon inundated with non-Indian farmers. Not all Shoshone bands responded in the same way to the crisis of the invasion. The Shoshone chief Sagwitch, along with many other members of his band, became a baptized member of the LDS Church. Eventually, Sagwitch was ordained into the office of an elder in the Mormon priesthood (a privilege not accorded to women or to African Americans). Members of the Sagwitch band helped establish the Mormon town of Washakie, Utah. Mormon Shoshone members ceased their traditional subsistence activities and established farms. The power Shoshone women had exercised as gatherers and keepers of culture eroded as white Mormon definitions of home and gender were imposed on their families. Conflict continued in northern Utah with Connor’s men, however, particularly after Connor attempted to establish large mining operations in the region. Other Shoshone bands—those that rejected integration or that were not involved directly in the Bear River Massacre—ultimately removed to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, created in the wake of the Bear River Massacre by the 1867 Executive Order and the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868. Eventually, the Fort Hall Reservation was diminished by the establishment of Pocatello, Idaho, a city carved out of the reservation. The desert landscape and diminished land base contributed to insidious poverty for tribes located at Fort Hall. Following the attack, Colonel Conner was welcomed as a hero at Fort Douglas and in the California communities where his troops came from. Nothing was said in the newspapers about his oversight of the brutal rape and torture of Native American women. For his service, Connor was promoted to the permanent rank of brigadier general. Connor’s role as an Indian fighter continued throughout the 1860s as he advanced campaigns against the Sioux and Cheyenne, and he became one of many popularized heroes of the Indian Wars.

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Today the site of the massacre rests amid the quiet, sparsely populated areas of extreme southeast Idaho. A state marker and Daughters of the American Revolution memorial recognize the site, but no mention is made of the rape of Shoshone women. In 2003, the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit organization, paid Idaho landowners $54,000 for more than 20 acres of land near the site of the Bear River Massacre. The land was donated to the Northwest band of the Shoshone Nation in March 2003. Tribal members continue to gather at the site on the anniversary of the attack.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY The new scholarship on western women has focused on ethnic, Native American, Asian, and other marginalized women in the American West, but it has failed to address the interpretive place of Mormonism and Mormon women in the history of the region. Indeed, Mormons fail to appear in the index in some of the most important recent multicultural perspectives on women in the American West. Underlying this exclusion may be the view that the Mormons were not numerically a minority within the Mormon culture region. Still, the Mormon Church has wielded cultural influence in the American West beyond its churchgoing membership rates and continues to do so today. More works have addressed Mormon women during the past 10 years, but more scholarly work remains to be done. The essential scholarly account of the Bear River Massacre remains that of Brigham D. Madsen, The Shoshone Frontier and the Bear River Massacre (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1985). Madsen described Mormon policy as making “no pretense of compensating any of the Shoshone . . . for their aboriginal lands,” and detailed Brigham Young’s policy that it was less costly to feed Native people than to fight them (29). Although Madsen tells the story in wellresearched detail, Kass Fleisher’s controversial book The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004) tries to uncover the reasons why so little has been written about what whites once called the Bear River War. “I will posit that the fault lies with how we make,” she notes, “and how we read, history itself ” (xi). Fleisher’s book is largely a critique of the historical profession’s “addiction to the linear, rising narrative, which itself is organized around a false sense of beginning, rising action, climax, and denouement” (xii). Devotion to narrative and categorization have led historians to ignore not only the Bear River Massacre but also the rape that followed. Rosemarie Stremlau analyzed Sarah Winnemucca’s rape narratives in her article, “Rape Narratives on the Northern Paiute Frontier: Sarah Winnemucca, Sexual Sovereignty, and Economic Autonomy, 1844–1891,” in Dee Garceau-Hagan,

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editor, Portraits of Women in the American West (New York: Routledge, 2005). As Stremlau explained, “Winnemucca posited that the Northern Paiutes’ best chance at survival lay not in assimilation to white culture but in the restoration of their economic autonomy, symbolized by women’s ability to work without fear of sexual assault” (quoted on page 38). For more about the cultural milieu that gave birth to Mormonism and the religious transitions taking place in the 1830s United States, consult Louis P. Masur, 1831: Year of Eclipse (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001). Information about the Mormon Trail was procured from Stanley B. Kimball, Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail (U.S. Department of the Interior: National Park Service, 1991); John Unruh, The Plains Across; and the Mormon Trails Association at mormontrails.org/. For demographic information about Mormon settlement communities, including the tendency of Mormon women to marry younger than their U.S. peers and then to have more children, see G. P. Mineau, L. L. Bean, and M. Skolnick, “Mormon Demographic History II: The Family Life Cycle and Natural Fertility,” Population Studies [Great Britain], Volume 33, Number 3 (1979): 429–446. Polygamy and its function in 19th-century Mormon society have received a disproportionate amount of attention from scholars, particularly as only a minority of Mormon men ever engaged in the practice. Still, the sanctioning of polygamy by the church represented perhaps the 19th century’s greatest challenge to the prevailing social order. The role of women within polygamy and the society that sanctioned the practice varied from those who were oppressed to those more vocal women who found polygamy to be rewarding (or at least professed it to be). For more on the role of women in the Mormon Church, see Angela Pears, “Collective and Equal? The Soteriology of Women in Mormonism,” Feminist Theology: The Journal of the Britain & Ireland School of Feminist Theology, Issue 18 (May 1998): 87–97. My interpretations have been influenced by Jeffrey Nichols’s arguments and detailed research in Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847–1918 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002). Nichols concludes that “the arguments surrounding prostitution and polygamy established in the nineteenth century are still evident today” (Nichols, 216). Although the Mormon Church has launched an antipolygamy campaign, significant numbers of people in Utah and the surrounding region are still involved in the practice, which was the focus of an intense federal investigation in 2006. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz’s interpretation of Mormon views of sexuality appears in Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Vintage Books, 2003). For more on polygamy and the early Mormon Church, see O. Kendall White and Daryl White, “Polygamy and Mormon Identity,” Journal of American Culture, Volume 28, Number 2 (2005): 165–177; Sarah Barringer Gordon’s articles, “‘The

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Liberty of Self-Degradation’: Polygamy, Woman Suffrage, and Consent in Nineteeth-Century . . . ,” Journal of American History, Volume 83, Number 3 (2001): 815–847, and “The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of Supreme Court History, Volume 28, Number 1 (2003): 14–29; and Nichols, Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847–1918, especially pages 10–21. See also Suzanne M. Stauffer, “Polygamy and the Public Library: The Establishment of Public Libraries in Utah before 1910,” Library Quarterly, Volume 75, Number 3 (2005): 346–370. For more about Utah politics and statehood, visit “Party Politics and Utah Statehood,” Utah History To Go, online at historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/ statehood_and_the_progressive_era/partypoliticsandutahstatehood.html. The history of slavery in Utah Territory and the slave laws passed by the Utah territorial legislature appear in Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), especially 71–74. In Search of the Racial Frontier is the standard work on African American western U.S. history. Like polygamy, prostitution in the American West has received a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention. Although the vast majority of women in the American West worked in professions other than the sex trade, scholarly material about the exchange of sex for money has shown that prostitutes in western communities contributed to regional economies, participated in community-building efforts, owned property, and worked for reform measures. They were also often vilified, subjugated, and systematically discriminated against even as city fathers used their services and benefited from their economic enterprises. The following list is by no means comprehensive, but it provides an historiographical overview of these findings: Carol Lee Bowers, “Railroad Ladies: Prostitution in Laramie, Wyoming, 1868–1900,” Wyoming History Journal, Volume 67, Issue 1 (1995): 18–31; Anne M. Butler, Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865–90 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985); Marion S. Goldman, Gold Diggers and Silver Miners: Prostitution and Social Life on the Comstock Lode (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981); Ruth Rosen, “Go West Young Woman? Prostitution on the Frontier,” Reviews in American History, Volume 14, Number 1 (March 1986): 91–96; and Matt Houlbrook, “Toward a Historical Geography of Sexuality,” Journal of Urban History, Volume 27, Number 4 (2001): 497–504. The major debate within the scholarship of prostitution in the West and elsewhere in the United States is the extent to which prostitutes chose their professions and exercised agency in their economic ventures. Ann Butler’s early study argued that prostitution in the West was a good way to live a short, painful, and difficult life. Although Butler asserted that most prostitutes ended up mired in poverty, Marion Goldman and Ruth Rosen found that at least some prostitutes chose their occupation and reaped economic rewards by taking

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this professional route. Ruth Rosen’s critique of Butler’s work delineated this divide. “In her desire to debunk the myth of the glamorous prostitute,” Rosen wrote in a 1986 book review of Daughters of Joy, “Butler errs in the direction of creating pathetic victims who passively endured relentless debauchery, deprivation, and degradation . . . . Although Butler genuinely seeks to portray prostitutes as ordinary poor women, her fierce moralism and unabashed pity frequently distort her own evidence” (Ruth Rosen, “Go West Young Woman?” 94). To compare scholarship on western prostitution to 19th-century prostitution in the American East, see Christine Stansell’s classic work—written from a labor and class perspective—City of Women: Sex and Class in New York (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987). Scholars of gender and sexuality have reconceptualized the role of the sex trade and sexual relations in the American West generally. Susan Lee Johnson’s groundbreaking Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000) found that “both heterosocial and homosocial ties flourished in California, but the paucity of women along with cultural constructions of male needs and desires meant that, for many men, contact with women was at a premium” (163). The gender history approach has revolutionized our understanding of the sexualized power relations between all people of all genders, but it has been criticized by feminist scholars for undermining the roles played by women and downplaying the brutal victimization of women—at the hands of men of all classes, races, and ages—within male-dominated, patriarchal systems. Another approach to viewing gender is that of Philip Hubbard in Sex and the City: Geographies of Prostitution in the Urban West (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 1999). Hubbard, a historical geographer, looks at the ways in which space configures in constructions of power and the marginalization of women. Hubbard’s analysis of urban spatial politics is suggestive of the future of spatial-historical inquiry informed by new technologies such as geographic information systems, or GIS. See also Matt Houlbrook, “Toward a Historical Geography of Sexuality,” Journal of Urban History, Volume 27, Number 4 (May 2001): 497–504. The ways in which Europeans used the sexuality of Native women to advance colonization are explored in Jean Barman, “Taming Aboriginal Sexuality: Gender, Power, and Race in British Columbia, 1850–1900,” in Women and Gender in the American West, Mary Ann Irwin and James F. Brooks, editors (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004), 210–235. “Taming Aboriginal Sexuality” won the Coalition for Western Women’s History Jensen-Miller Prize in 1998 and first appeared in BC Studies. Scholars of the mining West have compiled very useful, detailed databases of census records, gender ratios, and occupation statistics for some mining communities, including Helena, Montana, and Virginia City, Nevada. For

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demographic statistics for Virginia City, see the appendices in Ronald M. James and C. Elizabeth Raymond, Comstock Women: The Making of a Mining Community (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1998), especially 306–323. Paula Petrik compiled similar statistics for her now classic book about the social climate in Helena, Montana, in No Step Backward: Women and Family on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier, Helena, Montana, 1865–1900 (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 1987). For more on Chinese immigration to the West during this period, see Sucheng Chan, editor, Chinese American Transnationalism: The Flow of People, Resources, and Ideas between China and America during the Exclusion Era (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006). For information about the Bear River Massacre and modern attempts to recognize the cultural and historical value of the controversial episode, see Margaret Foster, “Return of the Bear River Massacre Site,” Online Preservation, March 17, 2003, National Trust for Historic Preservation, www.national trust.org/magazine/archives/arc_news/031703.htm. The official Web site of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation can be accessed at www.shoshonebannocktribes.com/. The Web site contains the text of major treaties and agreements negotiated with the federal government, including the Fort Bridger Treaty, but it does not currently include a history of the Bear River Massacre. The National Park Service, which since 1990 has maintained a national landmark at the Bear River site, does not include a description of the landmark on its Web site. See National Park Service, www.nps.gov/. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher’s “The Eliza Enigma: The Life and Legend of Eliza R. Snow,” in Thomas G. Alexander, editor, Charles Redd Monographs in Western History, Number 6 (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1976), 29–46, explores Snow’s involvement in her faith and her poetry. Beecher argues that “If she was not the potter whose firm hand shaped the infant faith of the new society, Eliza was certainly the kilnsman who fired the newly-molded piece into a hard and solid form” (44). More recent articles about Snow include Jill Mulvay Derr and Karen Lynn Davidson, “A Wary Heart Becomes ‘Fixed Unalterably’: Eliza R. Snow’s Conversion to Mormonism,” Journal of Mormon History, Volume 30, Issue 2 (2004): 98–128. Very little has been written about the history of African American women in Utah or its surrounding regions. For the story of Jane Elizabeth Manning James, I have relied on Ronald G. Coleman, “‘Is There No Blessing for Me?’ Jane Elizabeth Manning James, A Mormon African American Woman,” in Quintard Taylor and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, editors, African American Women Confront the West, 1600–2000 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), 144–162. For more on the Mormon Church’s historical ban on the participation of blacks in the priesthood and endowments, see Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal

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of Mormon Thought 8 (1973): 11–68; and Lester E. Bush, Jr., and Armand L. Mauss, editors, Neither White nor Black: Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issues in a Universal Church (Midvale, UT: Signature Books, 1984). Some images and research for this chapter came from the Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia, “an ever-expanding world wide web site whose contributors include many institutions, organizations and agencies throughout Utah. Utah Collections serves as a storehouse of multimedia items that educators, professors and students can freely use in lesson plans, reports and projects without fear of copyright infringement.” This useful resource, and others like it, will continue to proliferate and change the media experience within classrooms everywhere. For more information and links to important Utah history resources, visit www.uen.org/ucme/.

CHAPTER SIX

THE “NEW WOMAN,” MOBILITY, AND WESTERN SPACE, 1877–1920 INTRODUCTION In 1916, the popular periodical Scribner’s Magazine proclaimed that the American woman had arrived: “The position of the modern woman is parallel to that of the automobile; we meet her at every turn and, whether we like her or not, if we get in the way we are likely to be run over” (quoted in Behling, “Woman at the Wheel,” 13). This rather derogatory portrayal of the “New Woman”—a woman who made her own choices—reflected massive shifts in the way Americans viewed gender, gender roles, and women’s opportunity at the turn of the 20th century. It also connected women’s freedom to technology. In this particular case, the technology was the automobile, but between 1870 and 1924 a revolution in technology overtook the United States and the world. The transformations wrought by this revolution shaped women’s lives everywhere, but in the American West, the late 19th and early 20th century witnessed the evolution of technologies specific to place: transcontinental railroads; large-scale irrigation systems; huge silver, lead, and copper mining enterprises; and the world’s largest sawmills. In addition, women’s lives were influenced by the new technologies appearing within and around the household: electricity, the telephone, household appliances, and the automobile. For many western women, these were luxuries that could not be afforded. For others, technology became a means of transportation, leisure, and household help. « 179 »

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The divide between rural and urban, poverty and privilege, within the American West widened during this period, in part because of the lack of availability of technology in isolated areas and in part because of the way technology was used to dispossess Native Americans and transform the economy of the region. Technology is only part of the story of this era for western women. Other major themes included women’s activism, women’s suffrage, women’s reform movements, and women’s community building. This was an exceedingly active period for community building in the West, particularly in newly opened irrigated regions but also in more established areas that sought to redefine themselves. The Homestead Act of 1862, and subsequent land legislation, opened vast tracts of the public domain to settlement in the American West, and huge numbers of Americans—more than 3 million after the Civil War— took advantage of these opportunities to procure free, or extremely affordable, land. For some women, the migration to the western United States symbolized new opportunity. But for many it meant a life of drudgery no different from the one they left behind, just more isolated (and thus more confining). The American West between 1877 and 1920—more than any other region at any other time in U.S. history—became a geographic laboratory for federal policies aimed at defining the American home, the family, womanhood, and masculinity. In addition, westerners during this period were often the first to experience trends that would continue throughout the 20th century: changing immigration patterns; increasing reliability on the automobile as a method of transportation; the application of technology to extract resources; formation of timber and mining company towns; labor unrest and the formation of powerful mining unions; and the use of large-scale, federally funded river control systems for irrigation. Like western history itself during this period, women’s roles in the American West are significant but difficult to generalize. Universal suffrage—the vote—for women was passed in every western state except New Mexico before passage and state ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which forbade individual states and the federal government from denying citizens the right to vote based on sex. This fact has often been viewed as evidence that the West presented freedom and

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Well-dressed women and a child pose in front of Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage storefront office in Colorado, 1914. Banner in window reads “Votes for Women.” (Library of Congress) .

opportunities for women. At the same time, ethnic women, working women, migrant laborers, and immigrant women in western cities found their freedoms severely limited by racial prejudice, employment conditions, and gender discrimination. Native American women in the West faced specific and consuming challenges. Smallpox epidemics during the early 19th century destroyed the kinship networks of western tribes, Catholic and Protestant

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missionaries had infiltrated western tribes and undermined the traditional authority of tribal women (see Chapter Four), and a protracted military and legal effort to strip tribes of their land base had permanently altered the subsistence patterns of tribes and the concurrent economic authority of tribal women (see Chapter Five for the Northern Paiute example). Between 1870 and 1924, the federal government advanced an agenda of assimilation, forcibly stripping tribal women of their traditional power, taking Native children from their mothers, and instituting a system of American farming and non-Indian gender roles. Western women reformers participated directly in reforms aimed at assimilating and educating Native Americans. Indeed, through participation in the “Indian question” or other issues, many white middle-class women found a political voice that they might not have had or been able to exercise elsewhere. These women formed powerful women’s organizations that influenced public policy, urban development, educational opportunities, and suffrage. As western communities solidified, the financial success of non-Indian western women increasingly rested on the labor of migrant farm workers and working-class women. Women of financial means also experienced significant social and physical mobility not shared by women of any other financial background. They often spent little time in the western towns they called home. Like Ellen Hauser, the wife of one of Montana’s territorial governors, they spent winters and/or summers away, at summer cottages on the beaches of California, at hotels in Chicago, or back with parents and family in midwestern states like Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan. These women hired out their laundry, sent their children to boarding schools, and employed domestic help, including cooks. In this way, they benefited from the relatively inexpensive western workforce and the boom-and-bust economy characteristic of western communities. They also ultimately embraced the automobile as a source of mobility in western spaces, although early on they did not drive themselves. An elite group of women participated in a burgeoning western tourism industry as well, characterized by the natatorium movement and the evolution of national parks. The experience of these privileged women was markedly different from that of Eastern European immigrant women in Colorado’s company-controlled mining towns or Mexican immigrant

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women fleeing Mexico’s revolution during the 1910s and finding work in California’s orchards and farms. Although their numbers may have been relatively small in any given place at any given time, their influence was significant. This was also a period characterized by the powerful emergent voice of the American West’s marginalized women. Hispanic female workers in California’s agricultural industries found a voice in organized labor, Native American women found a voice in activism and education, and the West’s growing population of African American women found a voice in new settlement communities and in activist movements in places like San Francisco.

REFORM AND THE INDIAN QUESTION Women throughout the American West engaged in community building during the latter decades of the 19th century. In dusty irrigated settlement towns, in rapidly expanding California urban centers, and in mining towns and timber camps, women of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and economic statuses converged, became active, and defined the nature of the community home. Western community building was enabled by a national women’s reform impulse that engaged in municipal and urban renewal, education reform, and labor issues throughout the entire United States. White elite women in America’s urban centers worked to combat inner-city poverty, ethnic saloons, and red-light districts; western women did the same, but they also created communities from the ground up. Progressive women throughout the American West worked to shape new towns to their cultural, social, and political liking. In addition, a number of reform issues emerged that acquired a uniquely western perspective. Reformers within the American West, as elsewhere in the United States during this period, tended to be white, affluent women. In the West, however, the terms “affluent” and “white” acquired definitions dependent on place. Indeed, women’s groups engaged in reform efforts in part to define class and race in western places lacking in economic distinctions. A national issue with its greatest impact in the American West was the era’s reforms aimed at solving the so-called Indian question. Alternating between pity and loathing, western white women reformers

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INDIAN REFORM ACTIVISTS JACKSON AND REEL Several white women with ties to the West played significant roles in the maternal Indian reform movement. Although not a westerner by birth or childhood residence, Indian reform activist Helen Hunt Jackson contributed significantly to the culture of western Indian reform and the American West itself. Jackson was already a well-known writer when she met the railroad developer William Sharpless Jackson on one of her many travels to western locales. Part of the localcolor literary movement, Helen Hunt Jackson wrote stories about her travel experiences for newspapers and literary journals, including the New York Evening Post, The Nation, Scribner’s, Harper’s Monthly, and Atlantic Monthly. She became one of the best-paid writers of her time. She married William in 1875 and moved to Colorado Springs. Shortly after her move west, she heard a transformative talk by the Native leader Chief Standing Bear of the Poncas tribe. The experience changed Hunt’s focus from literary travel narratives to Indian reform. She spent two years researching every aspect of federal Indian policy in relation to the tribes removed to Indian Country (now Oklahoma). Her findings were published in a lengthy, statistics-laden tome entitled A Century of Dishonor, which she sent to every member of Congress at her own expense. The report elicited little response. Jackson then determined to write fictional accounts of the mistreatment of Native peoples, in the hopes that she could use compelling stories to interest the public. Her 1884 novel Ramona told the story of a woman of Indian heritage raised on a prominent California Mexican rancho. The book became the most popular novel written about California’s mission era and spawned a generation of Southern California freeway attractions, including “Ramona’s Birthplace” and “Ramona’s Marriage Place.” Jackson’s book thus created a romanticized (and utterly false) Southern California heritage, but it missed its mark. Jackson died in 1884, before the passage of the Dawes Severalty Act and before her book Ramona attained its mythic status as an icon of Old California. Another western woman, Estelle Reel, was intimately connected to Indian reform movements. Between 1898 and 1910, Reel served as the superintendent of Indian education for

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A successful and prolific author, Helen Hunt Jackson is best remembered for A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884), books that helped to raise awareness of Native American rights and of their ill treatment at the hands of the U.S. government. (Library of Congress)

the Office of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. Reel had already become the first woman elected to a statewide office when she took the position of superintendent of Indian education in the McKinley administration. In 1895 she had been elected superintendent of public instruction in Wyoming.

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Women in the American West Like a surprising number of white, educated elite reformers in the American West during this period, Reel originally came from the upper Midwest (Illinois). In 1898, Reel lent her support to William McKinley’s presidential bid. The $2,000 Parisian gown that Reel wore to McKinley’s inauguration is now on display at the Toppenish Museum in central Washington State.

sought to turn Native Americans on nearby reservations into assimilated whites. Forced education—day schools and boarding schools— and child removal to white households were two ways that white elites and the federal government sought to solve the problems of Native poverty, alcoholism, and limited resources. These reforms ignored the basis for Indian poverty in the first place—non-Indian encroachment, federal policies aimed at eradicating Indians, and the creation of Indian reservations. At the same time, the involvement of women in the movement for Indian reform critiqued white male authority by asserting the role of motherhood in shaping public policy. At the heart of the 1880s Indian reform movement was a debate over the meaning of home, and intrinsic to the debate was the role of women—Native and non-Native—in creating a civilized West. The individuals involved in Indian reform came from differing activist backgrounds. Missionaries, Protestant clubwomen, and academic ethnographers joined forces to advance the cause of Indian rights, which they agreed did not pertain to the specific rights of Native peoples but to the right of Indians to assimilate, own property, and become fully Americanized. They believed it was the Manifest Destiny of Native people to become assimilated, just as it was the God-given right of American citizens to expand westward. “For Indians,” the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church—one of the sponsors of western missionary activity—stated in 1882, “We want American education! We want American homes! We want American rights!” (quoted in Stremlau, “To Domesticate and Civilize Wild Indians,” 269). The major reform groups engaged in the Indian question came together in New York in 1883 at the behest of Albert K. Smiley, then a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners. Together, members of the Board of Indian Commissioners, the Women’s National

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Indian Association (WNIA), and the Indian Rights Association formed the Friends of the Indian, an influential reform group many historians consider to be crucial for the eventual passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887, which provided for the division of reservations into 160acre, 80-acre, and 40-acre allotments. Each enrolled member of the tribe would receive his or her land allotment, while remaining acreage would be sold to non-Indians. Allotment reflected national sentiments about home and gender roles. By the 1880s, the perception of the ideal home was one in which the woman of the household did not work for wages, nor did she spend much time outside her own house. The cultural appeal of the Homestead Act, passed in 1862 and responsible for settling much of the Great Plains, can be partly explained by the growing predilection in the United States for a house and acreage. Passed by an all-Republican congress during the midst of the Civil War, the Homestead Act allowed any head-ofhousehold filer to claim 160 acres of land. If the person lived on it and improved it for five years, it was his or hers. The Republican-controlled U.S. House and Senate used the measure to support small family farms in opposition to large plantations that required slave labor. Encapsulated in the Homestead Act was the nuclear family, the pioneer mother, and a nonslaveholding, non-Indian ethic of property ownership. The Homestead Act made it possible for single women and widows, if they were the heads of their households, to claim land. But it did not allow married women to claim homesteads; those were filed in their husband’s name, even if they lived on the claim alone. Ministers, civic leaders, and the popular press espoused the virtues of domesticity and private space, where the refined citizen could find both refuge and fulfillment. Catharine Beecher, the daughter of the wellknown minister Lyman Ward Beecher, became America’s premier 19thcentury domesticity advocate. As the Martha Stewart of the day, Catharine Beecher’s influential writings, including The American Woman’s Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes (1869), which she cowrote with perhaps the nation’s most famous female writer and her sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, helped to secure the cultural supremacy of the single-family home and yard as

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exalted American space. Beecher’s work argued for increased recognition of women’s work within the home, and her linkage between the supremacy of domestic life and women’s essential role within it cemented the connections between white female domesticity and the refined American home. The Beecher sisters also outlined the proper arrangements for American houses, down to the scientific placement of kitchen items like the stove. In order for Native populations to become Americanized, Native women needed to cease gathering duties, which many whites viewed as degrading, and they certainly needed to cease performing the agricultural tasks that non-Indians associated with the male gender. Indian reformers viewed Native women’s agricultural work as drudgery, and many cited the hard labor performed by Native women as proof that Indian men were abusive and lazy. The friends of the Indian failed to appreciate the balance of labor in Native kinship networks and the relative authority tribal women attained through their production. In the view of Indian reformers, private property ownership in the form of an Indian homesteading act was the only answer. If Native women found themselves presiding over orderly, scientific households in the Catharine Beecher tradition, and Indian men gave up hunting for farming, then the Indian question would be solved. Transforming Native women into homestead wives stripped them of their sexuality and their identity. By turning Native Americans into white Americans, they would disappear. So, too, would their communal landholdings, offering non-Indians the opportunity to purchase Native lands, which many white homesteaders in the American West viewed as being unfairly locked up on Indian reservations. Homesteaders in northern Idaho and eastern Washington, for example, wrote dozens of letters to Indian Service personnel decrying the enforcement of federally negotiated agreements that created the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation in northern Idaho and effectively barred non-Indians from old-growth timber stands in the Coeur d’Alene Lake region. Lost on these homesteaders was the fact that the tribe had released more than 4 million acres of land through agreements, on the promise that the federal government would reserve the remaining 500,000 acres as a reservation. These nuances were considered secondary or nonexistent issues to Indian reformers, many of whom sincerely

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believed homesteading, agriculture, forced schooling, and private property would result in a dramatic Americanization in Indian Country. Indian reformers blamed the Indian Service for perpetuating the degradation of Indian people and the tribal ties of kinship that informed Native life. Non-Indian reformers viewed complex and culturally important Native kinship networks as dangerous and anachronistic, and they believed the reservation system perpetuated such tribal interactions. The WNIA, described by one historian as the “maternal arm of the Indian reform movement,” used its Anglo, Protestant, middle-class membership to attack the Indian family (Stremlau, “To Domesticate and Civilize,” 269). The relative ease of divorce practiced within many Native communities, and marital customs such as sororate, polygamy, and matrilocality were viewed by non-Indian reformers as immoral and crippling to Native children. The communal system in Indian kinship networks, the WNIA believed, limited the formation of male leaders and degraded women. The activism of the Friends of the Indian and other assimilationminded reformers paid off when Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887. The sponsor of the bill, Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, had ties to the reformers. Senator Dawes recognized the role of women reformers when he noted during a speech that the severalty policy “was born of and nursed by the Women’s National Indian Association” (quoted in Mathes, “Nineteenth Century Women and Reform,” 4). The allotment policies pushed by Indian reformers and legalized by the Dawes Severalty Act, rather than helping Indian people, failed in the final analysis to create assimilated tribes or to help Indian people. Indeed, the Dawes Act functioned as a landgrab in most locations. After allotting 160- and 80-acre sections to tribal individuals, the remainder of reservation lands, or lands held communally by tribes, were sold or auctioned in organized land rushes. Native nations lost huge portions of their aboriginal lands as well as cultural practices associated with traditional hunting and gathering, which was no longer possible and was openly discouraged by Indian agents and other Bureau of Indian Affairs personnel. The Dawes Act was ultimately overturned by passage of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. Between passage of the Dawes Act in 1887 and the end of allotment in 1934, Native lands in the United

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Frederic Remington’s interpretation of the Oglala Sioux Ghost Dance at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, as it appeared in the popular Harper’s Weekly magazine in 1890. Fascination with the Ghost Dance led to varying non-Indian artistic and photographic representations. (Library of Congress)

States were reduced from 138 million acres to 52 million. Of the lands that remained in tribal hands, more than half were classified as desert or semidesert and unfit for the kind of agriculture inherent in the Dawes Act. At a time when tribes desperately needed the hunting and gathering practices of Native women, tribal land holdings were so substantially reduced as to limit the efficacy of women’s gathering. On the western plains and in the Great Basin, tribes turned to alternative pan-Indian religions to deal with the cultural genocide instituted by the Dawes Act and other U.S. policies, including forced day schools and boarding schools. The Ghost Dance, a religious revival movement that spread from the Great Basin to the Great Plains, called on tribal people to resurrect their traditional ways, wash themselves of non-Indian influences, and participate in the “development of a pan-Indian identity” (Smoak, Ghost Dances, 188). The Ghost Dances affirmed Native cultural belief systems and created connections among tribes. Both men and women participated in the Ghost Dance, but in some incarnations the

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dances reflected the patriarchy of their influences, including Shoshone horse culture, the Mormon Church, and Christian thought.

SUFFRAGE The late 19th-century West witnessed a convergence of unique historical events and circumstances that led to the passage of universal suffrage in nearly every western state before the advent of national suffrage. Wyoming granted equal suffrage in 1869, Utah in 1870, Colorado in 1893, Idaho in 1896, and Washington in 1910. The remainder of western states, other than New Mexico, followed between 1912 and 1918. Why was the West such fertile ground for suffragists? Or did male westerners—for the territorial and state legislatures that voted on suffrage were entirely male—grant suffrage for reasons that had little to do with women’s rights? The answers vary by territory, state, and time frame. Interior western states, like Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, were influenced by politics related to mining and, in the case of Utah, by polygamy; the Pacific coastal states of Washington and Oregon were heavily influenced by women’s involvement in Progressive reform movements; and Texas suffrage was influenced by post-Reconstruction race issues. Wyoming Territory was the first political entity in the United States to grant women universal suffrage. Fewer than 400 women lived in the territory in 1869, and their voices—while strong—hardly accounted for Wyoming’s dramatic decision to reverse a century of disenfranchisement. The Wyoming territorial legislature was interested in attracting more women; suffrage was thought to provide an enticement to move to the male-dominated state. Utah, the next western territory to grant suffrage, did so in 1870 as a response to national pressure to outlaw polygamy. Giving white Mormon women the vote, the Utah territorial legislature held, would show the nation that Mormon women were not abused and, in turn, would provide additional Latter-Day Saint votes to counter the increasing gentile male population clustering in rowdy mining centers. In Idaho and Colorado, the next two states to grant suffrage, “silver” politics and Populism each played a role. Mining camps in both states lobbied for suffrage on the basis that women would vote in conjunction with their husbands and that this, in turn, would support the Populist

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call to end the gold standard and institute free coinage of silver. Populist candidates did well in Colorado and Idaho state elections during the 1890s. In Idaho, anti-Mormon sentiment was also a contributing factor. The state’s constitution disenfranchised Mormons, or individuals belonging to an organization sanctioning polygamy, so before the Mormon Church’s reversal on polygamy, women’s suffrage in the state of Idaho would have meant that only non-Mormon women received the vote. Idaho’s crusade was supported by Abigail Scott Duniway, who wrote the pro-suffrage sentimental novel, Edna and John—set in an Idaho mining camp—to support the movement. The fight for women’s suffrage in the Pacific Northwest gained momentum after the nation’s most prominent suffrage activist, Susan B. Anthony, toured the region with Abigail Scott Duniway in 1871. At the time, men outnumbered women in Washington Territory by nine to one. Duniway was the most active suffragist in the Pacific Northwest and, according to one of the region’s most prolific historians, “deserves to be remembered as the mother of female suffrage in the Pacific Northwest” (Schwantes, The Pacific Northwest, 131). She wrote hundreds of articles supporting the suffrage cause, traveled extensively throughout the Northwest, and edited the feminist newspaper New Northwest. Duniway’s activism contributed to the 1878 passage in Oregon of a law allowing married women to own property and to keep the wages they earned. Despite this early victory, Oregon and Washington did not grant women the right to vote until Progressive politics and the influence of other western states prompted an affirmative vote. In Texas, white women’s suffrage organizations used the fight for the vote to argue that by enfranchising women the state would be effectively increasing the white vote, as Jim Crow laws limited voting by African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. A 1913 poster sponsored by the Austin Women’s Suffrage Association of Texas showed a map of the United States with white states (those that had granted suffrage) and black states (those that had not). The double meaning of the poster’s proclamation, “Help Make Texas White!” was clear: granting the vote to women would further disenfranchise all people of color, male and female. The Austin women’s group circulated this poster to counter antisuffrage arguments that granting the vote to women would threaten the

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state’s white supremacy by granting African American women the right to vote. Instead, Texas suffragists argued, the white vote would be doubled and blacks would continue to be barred from the polls through instruments like literacy tests and poll taxes. Still, African American women’s groups lobbied for the vote. Texas failed to grant women suffrage before 1919. Although motivations for granting women’s suffrage varied among western territories and states, some were common to all. Western legislatures, as in the rest of the country, were dominated by men, as were the populations of western states. Thus, men decided to grant women the right to vote in the West for reasons that benefited them, as white men, as much as it did their wives, sisters, and mothers. Western legislatures sought to attract more women with the vote, as in Wyoming; they hoped to alter political demographics, as in Idaho and Texas; and they hoped to support a particular cause, as in Utah. But in all cases, whatever the motivations of the male politicians who supported suffrage, women activists played a role in raising awareness and lobbying specific members of territorial and state legislatures. Moreover, western women who had the vote sponsored parades, traveled on speaking tours, and performed service in the national suffrage organizations.

TECHNOLOGY Perhaps no other single technological innovation changed women’s mobility in the American West as dramatically as the transportation revolution. Access to new transportation networks in western states transformed women’s power of movement, particularly for women of means. America’s vast transcontinental railroad system was conceived before the Civil War, but construction did not begin until after the war ended. In 1869, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met at the golden spike in Promontory, Utah, signaling the connection of California and the West Coast to the rest of the nation, via Chicago, the main terminal for the first transcontinental railroad. This event meant that settlers with access to railroad depots could now mail-order goods and supplies; they could eschew the covered wagon for the sleeping car; and they could expect the occasional visitor. Western women who traveled the Oregon Trail 20 years before the Golden Spike Ceremony left

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family and friends expecting never to see them again (see Chapter Four). Although visits would continue to be rare and expensive events, the transcontinental railroads made such visits much more likely, thus easing the perception that women settlers were leaving behind all of their social networks. The railroad system also created new towns and urban centers to service railroad travel. These communities ushered in a new era in the Interior West. Towns like Pocatello, Idaho, became cultural as well as transportation centers, boasting beautiful opera houses, elegant architecture, and department stores with the latest fashions. The main terminus for the Oregon Short Line Railroad, a spur connecting the Union Pacific transcontinental to Portland, Oregon (essentially the old Oregon Trail route), Pocatello was the Interior West’s quintessential Gilded Age city by the 1890s. Like other railroad communities, its population was diverse. The transcontinental railroads were built by thousands of Chinese immigrants, many of whom died during the process. Chinese immigrants settled in new railroad communities alongside European immigrants and black Americans seeking refuge from the Reconstruction South. The result was an increasingly diverse female population in these terminus cities, but relations were not always amicable. In Pocatello, burials in the cemetery were situated by race and class. The Asian quarter of the cemetery remains unmarked today because Asian grave markers were defaced throughout the first half of the 20th century. As women used the railroads for transportation, they also recreated gendered space within railroad cars. The Pullman sleeping car replicated the privacy of domestic space. In order for Victorian women to travel, they had to maintain the privacy of their household spaces, and these private machinations were transferred to railroad spaces in the form of formal dining cars, cars with living spaces, and private sleeping quarters. Women like Mary Hallock Foote traveled in the comfort of these gendered railroad spaces. As historian Amy Richter has shown, railroad cars introduced a new sphere of experience to middle-class women. Richter calls the space between the privacy of home and the vulgarity of public streets “public domesticity” (Home on the Rails, 60). In fact, railroad companies created public domesticity because they needed women as customers, especially if the American West was to attract young women.

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Women in a railroad passenger car, 1905. Expanded transportation networks increased mobility and travel options for women of means in the American West. (Library of Congress)

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Moreover, as Richter finds, women enjoyed the cultural respect and even the authority to guarantee that the new masculine technology would be tempered to suit their comfort and their needs. As a consequence of this codependence, the railroad experience helped to generate modern gender roles. Travel to and within the American West, even if it was on behalf of family-based priorities, required unusual initiative and courage for a woman, thus enhancing the modernizing effect. The railroads also ushered in a new era of consumerism in the American West. Before the arrival of the railroad, goods had to be hauled by freight teams at enormous cost. Most people simply did without, or made do with what was at hand. Oranges in the Rocky Mountain West, for example, were a rare delicacy before the advent of railroad freight (they continued to be expensive, but they were accessible). The railroads and mail-order catalogs changed the consumer behavior patterns of westerners, particularly of western women. By the end of the 19th century, consumption of items for the household was a mark of middle-class status. In households with women, women usually made the consumer purchase decisions. Thus, the mail-order giants of the era—Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck and Company—targeted female populations in areas without other retail options. The American western woman, therefore, became the mail-order catalog’s dream customer. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, nearly anything could be mail-ordered: fencing materials, bed sheets, clothing, rugs, furniture, soap, windows, even houses. Sears, Roebuck, sold approximately 75,000 mail-order houses between 1908 and 1940. Initially known as “modern houses,” the Sears mail-order house were shipped in boxes by rail for the owner to assemble. The typical 1918 Sears “Carlin” model was advertised as a house for “better class workers.” The Carlin’s front porch opened into a living room; next to the living area was the formal dining room; the kitchen, as in nearly all houses of the era, was in the back of the house. Kitchens were considered work rooms, not living areas, and were always shut away from a house’s better, or company-suitable, rooms. Thus, women often washed dishes or prepared meals in isolation from the family. Upstairs, the Carlin boasted two bedrooms and the luxury of an indoor bathroom. Many of the Sears houses promoted such luxuries as tiny bathroom tiles and builtin bookshelves to middle-class buyers. Sears also introduced the latest

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technologies to buyers of its modern homes line, which offered central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity. Initially, these conveniences were options and were not available on all units. Electricity and running water would not be available in many rural western areas until after World War II. About 50 percent of the Sears homes still stand, many of them dotting the landscape of the Trans-Mississippi West. Details of household management, interior décor, and home embellishments were considered to be a woman’s choice. Thus, house plans and houses sold by mail order at the turn of the 20th century reveal much about the living conditions and household desires of America’s women. Women’s buying choices and desires drove technologies like electricity, indoor plumbing, and central heat into the household. At the same time, mail-order companies were selling a corporate vision of the American home that buttressed concurrent political and social definitions of home and gender. In the catalog portrayals, the home was a refuge from the external world of politics and commerce, and it was presided over by a woman whose influence extended to the hearth, but it did not reach beyond the extent of her well-swept front porch. By 1900, the Sears mailorder division was conducting $10 million worth of business per year; it continued to sell houses and house plans until 1940, when the market collapsed under the weight of depression and war. The fact that the working classes could not uphold the stereotype of the woman’s sphere, implicit in the mail-order house, did not detract from the power of this perception of middle-class gender. Rather, the exclusivity of the women’s sphere gave it life: only privileged women could be “true women.” White western women in earlier periods had struggled with the contradictions of work, gender, and western life (see Chapter Four). Some had tried to import gender roles from the East to the West; others had simply given up, or reveled in the lack of gender restraint. Mail-order consumerism gave elite women new options for the expression of gender, class, and status in American western communities. These kinds of consumer opportunities were most significant in the West’s most isolated areas. Opportunities for catalog ordering transformed not only the buying habits of class-conscious elites but also the domestic conditions and choices of Native American families on reservations, immigrant families, and homestead families.

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Native Americans on reservations no longer had to wait for the supplies brought to the reservation by pack mule or by the Indian agent. If they had access to funds, they had access to anything that any other westerner could procure. In this sense, the mail-order business had a leveling effect among those with at least some money to spend. The railroad also made more consumer items available on-site. Indian agency records for the Yakima Reservation between 1909 and 1912 indicate that Yakima women did most of the retail buying on the reservation. Making this more remarkable was the fact that by the contact period, the Yakima were a patrilineal tribe, meaning that property passed through the male lineage. Yet, it was Yakima women who made most of the consumer purchases for households and family transportation: 53 percent of the horses; 57 percent of the cattle; 81 percent of the household items, including construction materials; and 62 percent of the buggies and wagons were purchased by women. Yakima reservation women also made a significant amount of the farm purchases, including 47 percent of all farm equipment and 40 percent of the horse collars and work harnesses for the work animals (Ford, “Native American Women,” 59).

LABOR AND IMMIGRATION Expanding transportation networks within the American West and an internal crisis south of the U.S. border in Mexico fueled a dramatic increase in Mexican immigration during the first decades of the 20th century. The economic policies of the Porfirio Diaz regime modernized the Mexican state by introducing corporate (often United States) enterprises into the countryside, which at the same time displaced a large rural Mexican population that had depended on communal landholdings. Declining independent peasant landholdings, inflation, and food shortages rocked the countryside. By 1910, nearly 10 million Mexican people, or a staggering 96 percent of families, were without land or resources. The explosion of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 added to the chaos in the countryside. Armed bandits roamed northern Mexico, raping and killing young women and taking whatever food stores they could find. Scholars of borderlands history have argued that Mexican residents viewed the United States as a safety valve during these years. The United States had built railroads into northern Mexico to service American enterprises,

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which meant transportation flowed northward. Desperate Mexicans fled their home country to find labor in California and Arizona in irrigated farms, orchards, and agricultural businesses. By the end of the 1910s, Mexican immigrants had become the backbone of the burgeoning California agricultural industry. Mining in Arizona and industrial jobs throughout the American Southwest also provided opportunities for Mexican migrants. As historian Vicki L. Ruiz has shown, the immigration experience was defined by gender. Men who crossed the border into towns like El Paso, Texas, were greeted by labor contractors looking for able-bodied workers. Contractors promised high wages and various benefits—many that would never come to fruition—to new male migrants, but they ignored female migrants, especially those traveling alone or with children. Immigration inspectors at the border scrutinized the papers of single women while waving men across, as it was believed the men would work while the women would become a drain on public resources. Some women with children were forced to remain in border towns until they could afford to purchase passports that would enable them to enter the United States. Pasquala Esparza was traveling with an infant and a nineyear-old daughter when she was stopped at the border. Penniless and without papers, she remained in Ciudad Juàrez working as a domestic servant until she earned enough to pay for the necessary paperwork. For six months her nine-year-old daughter, Jesusita, watched the baby and scrounged for food while Esparza worked. Jesusita would carry the baby for miles through the city to meet her mother for lunch at the affluent house where Esparza worked. Esparza would nurse the hungry baby and give the older girl food scraps she had smuggled from the kitchen. Once they arrived in the United States, migrant mothers worked in the fields and orchards, often leaving their youngest children back at camp—alone—or with other migrant mothers. Mexican immigrant women also took jobs in factories, took in laundry and mending, cooked for other families as well as their own, and sold produce from their gardens. Those who remained in migrant work tried to make functioning households out of the trailers, tents, and boxcars that made up transitory migrant camps. Camps were freezing in the early spring, stifling and fly infested in mid-summer, and always strewn with drying laundry. Pots on

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open fires dotted the camps and provided a constant hazard for often barefoot children running through the tents, tables, and gardens. Migrant laborers toiled to bring food from field to table, but they saw very little of it themselves. Migrant camps in the early 20th century were hungry places. Field workers were paid not by the hour but by the amount—bag, bushel, bin, or acre—they could pick or harvest. Pay depended on physical agility and strength. Fatigue, pregnancy, and nursing babies worked against women migrant workers. One female worker remembered that California’s cotton pickers had to scale ladders carrying 100-pound sacks on their backs, forcing some female workers to hoist “their kids on top of their picking sacks” (quoted in Ruiz, Out of the Shadows, 17). Structural discrimination contributed to the economic challenges faced by female field workers. In the cotton fields of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, a patriarchal wage organization dominated. Women agricultural laborers in family networks did not receive their own paychecks. Farm supervisors paid the fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers of female migrants for their labor. In the patriarchal Southwest, a migrant woman’s labor was not her own—it belonged to her closest male relative. This meant that women did not reap the benefits of their own labor and that no matter how much they toiled, their children might still go hungry or shoeless. The male-dominated wage structure also severely limited field employment options for single female migrants. Family wage systems limited the economic mobility of women immigrants, maintained a feudal style of female dependence, and “retarded the assimilation of Mexican immigrants into the working class” (Rosalinda Méndez González, “Distinctions in Western Women’s Experience,” 245). Although women did not receive their paychecks directly, women’s labor benefited immigrant families enormously. In addition to wage labor, immigrant women performed most of the household functions and production in migrant camps. As historian Joan Jensen has found, the products created by women within the household—meals, laundry, vegetable gardens, clothing—could dramatically increase the economic productivity of a family unit. In part, this kind of production helped by creating tangible products, like soap and quilts; on the other hand, it also freed up other family members to concentrate more directly on wage labor outside the home.

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WRITING THE WOMEN’S WEST—WILLA CATHER AND MARI SANDOZ Willa Cather’s expressive books of pioneer life in 19thcentury Nebraska influenced many Americans’ views of western settlement and have taken their place within the American literary canon. Born in Winchester, Virginia, in 1873, Cather’s early life reflected the westward migratory pattern of the families that would later capture her imagination in her fiction. She moved with her parents to the pioneer community of Red Cloud, Nebraska, when she was nine years old. Her grandfather had migrated to Nebraska earlier, making the location attractive to her parents. The young woman was not entirely happy on the prairie, which her biographers have said she viewed as bleak after the green of Virginia. But the young Cather listened to the concerns, speech patterns, and lives of her Nebraska neighbors, immigrants from Northern and Eastern Europe. Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Bohemian immigrants took advantage of opportunities to claim land in Nebraska, the Dakotas, Kansas, and Montana during the post–Civil War homesteading period. They created ethnic enclaves on the undulating prairies of the American West. Cather’s books explored the intimate relationships of these immigrants to each other and to the sometimes harsh, but often beautiful, Nebraska prairie. Although Cather’s fiction was not expressly or exclusively about women or gender issues, her works explored the interaction between women and wilderness, women and the western landscape, and the hard labor necessary to carve out a life in Nebraska. In O Pioneers! the lead female protagonist, Alexandra Bergson, loves the land and is sustained by her relationship to it through hunger and hard winters and hard work. Many of Cather’s female characters maintain spiritual connections to the land. Cather was one of the most influential women writing in what Glenda Riley has called the “woman’s pastoral” (Riley, Women and Nature, 67). Cather’s female characters often saved the land from the abuse of men or society at large. Like Cather, American writer Mari Sandoz spent her childhood on a homestead in Nebraska. Born on May 11, 1896, of Swiss immigrant parents, Sandoz was a part of the ethnic mix of immigrants to 19th-century Nebraska. Her tale of the homesteading life, Old Jules, showed the darker side of

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Set variously in Nebraska, the American Southwest, and her native Virginia, the novels and stories of Willa Cather reflect a keen sense of place and of the experiences of immigrant pioneer women. Her best-known books include My Antonia, O Pioneers! and Death Comes for the Archbishop. (Library of Congress)

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pioneering. A biography of her father, the haunting book detailed the abuse and domination that characterized her father’s relationships with women. Isolated environments, difficult weather, and the labor needed to leave a homestead compounded the fear and entrapment felt by pioneer women faced with beatings and abuse. Mary, one of Jules Ami Sandoz’s wives, loses her spirit, the life in her eyes, before she actually dies: Mary had three anaemic [sic], undernourished children very close together, without a doctor. She lost her teeth; her clear skin became leathery from field work; her eyes paled and sunsquinted; her hands knotted, the veins of her arms like slack clothesline. (Sandoz, Old Jules, 215)

Now widely acclaimed and studied as one of the most important books of pioneer life, Old Jules was rejected more than 10 times by publishers. Sandoz went on to complete more than 20 books about life on the northern Great Plains. She died in 1966. Some of her papers and manuscripts are housed at the University of Nebraska and Syracuse University.

In the American West’s urban centers, immigrant women did not face the family wage problem as often, but they found wrenching discrimination and difficulty nonetheless. Domestic labor offered a higherpaying, more stable employment option than fieldwork, but as sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn has shown, such labor carried a price of its own. Asian women in the American West’s emergent urban centers faced the same dilemma: a double bind of prejudice based on race and gender. Glenn’s theory posits that whites used gender and racial identities to marginalize the women of color within their own households, thus allowing employers to separate the role of Mexican and Asian immigrant women as mothers from their role as domestic servants. In the Southwest, the wealthy white and Spanish-Mexican families for whom Mexican women worked often ignored their presence, but they still required long hours of labor and residence within the household. Female domestics were often forced to leave their children in the care of others

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for weeks or months at a time. Female employers of servants were able to block out, and thus ignore, the impact of long hours on the families of their household help. As elites formulated a restrictive definition of womanhood and motherhood at the end of the 19th century, they consciously excluded female immigrants, ethnic women, and Native women. The tendency of affluent families to ignore their domestic servants articulated an underlying value system that prioritized the children of white, Protestant, American-born families at the expense of the offspring of Mexican and Asian immigrants. The West’s mining women immigrants faced challenges specific to the economies and societies of the new corporate mining towns. As shown in Chapter Five, placer-based mining camps gave way to communities controlled by large, nonresident companies. Miners in towns like Ludlow, Colorado, and Kellogg, Idaho, lived in housing owned by the mining companies, and they worked for low wages that barely covered the rent and food. Miners were forced to shop in the company store, which, according to the oral history of mining families, often sold work clothes, heating oil, and oil lamps for more than double the cost elsewhere. If something went wrong, as it often did in the hard rock and coal mines of the Rocky Mountain West, there was little cushion to support the family. Fatalities in Idaho’s lead and silver mines, and in Colorado’s coal mines, were tragically common. During the span between 1910 and 1913, more than 600 Colorado coal miners lost their lives on the job. If the father died in a mining accident, then the young son—as young as ten—often went to work in the mine. The wives of miners working in Colorado’s coal mines received an average death benefit of $700 when their husbands died underground. A Colorado Fuel and Iron Company attorney, Fred Herrington, once told a grieving widow that “she ought to be satisfied with a twenty-dollar coffin” (Zeese Papanikolas, Buried Unsung, 38). John D. Rockefeller controlled the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company as part of his fuel empire. By the early 20th century, Rockefeller had become a symbol for the divide between the wealth created by large corporations and the wages of the working class. The lead and silver miners in Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene district had joined a radical miner’s union, the Western Federation of Miners, during the 1890s and had initiated a series of strikes and agitations that led to

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the Coeur d’Alene mining wars. Although the mine workers won some concessions, the wars cost them in lives and pay. Strikers did not get paid, and their families suffered. After the 1890s, the Western Federation turned its attention to the abhorrent conditions in Colorado’s coal fields, and in 1903, Colorado’s coal miners joined the Western Federation in a strike ultimately broken by Japanese, Mexican, and Italian immigrant workers brought in to replace Greek and Italian strikers. By the first decade of the 20th century, a generation of children raised in unheated company housing and along the bleak, gray, highaltitude ramshackle streets of the mining towns had grown up to become mine workers themselves. In 1913, they waged the last major mine workers’ strike of the era, a 14-month United Mineworkers of America strike against the three largest coal mining companies in Colorado, including Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. When the miners were thrown out of their company housing, they formed tent towns where they lived, with their families, in freezing cold temperatures throughout the winter of 1913–1914. The governor of Colorado ultimately called up National Guard units to put down the strike. In April 1914, during the Greek Orthodox celebration of Easter within the Ludlow tent colony, a group of militia approached Louis Tikas, the Greek immigrant colony leader, and words were exchanged. The tension eased until the next morning, when the militia placed mounted machine guns around the colony. Tikas attempted to wave a white flag, but several bombs went off inside the colony, and general firing erupted. The men tried to lead the fight away from the tents, where women and children scrambled to get away. Children in the tent towns slept in pits underneath the tents to stay warm, and they had to be roused and dragged from the pits. In the general chaos that ensued, and the hours of firefighting between the militia and the miners, some women and children were trapped in the tent colony, unable to leave for fear of being mowed down. When Tikas approached militia members to end the fight, he was beaten and killed with the butt of a rifle, his body left to the elements for three days in sight of the surviving children of the colony (the militia refused to allow burial or removal). At the end of what became known as the “Ludlow Massacre,” 20 people had died, mostly women and children who suffocated or were burned alive in their

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Men, women, and children at the United Mine Workers camp for coal miners on strike against the Rockefeller family–owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in Ludlow, Las Animas County, Colorado, 1913 or 1914. (Denver Public Library/Western History Collection, Bartosch, X-60475)

tents. Among the dead were immigrant women and their children: Cedelina Costa, 27 years old and pregnant; Lucy Costa, 4 years old; Onafrio Costa, 6 years old; Cloriva Pedregone, 4 years old; Rodgerlo Pedregone, 6 years old; Frank Petrucci, 4 months old; Joe Petrucci, 4 years old; Lucy Petrucci, 2 years old; Eulala Valdez, 8 years old; Elvira Valdez, 3 months old; Mary Valdez, 7 years old; and Patria Valdez, 37 years old.

TOURISM, LEISURE, AND THE MODERN HOUSE In the West’s mining centers, timber towns, and engineering camps, men outnumbered women throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. The sheer crush of single men created new habits of living and eating in the American West. Boarding houses, apartments, laundries, restaurants, road houses, saloons, and coffee shops proliferated in every western

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boomtown. Within this cultural environment, even married couples sent out their laundry or ate at the local establishment, partly because female household labor was in such short supply. In mining communities throughout northern California (see Chapter Five), tasks often performed by women—laundry, ironing, cooking—were done instead by Chinese men, whose own status was then lowered by their association with feminized tasks. Historian Mary Lee Spence defines the tendency to hire out service tasks, or to take meals outside of the living quarters, as the western “eating out” mentality (Spence, “Waitresses in the Trans-Mississippi West,” 220). Although Asian men performed some of the labor associated with California’s restaurant culture, by the 20th century women were increasingly filling this role throughout the West. Increasing numbers of women became waitresses or worked in other service roles as their numbers increased and as dining out became linked to tourism and leisure. Eating over an open fire was not leisure; dining in a formal setting was. The eating-out mentality combined with the marketing of “sunny California” and a growing tourism industry during the first decades of the 20th century to create, in advertising, a distinctly western New Woman model. This woman did not cook at home; did not have time for a large garden, but enjoyed the outdoor life; and worked for wages outside of the home. She might or might not be married, and she was not necessarily white. If she worked, she was often a waitress, as waiting tables as an employment option for women exploded in the decade after World War I, and it was linked both to women’s expanding options and to the tourism industry. The western New Woman participated in the growing tourism movement, and she even drove her own car. The New Woman could be seen photographed in national parks, in roadside picnic areas, standing on top of dams, and driving in open-topped vehicles. The nation’s first national park, Yellowstone, was created in 1872, and by the end of the 19th century had become a magnet for the nation’s new leisure-oriented middle class. The leisure-oriented middle class began participating in camping trips, such as the seven-day, multifamily excursion undertaken by Hazel Jones and her family in 1916. Traveling across southern Idaho’s high deserts and mountain ranges in a Ford, Oldsmobile, and Studebaker, the Jones, Johannesen, and McFarland

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Woman tourist approaches a geyser at Yellowstone National Park, 1918. (Library of Congress)

families fished, camped, and played games. A total of 16 people, ranging in age from infants to the elderly, made the trek. Hampered by narrow passes, washed-out roads, and flat tires, the trip was unique not so much for its character—such leisure trips were becoming increasingly common, especially in the American West—but for the detailed diary account left by Hazel Jones. A fragment of her diary, recorded on Tuesday, August 22, 1916, reveals the difficulty that accompanied early car camping trips: Arose at 7 a.m. Found a water snake in the tee-pee. Frightened grandma a wee bit. Left at 9 a.m. Climbed a big dug way [term for

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turns dug into the side of steep embankments] and followed the Salmon River on the East side through one of the most beautiful canyons in the U.S. About sixty-five miles of canyon. Went down one dug way that was quite dangerous. Studebaker had another blow out. Killed three grouse.

Jones’s entries consistently refer to both the dangers and the beauty of the journey. Still, although auto camping was considered to be relatively rugged, the advent of the car made camping more accessible for urban, middle-class women. To accompany the rise of the New Woman, western urban areas, particularly Southern California and Seattle, Washington, developed uniquely western architectural styles reflective of changing gender roles and ideas about nature and the outdoors. Like its competitor, the Sears, Roebuck, and Company, Pacific Ready-Cut Homes sold house kits to middle-class buyers. But in California a unique twist on the kit home developed as architects merged California’s sunny appeal with the outdoors, leisure, and the New Woman. The simple cottage, or vernacular bungalow, first appeared in the American South as an alternative to the large imposing urban structures of the Georgian and Victorian eras. Southern bungalows took advantage of the outdoors and regulated breezeways to control humidity and temperature. By the turn of the 20th century, the simple bungalow had gained in appeal as a reaction against the dark heaviness of 19th-century architecture. Large, imposing Victorian houses with intricate detailing began to fall out of fashion as a new lifestyle aesthetic emerged. Two- and three-story Victorians would continue to be built by the moneyed mining classes into the 20th century, but in California’s new neighborhoods surrounding Los Angeles—Pasadena, for example—the bungalow style in the new Arts and Crafts tradition embraced simplicity and nature. It also challenged traditional gender roles that required women to spend a significant amount of time managing household help, scrubbing laundry, tending Victorian gardens, and sweeping extensive porches and balconies. Bungalows were often one- or two-story houses with single porches and simple lines. They blended with the outdoors, took in the sunlight, and were surrounded by small gardens and one or two fruit trees. Many of the Sears catalog houses were bungalows, although large Victorian

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house plans were available as well. In California, a particular style of bungalow lifestyle took hold. The state’s bungalows represented the emergence of sunny California, a construct reflecting new views of “nature,” gender, and women’s authority (see Chapter Seven).

JULIA MORGAN Born in San Francisco in 1872, to parents dependent on the wax and wane of the mining industry, Julia Morgan grew up surrounded by financial success and insecurity. Morgan attended secondary school in Oakland, California, and was part of a growing generation of college-educated women at the turn of the 20th century. She procured her degree in civil engineering, still a male-dominated field more than 100 years later, at the University of California at Berkeley in 1894. At Berkeley she met Bernard Maybeck, who had recently become California’s first professor of architecture. Maybeck became a major figure in the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century. Maybeck’s and Morgan’s careers would follow parallel tracks, each buttressing the other through their influence and associations, though Morgan would remain virtually unknown by comparison. At Maybeck’s urging, Morgan took the unconventional step of applying to the prominent Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where her application was initially denied because she was a woman. Two years passed before the school permitted Morgan entrée, but she ultimately became the first woman to graduate with a degree in architecture from the prestigious establishment. After graduation, Morgan returned to San Francisco, where she opened her own architectural firm in 1904. One of her first projects was the design of the North Star House in Grass Valley, California, the home of Arthur DeWitt and Mary Hallock Foote (see Chapter Five for more on Mary Hallock Foote). A 25-room stone house, the North Star House, is currently under restoration by the North Star Foundation and is an early example of California Arts and Crafts style. Morgan designed single-family bungalows, churches, schools, and local buildings. Although the individual styles of her buildings varied, she consistently worked with local rock, California redwood shingles, and earthy Arts and Crafts attributes, and her

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portfolio represents her status as an innovator of the California Arts and Crafts movement. The furious building period that followed San Francisco’s devastating 1906 earthquake fueled Morgan’s private practice. She became the favored architect for many women’s organizations, including sororities, women’s colleges, and community groups. One of the most significant commissions came from the YWCA, for which she designed the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California, in addition to a series of other YWCA buildings in California, Utah, and Hawaii. In 1919, Morgan became the architect for William Randolph Hearst’s enormous ranch, San Simeon, in central California, which he had recently inherited from his late mother, who had died in the 1918 flu epidemic. Morgan’s classical training and California style combined to create magnificent structures for Hearst’s properties for the next 30 years. Despite building downturns during the Great Depression and World War II, Morgan also continued to design structures through her San Francisco practice. She died in 1957, the creator of more than 700 structures. Currently, the scholarship on the origins of Arts and Crafts design emphasizes the influence of male innovators, as in the example of T. J. Jackson Lears’s book, No Place of Grace (1981), which focused almost entirely on the contributions of male artists to the movement. Morgan’s status as a pioneer in California’s Arts and Crafts movement and her role in shaping national design trends cry out for scholarly attention and analysis.

CONCLUSION Amid dramatically changing gender roles, rapid urbanization, and the transformations wrought by technology, the vast majority of western women continued to work as they always had done: tend children, wash dirty laundry, feed livestock, gather roots and berries, prepare meals, and make choices for the household and its organization. Traditional tasks became increasingly difficult for Native American women during this time period, and the results of the Dawes Act further limited Indian women’s production. On reservations, however, women made decisions

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about ordering materials for households, just as women outside reservations made choices about domestic purchases. Women in western places exercised their votes, and new research suggests that they used the franchise to fight for national suffrage. Women in the West also introduced a new kind of house during this period—a modified bungalow that fit the western lifestyle, particularly in California, where living was more casual and the outdoors could be brought inside. Technology expanded the opportunities for women’s mobility, and the nation’s New Woman was increasingly linked to leisure, sport, and outdoor activities in western places. At the same time, the West’s New Woman was dependent on working-class women—immigrants from Asia and Mexico in particular—to support her way of life. In the West, the New Woman walked on the backs of women of color. During this time, too, women and men in the American West worked to build communities and support reform efforts. Reform efforts often presented only the elite perspective of what could and should be accomplished, leading to the imposition of white Protestant ideals onto immigrant and Indian populations. Indeed, these years were marked by a growing division in the West between those who had access to resources—including water—and those who were increasingly marginalized. Those divisions would become more marked after 1920, as depression and war altered the social, gendered, and geographic landscapes of the American West.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY The traditional periodization of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in U.S. history often divides the Progressive Era, a reform-minded period during the first several decades of the 20th century, from the decades of the late 19th century. The phrase “Gilded Age,” first introduced by Mark Twain in a satirical book about corruption during the Ulysses Grant presidential administration, is now commonly used to describe the latter decades of the 19th century. The years between 1877 and 1900 were characterized by the “gild” of industrial expansion and wealth, but they rested on an underbelly of terrible poverty and suffering in America’s working-class neighborhoods. These classifications mask the dramatic changes taking place within the American West between 1870 and 1920, a period marked in the West and elsewhere by women’s activism. Even textbooks that treat this period as a unit fail to address the significant transfor-

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mation of the American West, except to touch on broad themes of settlement and wars with Native American tribes. A recent U.S. history survey textbook divides the period between 1877 and 1914 into five chapters; the American West appears in only one, a chapter entitled “The American West.” This common practice regionalizes and marginalizes the experience of Americans in two-thirds of the geographic area of the United States, and it relegates women in the vast western region to a few sentences about the heavy workload of homestead wives. A periodization that reflects the connections during 1877–1920 is more reflective of the changes occurring within western states and territories; using gender to connect these years provides a unifying theme for often disparate topics. Helpful general studies of this period include Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877–1919 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987); Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978); and Charles W. Calhoun, editor, The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1996). T. J. Jackson Lears’s now classic work, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1929 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), argued that the antimodern movement subsumed important tensions in American society that led to the revitalization of conservative values. “By the turn of the century the conflicts in the domestic ideal had produced a vast literature of complaint, not only from male moralists worried about ‘race suicide’ but from ‘New Women’ for whom the bourgeois house was a stifling prison,” Lears wrote. “The crisis of cultural authority provoked craft leaders as well as other social critics to reassert the values enshrined in the domestic ideal” (74). The simple domestic ideology was reflected in women’s reform movements and attempts to solve the “Indian question.” I have also used Carlos A. Schwantes, The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989) in this chapter and elsewhere for general reference. Rose Stremlau discussed non-Native views of the Indian family and the role of women in the Indian reform movement in “‘To Domesticate and Civilize Wild Indians’: Allotment and the Campaign to Reform Indian Families, 1875–1887,” Journal of Family History, Volume 30, Number 3 (July 2005): 265–286. See also Valerie S. Mathes, “Nineteenth-Century Women and Reform: The Women’s National Indian Association,” American Indian Quarterly, Volume 14, Issue 1 (Winter 1990): 1–18. Siobhan Senior’s book Voices of American Indian Assimilation and Resistance: Helen Hunt Jackson, Sarah Winnemucca, and Victoria Howard (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001) explores the ways in which non-Indian women used writing about Indian reform to advance assimilation and expand the white women’s literary voice. Senior also suggests a new interpretation of Helen Hunt Jackson’s work. Jackson, according to

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Senior, was part of a complex system of female protest that possessed a “twopart agenda: Christianizing the Indian woman and legitimizing the white woman” (60–61). Another female activist and ethnographer, Alice Fletcher, worked among the Nez Perce Tribe. Fletcher was one of the main voices for allotment and assimilation. For more on Fletcher, see E. Jane Gay, With the Nez Perces: Alice Fletcher in the Field, 1889–92 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981). For an overview of federal Indian policy and a broad interpretation of the Dawes Act, see the quintessential work in the field, Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father, two volumes or abridged edition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984, 1986). Quotations are from the abridged edition. For more on the Ghost Dance, see Gregory E. Smoak, Ghost Dances and Identity: Prophetic Religion and American Indian Ethnogenesis in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006). An extensive literature exists for women’s suffrage generally, but by comparison little has been written about women’s suffrage in the American West. For a full-length study, see Beverly Beeton, Women Vote in the West: The Woman Suffrage Movement, 1869–1896 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1986). The most recent study is that of Rebecca J. Mead, How the Vote Was Won: Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868–1914 (New York: New York University Press, 2004). The Pacific Northwest suffrage movement is detailed in Patricia Voeller Horner, “May Arkwright Hutton: Suffragist and Politician,” and Lauren Kessler, “The Fight for Woman Suffrage and the Oregon Press,” both in Karen J. Blair, editor, Women in Pacific Northwest History: An Anthology (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 25–42, 43–58, respectively. For more on the Texas suffrage movement, see the “Votes For Women” exhibit at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission Web site, located at www.tsl.state.tx.us/ exhibits/suffrage/comesofage/page4.html. Catharine Beecher’s books on domesticity were hugely influential. Oregon Trail travelers carried the references across the plains, and they are still used as models for living museums and exhibit design. Between 1841 and 1880, Beecher published A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School (Boston: Thomas H. Webb & Co., 1841); Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book: Designed as a Supplement to Her Treatise on Domestic Economy (New York: Harper, 1846); The American Woman’s Home, or Principles of Domestic Science, with coauthor Harriet Beecher Stowe (New York: J. B. Ford & Co., 1869); and The New Housekeeper’s Manual: Embracing a New Revised Edition of the American Woman’s Home; or, Principles of Domestic Science, Being a Guide to Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes (New York: J. B. Ford & Co., 1873). The Scribner’s article is quoted in Laura L. Behling, “‘The Woman at the Wheel’: Marketing Ideal Womanhood, 1915–1934,” Journal of American Culture, Volume 20, Issue 3 (1997): 13–30. For analyses of women, gender, rail-

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roads, community, and domesticity, see Kelly Hannan, “The Non-Partisan League in Alberta and North Dakota: A Comparison,” Alberta History, Volume 52, Issue 1 (2004): 13–23; Paul Michel Taillon, “‘What We Want is Good, Sober Men’: Masculinity, Respectability, and Temperance in the Railroad Brotherhoods, 1870–1910,” Journal of Social History, Volume 36, Issue 2 (2002): 319–338; Amy G. Richter, Home on the Rails: Women, the Railroad, and the Rise of Public Domesticity, Linda Kerber and Thadious Davis, series editors, Gender and American Culture series (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). For more on women’s travel, leisure, and outdoor activity, see Glenda Riley, Women and Nature: Saving the “Wild” West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). For more on Sears houses, see L. Wayne Hicks, “The House Is in the Mail,” American History, Volume 35, Issue 1 (April 2000): 38–43, and Rosemary Thornton, The Houses that Sears Built (Alton, IL: Gentle Beam Publications, 2002). Thornton’s book is considered the essential reference for Sears houses and their locations throughout the United States. See also Barbara J. Howe, Dolores A. Fleming, Emory L. Kemp, and Ruth Ann Overbeck, Houses and Homes: Exploring Their History (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1989); Dennis A. Andersen and Katheryn H. Krafft, “Plan and Pattern Books: Shaping Early Seattle Architecture,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 85, Number 4 (1994): 150–158; and Janet Ore, The Seattle Bungalow: People And Houses, 1900–1940 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006). Pasquala Esparza’s story is taken from Vicki Ruiz’s From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998), 11–12, which is still the most useful and accessible synthesis of modern Mexican American women’s history. For a synthesis of the themes of Native American women’s history, consult Ramona Ford, “Native American Women: Changing Statuses, Changing Interpretations,” in Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage, Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 42–68. Evelyn Nakano Glenn’s article “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor,” Signs, Volume 18, Number 1 (1992): 1–43, explored the lives of working women across generations in the American South, Southwest, and in California. Rosalinda Méndez González’s “Distinctions in Western Women’s Experience: Ethnicity, Class, and Social Change,” in Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson, editors, The Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 237–251, was an early attempt to frame the questions inherent in a more pluralistic, balanced, gendered, and class-conscious history of the American West, one that included women of all ethnicities, backgrounds, and influences. González called for historians of the American West to view history “through the eyes of the majority of women, the poor and laboring classes.” Only in this way, González, argued, could the field

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move beyond the entrenched pattern of elite bias in historical writing. Elites view their world as the “standard and assume that all society exists, or should exist, in their image” (González, “Distinctions in Western Women’s Experience, 240). The classic analysis of women cotton pickers, and one of the earliest historical works to devote itself to women’s history, is Ruth Allen’s The Labor of Women in the Production of Cotton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1931). Mary Lee Spence explored the lives of western women waitresses in “Waitresses in the Trans-Mississippi West: ‘Pretty Waiter Girls,’ Harvey Girls, and Union Maids,” in Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson, The Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 219–234. Joan Jensen’s classic monograph on rural women, work, and farm family income is With These Hands: Women Working on the Land (New York: McGraw Hill, 1981). For more on the Ludlow Massacre, see Zeese Papanikolas, Buried Unsung: Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991). Papanikolas interviewed the living survivors of the Ludlow tragedy in compiling his carefully researched and detailed account of the event. Hazel Jones’s unique, daily account of the southern Idaho camping trip in 1916 appears in “Diary of a Fishing Trip,” Idaho Yesterdays, Volume 46, Number 1 (Winter 2005): 33–43. Jones included mileage and gas stops in her diary, providing a rare glimpse into rural automobile travel. Sixty-five miles was considered a significant distance to travel in one day, particularly as this group was traversing some of the most rugged terrain in North America. No mention is made of how women dealt with privacy issues, although the diary does address sleeping arrangements. An extensive bibliography exists for Helen Hunt Jackson. One of the most recent volumes is the innovative, geographical study by Dydia DeLyser, Ramona Memories: Tourism and the Shaping of Southern California (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2005). DeLyser argues that the tourist fascination with the places represented in Hunt’s novel Ramona helped to create a geography of Southern California that emphasized the romantic elements of the SpanishMexican past. The classic work on Jackson is Ruth Odell’s Helen Hunt Jackson (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1939). Odell’s account engaged in the debate over the actual California locations of Hunt’s novel Ramona, which contributed to rather than eliminated the rumors. A recent biography is Kate Phillips’s Helen Hunt Jackson: A Literary Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). For more on Jackson and other western women writers of the early 20th century, see Glenda Riley, Women and Nature: Saving the Wild West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Information about Estelle Reel can be found in the archive of the Casper, Wyoming, Star-Tribune: Lori Van Pelt, “Estelle Reel, Forgotten Frontier Politician,” Special to the Star, February 29, 2004. The Star-Tribune online database can be accessed at www.casperstar tribune.net/articles.

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Mari Sandoz’s papers are housed at the University of Nebraska. For more information, consult the online finding aids for Sandoz correspondence at the University of Nebraska Special Collections department, www.unl.edu/libr/libs/ spec/sndzbio.html. See also Mari Sandoz, Old Jules (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1935). An extensive bibliography exists for Willa Cather, whose work is starting to be appreciated for its literary contributions not only to a regional but also to a national canon. For resources and information about Cather and her writing, see The Willa Cather Archive, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, at cather.unl.edu/; James Woodress, Willa Cather: A Literary Life (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989); and Willa Cather, O Pioneers! scholarly edition, Susan J. Rosowski and Charles W. Mignon, editors (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992). Julia Morgan’s story has just begun to be fully articulated within a scholarly framework. A recent article by Karen McNeill, “Julia Morgan: Gender, Architecture, and Professional Style,” Pacific Historical Review, Volume 76, Number 2 (2007): 229–267, is a long-overdue, very welcome addition to Morgan historiography. California Polytechnic State University’s Special Collections unit houses the Julia Morgan Collection. Its finding aid notes that Morgan’s “selfeffacement has sometimes led to a most unfortunate anonymity, as buildings believed to be Morgan structures cannot always be documented today.” See also Harriet Rochlin’s “Designed by Julia Morgan,” Westways, Issue 68, Number 3 (1976): 26–29; 75–76; 80. That Morgan remains virtually unknown outside architecture is attested to by the absence of her name in the index of Simon Winchester’s recent best-selling nonfiction account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, a book that does mention several other architects who were active before and after the earthquake. See Winchester, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005). For more on Morgan, see “Julia Morgan Biography,” Julia Morgan Collection Finding Aid, Special Collections Department, Robert E. Kennedy Library, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California, www.lib.calpoly.edu/specialcollections/architecture/; D. Ketcham, “The Eclectic Style,” Nation, Volume 247, Issue 17 (December 1988): 614–616; and the official Web site of the North Star Foundation, www.northstarhouse .org/photos.htm.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

WAR,

DEPRESSION, AND THE CREATION OF THE WEST, 1914–1940 INTRODUCTION The West’s New Woman would be no match, at least in the short term, for the demands of depression, farm decline, and war. Although some women experienced greater freedom and mobility during the first decades of the 20th century (See Chapter Six), by the end of the 1910s a worldwide influenza pandemic and World War I put a hold on Progressive advances. A national Red Scare in the wake of Russia’s 1917 Bolshevik Revolution cast doubt and suspicion on Progressive-minded reform groups, particularly labor unions. Even women’s clubs came under attack as fertile grounds for socialism and communism. As a result, women’s organizations suffered during the 1920s and 1930s. Meanwhile, a newly rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan mobilized westerners to fight immigration, progressive gender roles, and civil rights. The greatest challenge for rural western women during the 1920s and 1930s was simply to put food on the table and maintain a shelter over their children’s heads. Environmental degradation on the Great Plains caused enormous, violent wind storms to sweep across large areas of Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and West Texas. The resulting Dust Bowl prompted thousands of families to flee the dust-ravaged plains for California and Washington, where they hoped to find work as migrants in fruit orchards and fields. Instead, they often found despair in the migrant camps already occupied by thousands of hungry Mexican immigrants. « 219 »

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Changes within the West’s urban centers during the years between the world wars signaled transformations in gender roles and power structures to come. As the irrigated West’s population increased and the Reclamation Service became a federal bureau with an interest in hydroelectric power, there was a growing consciousness about water and the power that came with water rights. The West’s main tourist attractions came into their own during these years, as Americans sought recreational opportunities in their backyards rather than traveling overseas, where World War I and World War II ravaged European destinations. As a result, many western communities turned themselves into Euro-style retreats. The combination of European style and western memory— namely, the “pioneering spirit”—captured the imagination of Americans. Certain pro-business and middle-class, white elements in western towns consciously crafted a new image for the West during this period. To counter racial, ethnic, and western lawlessness stereotypes that were viewed as distasteful to middle-class, white sensibilities, women and men wrote memoirs, participated in imagery associated with world’s fairs, and emphasized cultural participation of elite women in western urban institutions. The West’s politics also solidified during this period, and the West as a region emerged as a political entity, one with a number of female participants.

INFLUENZA AND DISEASE Western women were, of course, not alone in experiencing the worst pandemic of the 20th century. Indeed, the flu epidemic of 1918 may have killed as many as 100 million people worldwide. The actual raw numbers of those who perished in the flu are difficult to ascertain, but even the lowest estimate puts the death toll at 21 million, at a time when the world’s population was around 1.6 billion (compared with 6,605,046,992 in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau). Even the lowest estimate represents a staggering number. If the highest estimate is used, then as many as 10 percent of all young adults living in 1918 and 1919 may have died, as the disease affected people between the ages of 20 and 40 more than any other age group. Thus, young men and women—fathers and mothers of small children—died in the prime of life.

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In this World War I Red Cross poster, the white female nurse is portrayed as a haven of comfort, cleanliness, and calm amid the violence of war. (National Archives)

Western communities reacted to the flu pandemic in a variety of ways. In the windswept, sparsely populated, irrigated settlement communities of Wyoming and Idaho, schools closed, community events were canceled, and residents avoided travel to nearby communities. Their isolation did, in fact, help protect them from the worst of the flu. One of California’s major cities, San Francisco, did more than any other community in the country to confront the flu in a systematic way, and the city did it with women’s labor. Red Cross chapters distributed more than 100,000 protective masks; nurses worked around the clock, staffing the city’s hospitals; and when the schools closed, teachers volunteered to serve as nurses. In the end, San Francisco, like other cities, was unable to avoid the spread of the pandemic. Still, the image of women as nurses, Red Cross volunteers, and comfort for the sick persisted well into the 20th century. The Red Cross woman became a symbol for community solidarity in the face of disease and war. Founded by Clara Barton in

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the 19th century, the organization grew dramatically during World War I and the first years of the 1920s. Women throughout the nation— including the American West—responded to calls by the Red Cross to join the ranks of mothers everywhere to help those who could not help themselves. The organization published posters that extolled the virtues of the world’s mother, the Red Cross nurse, who was always represented as white.

HEALTH, TOURISM, AND THE PLAGUE The way communities responded to epidemic diseases revealed more than medical expertise. Community responses revealed values, belief systems, and cultural attitudes about gender, race, and power. As shown in Chapter Six, many western cities began to try to attract tourists through advertising at the turn of the 20th century. These efforts focused on “sunny California,” the health benefits of a dry climate, and the beauty and purity of the desert. Attracting white, middle-class American women was essential for this tourism movement, for if the women came, they often brought their husbands and children. To extol the virtues of cleanliness; bright, clear skies; and brilliant sandy beaches, real estate organizations, tourist bureaus, and city councils worked to hide the elements of their towns that could be viewed as unsanitary and unhealthy. No other city tried harder to bill itself as a western paradise than did Los Angeles. A town of only a few thousand in the late 19th century, Los Angeles embarked on a major campaign to sell itself as the center of healthful, sunny California, an image with a clear gendered subtext, as Southern California was often portrayed in conjunction with beautiful white women. When bubonic plague struck Los Angeles in 1924, city officials chose to label certain parts of the city as typically dirty and prone to disease. City leaders then used the plague to rid the community of its unwanted elements, namely what they deemed the unsanitary neighborhoods occupied by Hispanic and Asian immigrants. The outbreak was traced to an address in a historically Mexican working-class immigrant neighborhood. Several of the first people to get sick and die during the outbreak came from 742 Clara Street, which would become the epicenter of the city’s effort to eradicate the disease and the unsani-

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tary conditions that contributed to it. Luciana Samarano, a 39-year-old Mexican immigrant woman, lived with her husband and children at the 742 Clara Street address. She became ill in October. By the end of the month, she had died, just after giving birth to a stillborn infant. Her husband and three of her sons died within two weeks of her death. Because her symptoms were initially attributed to heart disease, medical personnel made no special effort to protect others from coming into contact with Luciana’s body or those of her relatives. The disease ripped through the neighborhood surrounding Clara Street, in part because the Mexican neighborhood housed multiple families and extended relatives in single-family dwellings. Tight quarters made it easy for the disease to make its way from person to person. By the time the city’s all-male administration discovered that 18 deaths had been caused by bubonic plague within a Mexican immigrant neighborhood within sight of the downtown core, the disease was on the prowl. The plague itself did not make distinctions based on ethnicity, class, race, or economic status, but the city viewed the disease as inherently connected to poor neighborhoods, immigrant habits, lack of cleanliness, and unsanitary conditions. City officials blamed immigrants, particularly immigrant women, for what city officials believed to be typically poor conditions in immigrant households and neighborhoods. But the city refused to recognize its part in contributing to the poverty of these areas, particularly in its unwillingness to enforce codes and standards that would have protected the immigrant working class from the disease in the first place—the choice not to control the rat population in the city as a whole or the prevalence of neighborhoods on top of, or adjacent to, the city dump. Bubonic plague is carried by rats, and Los Angeles had a rat infestation that crossed neighborhood boundaries and made no distinctions between the city landfill and the country club. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles City Health Department ordered a quarantine of the Mexican district, which housed between 1,800 and 2,500 persons. Eventually, the quarantine spread to other neighborhoods, including working-class Asian immigrant sections of town. In an attempt to sanitize these areas, the health department created squads whose charge it was to poison rats within the quarantined neighborhoods and to

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burn any houses that did not exhibit proper sanitation. This work was done in secrecy, and no effort was made to eradicate the rat population in more affluent neighborhoods. Guards were assigned to neighborhoods to ensure that none of the Mexican immigrant residents left the confines of the net. Although the guards’ orders were clear, they engaged in destructive behavior throughout the two-week quarantine. Guards shot and killed stray and pet cats, dogs, and chickens; they destroyed property; and they looted stores of firewood for their own fires. Rat abatement squads distributed bread laced with sticky-sweet poison throughout the quarantined neighborhoods, without regard for the neighborhoods’ children. Although the 30 people who died of the plague came from the Mexican neighborhoods, the ethnicity connection stemmed from the city’s structural segregation, not from sanitation differences. When the outbreak ended, Los Angeles residents complained that the Mexican quarter had sullied the city’s reputation, and they had a reason to want to eradicate not just rats but “Mexicaness” as well. According to historian William Deverell, “plague simply presented another method by which to enforce isolation of Mexican neighborhoods and Mexican people” (Deverell, “Plague in Los Angeles,” 180).

GENDER, WOMEN’S LABOR, AND WESTERN TOURISM The American West was a study in contradiction during these years. Some of the nation’s poorest women lived in the West’s migrant, mining, and timber camps, while booster organizations sought to sell the West as the epitome of the American Dream. Some women benefited from the burgeoning tourist economy. Native women in the American Southwest and on the Great Plains turned traditional skills—weaving baskets, making pottery, weaving rugs—into craft industries that provided income for their families. African American women from the Jim Crow South found jobs as waitresses, laundresses, and maids in the West’s new resort and hotel communities. Many western women, however, found that discriminatory and demeaning labor practices, as well

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as long-standing racial and gender prejudice, limited their access to this new economy. In some cases, western families were forced out of towns and neighborhoods as new, high-end developments sprang up. This pattern would continue for the rest of the century, and the debate over urban development, immigration, and the working female poor and their children would become more heated. As Americans acquired automobiles (see Chapter Six), tourist attractions in the American West became more accessible. Western locales capitalized on the combination of accessibility and changes in middle-class leisure that accompanied industrial and economic changes between 1920 and 1941, when World War II rations put an end to travel for many. The proliferation of personal transportation—automobiles—meant that women of means had more control over their movements and those of their family and that families could now choose for themselves where to vacation, instead of relying on mass transit options to make those choices for them. Individual car registrations in the United States soared from 6,771,000 in 1919 to 23,122,000 in 1929. At the same time, local railroads connected to the transcontinental railroads opened new areas of the American West to rail travel. Instead of going to Coney Island, for example, a New York family could visit more remote and distant sites, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and California’s sparkling beaches. Such trips often required long road journeys, which offered infinite possibilities for roadside attractions, diners, and motor lodging. In addition to the commercial opportunities inherent in automobile travel, western towns and chambers of commerce embraced car culture as a way to transform the West into a destination paradise. This transformation, as suggested above by Los Angeles’s racially focused efforts to control the plague, involved changing the nation’s view of the West as a wild, lawless, and ethnically unclean place. Middle-class business interests wanted to attract women tourists, as it was believed that if you could attract the woman, the family would follow. Western cities were not the only entities to embrace this gendered view of tourism. The baseball industry also encouraged women to come to games, as they brought their husbands and their children, and therefore

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The Wildshoe family, probably of the Kootenai-Salish tribe, out for a drive in northern Idaho in 1916. Front seat: Phillip Wildshoe, his wife Eugenia and baby Eugenia; middle seat: sons David (Warbonnet) and Vincent; back seat: daughters Rosie and Anne (child) and an unidentified woman. Photograph taken by Frank Palmer. (Library of Congress)

bought popcorn and drinks at the concession stands. Indeed, women as household consumers became the target of the mid-20th-century tourism industry in the American West, where destinations like Sun Valley, Idaho, and Yellowstone National Park created lodging and venues designed to attract women and families. Founded in 1936 by W. Averell Harriman, Sun Valley was modeled after European resorts and equipped with a bevy of restaurants and beautiful lodgings. Harriman was the chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad’s board of directors and viewed the resort as a way to encourage rail traffic for family tourism. Union Pacific Railroad engineers designed the world’s first ski slope chairlifts during the 1930s. The two main hotels at the resort—the Sun Valley Lodge and the Swiss-style Challenger Inn—possessed outdoor, circular heated

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pools, separate bathrooms, and high-end appointments. The Sun Valley Lodge, which still stands, was constructed of poured concrete made to look like rough-sawn wood. The resort became a world-famous destination for winter sports and, through its massive publicity campaign, helped to redefine the rural West as a destination location. Yellowstone had been a tourist destination since its establishment as America’s first national park in 1872, but between 1920 and 1940, car travel into the park exploded. In response to the onslaught of visitors, Yellowstone remodeled its massive log inn in 1927, adding a west wing with 150 guest rooms and 95 bathrooms to the structure. The addition of bathrooms reflected American transitions in taste and privacy while traveling and the increase overall of female travelers who did not feel comfortable sharing bathroom accommodations with nonfamilial men. Other ski resorts, such as Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and Mount Hood, Oregon, attempted to emulate Sun Valley’s romantic allure by imitating Swissstyled buildings and Bavarian ski lodges equipped with huge fireplaces, private baths, and swanky bars. The new resorts hired local white women as waitresses and receptionists and often hired ethnic or immigrant women to clean rooms, work in the laundry room, or wash dishes in the restaurant kitchen. The West also became the center of two of the nation’s fastestgrowing pastimes: motion pictures and gambling. Hollywood Hills, outside Los Angeles, remained a sleepy, isolated community as late as the 1920s. The first movie studios appeared in the 1910s, however, and by the 1930s Hollywood had become the heart of the new motion picture industry (see sidebar). Major movie studios marketed their movies, Hollywood’s star-studded culture, and the dream of Southern California. The Hollywood Hills became synonymous with movie star mansions and the glamorous, leisurely life. From the beginning, many individual stars struggled to maintain the image, including the beautiful actress Vivien Leigh, who won two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her performances in the films Gone with the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1952). Leigh suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety associated with bipolar disorder, and she earned a reputation for erratic behavior on movie sets.

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HATTIE MCDANIEL The new motion picture industry, based in Southern California, was a western-based phenomenon that captured the imagination of the country, and eventually of the world, and it ultimately cemented California’s growing commercial reputation as the western source of sun and leisure. The first movie studio established in what would become Hollywood was founded in 1913, and steadily afterward new studios came to define Hollywood, California, and the film industry. Although ethnic minorities found work in Hollywood in lowerpaying positions and as film extras, the acting, producing, and directing corps was dominated (and continues to be so in 2007) by elite white men. One of the first African American women to break into Hollywood was westerner Hattie McDaniel. Born on June 10, 1895, in Wichita, Kansas, and later raised in Denver, Colorado, McDaniel was the daughter of African American parents from Tennessee who had escaped the post–Civil War South to find a new life in Kansas. Her father, Henry McDaniel, was a former slave who had served in the Civil War for Tennessee’s Twelfth United States Colored Infantry. Injured in the war, Henry sought to improve his family’s fortunes in Kansas and then in Denver. Hattie McDaniel began her show-business career as a teenager when she dropped out of school in Denver to tour with local vaudeville companies and to work with her father’s minstrel show. By the age of 21, McDaniel was a widow and struggling to find work in the entertainment business, which openly discriminated against black actors and actresses. On stage and in early Hollywood, African Americans were usually played by white actors in blackface, and racial slurs were commonly used in scripts and on sets. The climate for African Americans in film worsened with the 1915 release of D. W. Griffith’s monumental epic of the Reconstruction South, Birth of a Nation, in which southern whites are portrayed as victims of northern aggression and black male sexual deviance and violence. The film offered a positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan, which is portrayed as a savior for white femininity. Considered the first feature-length American film, Birth of a Nation was popular with white audiences, though the newly

War, Depression, and the Creation of the West, 1914–1940 formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People lobbied against it and unsuccessfully tried to suppress it. Throughout the 1920s McDaniel found work in the theater, most often with the African American–owned Theatrical Owners Booking Association. McDaniel was touring the country playing Queenie in the production Show Boat when the Depression forced her company to shut down. In 1931, she joined several siblings in Southern California, at least one of whom had found work as a radio show host. Using her brother’s radio contacts and, eventually, the success of her own radio show, McDaniel began appearing in films and eventually made appearances in more than 300 films, though she received credit for appearing in 90. The roles she played were often subservient to whites, and the scripts were often racist. When criticized for playing the role of a black maid, McDaniel responded by observing that she would rather play a maid than be one; indeed, she had throughout her career worked as a domestic to supplement her income. In 1940, McDaniel’s commanding talent onscreen was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Academy Awards presentations, held at Hollywood’s Ambassador Hotel. McDaniel won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in the epic film Gone with the Wind, a movie also criticized for its denigration of African Americans and romanticization of the Antebellum South. McDaniel played the lovable domestic servant of the film’s lead female character, Scarlett O’Hara, played by Vivien Leigh. McDaniel became the first African American to be nominated and then to win an Academy Award. Despite the Academy’s recognition of McDaniel’s talent, Coconut Grove Room and Academy officials forced her to view the award ceremony from the back of the ballroom. McDaniel died of breast cancer at the age of 57 on October 26, 1952. She requested that her body be interred in the Hollywood Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard, along with her friends and fellow movie stars, but after her death the owner of the cemetery barred burial because of McDaniel’s race. Instead, she was buried at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. In 2006, McDaniel was honored on a postage stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

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Related to Hollywood’s rise was the emergence of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a destination playland for adults. Previously a Mormon settlement and a railroad hamlet, Las Vegas began to emerge as a gaming mecca when California investor Thomas Hull built the first casino resort, El Rancho, on what would become the Las Vegas Strip. El Rancho’s successful marketing of beautiful showgirls, swimming pools, and guest rooms amid lush greenery sparked a flurry of construction projects, and in 1947 the Flamingo resort and casino, owned by Bugsy Siegel, opened. Las Vegas became known for its nightclubs, topless revues, and legalized gambling and prostitution. The Vegas economy depended—and continues to depend—on young women employees who worked as dance girls, waitresses in short skirts, maids in hotels, or restaurant workers. Dance girls were all white, as only white women were considered to exude the kind of glamorous sexuality requisite of Las Vegas. Although they enjoyed some of the privileges of being white, they also endured long hours, sometimes abusive bosses, and frequent, unwelcome sexual advances from guests. Some resorted to prostitution when they lost more lucrative positions as showgirls because of advancing age or personality conflicts. African American women from the rural South and Midwest found opportunity through the back door of resort casinos in Las Vegas and elsewhere that catered exclusively to white guests. Black women worked as dishwashers, maids, bathroom attendants, and laundresses. Compared with work in the rural South, the wage scale and working conditions in Vegas and other western resorts were appealing. Lucille Bryant, a Vegas employee who migrated from Tallulah, Louisiana, found that “eight dollars a day and working in the shade” was preferable to the five dollars per week she had received cooking, caring for children, doing laundry, and cleaning for wealthy white Tallulah families (quoted in Claytee D. White, “‘Eight Dollars a Day and Working in the Shade,’” 276). The African American population of Las Vegas soared from 178 in 1940 to more than 16,000 by 1955; most immigrants came from Arkansas and Louisiana. Nearly all African American newcomers resided in the Westside neighborhood, which became almost exclusively black during these years. Although their Las Vegas Strip opportunities may have seemed bright compared with cotton picking or domestic labor in the South,

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housing represented a serious problem. The population boom meant that black women who cleaned beautifully appointed hotel rooms by day slept in makeshift tents and shacks by night. The shacks gave way to more permanent structures and to African American–owned businesses as the population stabilized. Las Vegas’s employment climate remained relatively stable throughout the 1930s and 1940s and then expanded for black women as more resorts and casinos were built. The West’s world fairs during this era also reflected the desire to capitalize on tourist-driven commercial enterprise, boosterism, and new definitions of the western woman. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, dime novels, and other mass-produced images of western life had depicted and often deified the female icon of westward expansion, the pioneer mother. But as tourism, expanding populations, and new industry transformed the American West, the image of the western woman, especially in relation to “sunny California,” was redefined. Nowhere was this redefinition more apparent than in the context of San Diego’s world fairs, the Panama-California Exposition (1915–1916) and the California-Pacific International Exposition (1935–1936), held in the midst of the Great Depression. Both fairs remade the California past, ignoring the vicious violence against the state’s Native people and recreating a place for its Spanish heritage, now viewed as a noble, European predecessor to American Southwest culture. Both fairs reconstructed gender as well. The Panama-California’s Painted Desert exhibit, the picturesque, stylistic landscape of contrived pueblo structures and Indian families that adjoined the more formal fairgrounds, suggested to fairgoers that the state’s Native people were exotic oddities, outside the gates of true civilization. Moreover, the fair’s organizers neutralized the powerful role played by California and southwestern tribal women, as the tribal inhabitants of the Painted Desert were portrayed as living together in conjunction with nature and without proscribed gender roles. Pueblo men from San Ildefonso built the Painted Desert pueblo structures, but traditionally such work would have been done by women. The fair rightly highlighted the tremendous pottery art produced by southwestern tribes, but it did not give direct credit to the women artists whose work was on display. Moreover, the Santa Fe Railway, which hired Pueblo, Navajo, and Jicarilla Apache families to live at the Painted Desert and to act like Indians, paid

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Zuni women make pottery below a drying platform at the Painted Desert exhibit at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, 1915–1916. Fair organizers paid Indian people to participate in the “authentic” exhibit. (Library of Congress)

the $102 per month salary to male heads of households (janitors at the fair were paid $120 per month). Without female knowledge of cultural practices, there could have been no Painted Desert, however accurate or inaccurate the actual portrayal was. A quarter of a decade later, San Diego’s world fair affirmed California’s status as a sunny haven of alternative lifestyles, the center of a burgeoning agricultural empire, and the location of new definitions of feminine freedom. The 1935–1936 fair featured a nudist venue entitled “Zorro’s Garden,” where young, nude women ate fruit, played games, and talked with one another amidst a verdant garden landscape of flowing water and greenery. The display represented an attempt by fair organizers to encapsulate social changes in lifestyle that eschewed the pale skin and restrictive mores of Victorian standards of female behavior. By the 1920s and 1930s, bronzed or tanned skin had become a symbol of wealth and leisure for the well-traveled upper and middle classes in the

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United States and Europe. The frolicking, tanned women of Zorro’s Garden supposedly promoted greater connection to nature, healthful exercise, and a rejection of capitalist materialism. Fair organizers recognized how scandalous their display might appear to middle-class visitors, so they tempered it with the presence of educated, scientific men who supported the venue’s call for medical healthfulness. The presence of the older, educated men diminished whatever cultural power the nudist women commanded and, as fair historian Matthew F. Bokovoy has argued, revealed that in spite of recent advances in women’s rights, mainstream American men in the 1930s “still viewed women as property and elusive sexual objects” (Bokovoy, San Diego World’s Fairs, 208). In the end, the display appeared frivolous and demeaning to many visitors, who viewed its lighthearted rejection of the nation’s economic and social structures as disrespectful of hardworking, unemployed American men struggling during the Depression to feed their families. Nearly all of the fair’s displays, and the message of the fair itself, highlighted the dramatic differences between those who could afford to go to San Diego to the fair and those whose lives drained away in Southern California’s orchards, migrant camps, and fruit canneries. More than any other single fair display, Zorro’s Garden epitomized the discrepancy between leisure and work, rich and poor, and acceptable behavior for men and women in Depression-era California and the New West.

CREATING THE WEST Women’s writings and publications were integral to creating, re-creating, and packaging the West as a commodity and destination during the early 20th century. Many triumphant pioneer memoirs and reminiscences spoke of life on the Oregon and California trails, the gold rush, and the challenges of western pioneer life. Written by educated, white women, these recollections served to create a mythic past grounded in actual memory. Pioneer women recast their role, particularly as they became older, as a difficult but noble calling, essential to the survival of the nation. Educated women who moved west were part of the first generation of women in the United States to receive college degrees and/or higher educational instruction. Those who migrated to the west or became educated in the new colleges created in the American West—like the

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University of Idaho in 1889—found that they benefited from the fluidity of new institutions in the West. In newly settled towns, businesses and institutions had not yet established the rigid protocols or hierarchies in place in more established centers. White women seeking entrée into academic careers in anthropology, history, or political science often used the history of American Indians in the West to make points about their own culture and to conquer western space with feminist literary pursuits. Educated women found positions in state historical societies, state history museums, teaching colleges, and state libraries. Women public intellectuals were very active at the regional and state levels during the early 20th century, and it is due to their efforts that regional sources exist in state and local archives throughout the American West. Oregon pioneer Eva Emery Dye, an Oberlin (Ohio) College graduate, poet, and prominent suffrage activist, wrote an early fictional account of the Lewis and Clark expedition and Sacagawea, and in doing so helped to launch the genre of Pacific Northwest historical fiction. Dye’s meticulous research for the novel led to information that helped Reuben Gold Thwaites uncover the previously unknown Lewis and Clark journals in 1903, an accomplishment for which she has never received credit. In her book The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark (1902), Dye romanticized the journey, portraying Lewis and Clark as conquering heroes and Sacagawea as a domesticating, civilizing influence on the trail. The book’s subject matter caught hold with the reading public. It was reviewed by newspapers throughout the nation, including the New York Times, and became required reading in classrooms throughout the Pacific Northwest. Dye’s book, which was in large part responsible for the initial construction of the Sacagawea mythology (see Chapter One), made her an instant expert on Pacific Northwest and Lewis and Clark history. Dye’s work inspired the creation of the Sacajawea Statue Association, a women’s club that raised money to erect a statue of Sacagawea as a guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition at the 1905 Portland Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. The statue club grew out of the Oregon women’s club movement, which, in addition to Eva Emery Dye, included the membership of prominent women’s suffrage activist Abigail Scott Duniway. Dye’s writings and activities, like those of Duniway and other women activists,

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represented the merger of political and cultural interests. Dye’s use of Sacagawea to promote women and suffrage converted her, in the context of Dye’s writings, from a Native woman to a stateless symbol of white womanhood and expansion. The Sacagawea represented in Dye’s book and the Centennial Exposition statue had no people and no home of her own, yet she came to epitomize the creation of home in the West for white women. Another white, educated pioneer woman wrote about Sacagawea in the context of non-Indian expansion. When college graduate and Wyoming pioneer Grace Raymond Hebard took a job with the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 1891, she became simultaneously the secretary for, and member of, the board of trustees of the college. This odd arrangement was made possible by the fact that the college’s doors had only been open since 1887 and that Wyoming had been a state for only one year. Hebard embraced the ambiguities and opportunities her new position presented. She served as de facto dean of women students, applied herself to myriad clerical tasks, and volunteered her services in building the university library virtually from nothing. Hebard became known for her ability to wield both secretarial- and board-level power, and some of her male colleagues resented her abilities. Hebard was an advocate for women’s suffrage and the Americanization movement, and her literary pursuits extended beyond the library to writing projects. Her best-known historical work is a 1933 biography entitled Sacajawea, an account that built on the growing reputation of the Shoshone Indian woman and a tradition of white women’s efforts to define and shape western culture. Hebard’s appropriated Sacajawea was a pillar of female strength, a symbol of western feminism. Hebard reshaped the story of the Shoshone woman to create a worthy and feminist past for Wyoming. Hebard’s placement of Sacagawea in Wyoming and her argument that the woman lived into the 1880s were acts of literary conquest and imperialism that retain their divisive qualities for Native people and scholars today. As Hebard’s experience suggests, new state-level institutions in the American West offered opportunities for educated women interested in regional history. Muriel Wright served as editor of the Oklahoma State Historical Society’s historical journal, Chronicles of Oklahoma, for 30

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years. Wright’s interest in family lineage, which she traced back several centuries on both sides, was connected to her vision of state and regional history. The merger of genealogy and history, of tying the local western story to a national story of Pilgrims and progress, became hallmarks of female-dominated state historical societies in the early 20th century. Wright’s mother and grandmother were white, educated, Protestant missionaries who married Choctaw Indian men. As Patricia Loughlin has pointed out, Wright used her social upbringing and Native ancestry to her benefit. Although she made a living editing the state’s history, she was not above donning Plains Indian attire to look the part of a “real” Indian in the eyes of eastern whites who equated Indianness with tribes like the Cheyenne and the Sioux, not the Choctaw. Wright’s acute interest in promoting the status of her white and Indian relatives led to an editorial emphasis on positive themes. Pioneering perseverance, Native American accomplishment, and the grandeur of Oklahoma underscored the articles in the journal. Her work on tribal peoples followed the “great man” theory by emphasizing the contributions of Choctaw tribal leaders, and her positive brand of history tended to obscure the sometimes brutal Oklahoma past. Still, as her biographer states, “Wright educated her audience on Indian identity and challenged stereotypes of Indianness in her public role” at the state historical society (Loughlin, Hidden Treasures of the American West, 32). While Hebard and Wright worked to find a place for Wyoming and Oklahoma in the nation’s frontier past, Angie Debo wrote American Indians into the story of the U.S. past, and did so as one of the nation’s first female doctoral-level professional historians of the western region. Debo’s parents, Edwin and Leno Debo, were Kansas homesteaders whose frequent moves were representative of the mobility of late 19thcentury farm families in the Midwest and West. The family made money speculating on the Kansas railroad, sold their farm for a profit, and moved to Oklahoma Territory in 1897, when Angie Debo was seven years old. After struggling to receive an adequate education in the Oklahoma frontier school system and teaching high school, Angie Debo enrolled in the University of Oklahoma. She graduated with a degree in history in 1918, and then she went on to attend the University of Chicago, where she received a master’s degree. She later returned to

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the University of Oklahoma to complete her doctoral degree. Despite her training in one of the nation’s top history PhD programs, gender discrimination kept Debo from obtaining a university faculty position. Only 131 women received a doctoral degree in history in the United States between 1920 and 1930. The vast majority of these graduates became independent scholars, took jobs at teaching colleges, or found work in libraries or museums. Debo’s PhD dissertation on the Choctaw tribe led to the publication of her first book, The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic, which won the American Historical Association’s coveted John H. Dunning Prize for the most important contribution to American history in 1934. Debo’s work countered the Turnerian tradition within which she had been trained, and her inclusion of anthropological studies made her book the first ethnohistorical account of American Indians. Debo was deeply critical of American Indian policy, and her narratives—unlike those of Hebard and Wright—did not present the settlement of the West as a progressive achievement. As her biographers have noted, Debo foreshadowed the New Western History movement more than 50 years before Patricia Nelson Limerick’s publication of Legacy of Conquest (see Chapter One). Debo continued to be a prolific scholar, but she never achieved a tenure-track appointment as a history faculty member. Very rarely did institutions of higher learning hire female faculty, a reality that did not begin to change until the 1970s. Because women scholars were so often writing from outside the academy, and because they lacked graduate students to continue their intellectual legacy, women’s local and regional scholarly production was denigrated within the profession as provincial or nonacademic. The academy’s refusal to hire women denied them access to the resources that might have supported their work. When educated women achieved intellectual success outside the academy, the profession systematically marginalized local and regional history. The feminization of regional history, and the tendency of local historical societies to be controlled by amateur historians with booster agendas, created a rift between the male, professional world of university history and the female, nonprofessional world of state and local history. The result was the marginalization of women scholars and women’s history.

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ANTI-IMMIGRANT SENTIMENT, RACISM, AND THE WKKK Consciousness about transforming the West into a destination had a flip side, as many chambers of commerce viewed diversity and immigration as detrimental to their community’s image. The Los Angeles plague outbreak of 1924 was just one example of the anti-immigrant, antiracial sentiment exhibited by western local and state officials during the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, the 1920s–1940s American West witnessed intense antiimmigrant and antiblack racial sentiment. Specific circumstances varied from place to place. In Las Vegas, Nevada, for instance, casino-resort owners chose to segregate their establishments based on the idea that they were catering to large numbers of white southerners who would be unaccustomed to, or outright offended by, desegregated dining and entertainment spaces. Thus, the hotels where black women worked and African American jazz musicians performed barred them from sitting in the showroom or dinner theaters as guests. African American women cleaned resort rooms, but they could not sleep there. Casinos and restaurants barred black customers, but they hired black workers to clean. These western Jim Crow practices created a separate black neighborhood—Jackson Street—in Las Vegas, where beauty shops, restaurants, and clothing stores catered to the growing African American population. Whites visiting beautiful casinos often did not see a person of color throughout their entire stay, although the entire infrastructure of Vegas was dependent on African American and immigrant women’s labor. Casino owners tried to minimize, as much as possible, contact with the working underclass of Las Vegas to preserve the town’s image of leisure and fast living. Elsewhere in the West, changing demographics, economic challenges, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) contributed to strong prejudices and nativist politics. The second incarnation of the KKK emerged in the 1910s and rose to popularity with some middle-class white Americans throughout the United States, not just in the American South. The 1920s KKK was anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and anti–Native American in addition to its traditional anti–African American position. The Klan also opposed what it viewed as an attack on the traditional white American family, and it viewed a reaffirmation of 19th-century gender roles as

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central to its work. White women were supposed to stay home and be protected from the vagaries of commerce and politics; in exchange for this protection they were to obey their husbands. Despite its strong gendered message, the 1920s rise of the KKK also witnessed the surfacing of the women’s auxiliary organization—Women of the KKK (WKKK)—and in some areas women became very active members of WKKK branches. The WKKK used the rhetoric of the white American mother to recruit affluent women in the West. A WKKK recruitment poster in Washington State addressed “the American Women of Washington” and asked, “Are you interested in the welfare of our Nation? As an enfranchised woman are you interested in Better Government? Do you not wish for the protection of Pure Womanhood? Shall we uphold the sanctity of the American Home? Should we not interest ourselves in Better Education for our children? Do we not want American teachers in our American schools?” and ended with the declaration that “The duty of the American Mother is greater than ever before” (quoted in Kathleen Blee, “Women in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan Movement,” 58–59). By the end of the 1920s, more than 1 million women had become members of the WKKK organization. In a 1928 parade in Washington, D.C., women Klan members marched alongside male Klansmen. Overall, the organization, which presented itself as a community-service group, boasted more than 4 million paying members. The 1920s Klan enjoyed particular popularity in anti-immigrant strongholds, including the upper Midwest, especially Indiana, and in the Pacific Northwest. A pro-Klan lecture presented at Portland’s Municipal Auditorium in 1921 drew perhaps as many as 6,000 people. The speech’s author, the Reverend Reuben H. Sawyer, was a pastor at Portland’s East Side Christian Church and a popular KKK speaker. Sawyer’s efforts were a success in a state that was 90 percent white. Klan organizers in Oregon and throughout the Pacific Northwest turned to anti-Semitic and anti-Asian rhetoric to attract adherents. In Oregon, the women’s auxiliary used the name “Ladies of the Invisible Empire.” By 1922, more than 14,000 men and an unknown number of women had joined the KKK in Oregon. Arguing that schools were the source of “Americanism” training, these activists went after private and parochial schools. Because KKK “klaverns,” as the local branches were called, believed women had the

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Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) members march in a 1928 parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. (National Archives)

duty to raise American citizens, women took a significant role in the anti–parochial school movement in Oregon. The KKK, in conjunction with groups like the Masons and the Elks, were able to get an initiative on the Oregon ballot in 1922 that mandated public school attendance. The measure passed by a margin of 11,000 votes, and Oregon became the first state to outlaw private and parochial schools. In 1925, the Supreme Court ruled in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that the anti–parochial school law was unconstitutional. The Rocky Mountain states also experienced significant Klan activity. Klansmen in Wyoming were partially responsible for the political defeat of the nation’s first female governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, in her 1926 reelection campaign (see sidebar). Southern Idaho’s irrigated settlement communities became targets for KKK recruitment activity after World War I, and KKK meetings and rallies were held in Idaho cities with significant Mexican immigrant populations, including Caldwell, Nampa, Twin Falls, and Burley.

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NELLIE TAYLOE ROSS When kindergarten teacher Nellie Davis Tayloe married William B. Ross in 1902, she must have had little notion that she would become the nation’s first female elected executive. It was William Ross who initially became involved in Wyoming politics. Nellie Tayloe Ross gave birth to four children—all boys and one set of twins—and settled into life at home, a role consistent with expectations of her class and gender at the turn of the 20th century. But Tayloe Ross inhabited a state where women had exercised the vote since the territorial period (1869—see Chapter Six), and she lived in an era of rapidly changing perspectives of gender and gendered roles. William B. Ross won the gubernatorial election of 1922, and the family moved into the Wyoming Governor’s Mansion in 1923. By that time, the Ross twins were attending the University of Wyoming, and only one child remained at home. A decade earlier, the couple had tragically lost their son Alfred at one year of age. Indeed, Tayloe Ross’s life would be marked by sudden death. Governor William Ross contracted appendicitis while in office and died suddenly after undergoing surgery. A widow in the Governor’s Mansion, Tayloe Ross took the advice of friends and advisers and chose to run for the governorship in 1924. Due at least in part to what some historians have labeled the “sympathy factor,” and to Tayloe Ross’s vow to sustain her husband’s agendas and policies, she won in a landslide victory. Although many historians have emphasized that while in office Tayloe Ross continued the policies of her husband, she faced an economic and social climate unique to her administration. The end of World War I and the increased costs associated with agriculture, in addition to collapsing markets overseas, contributed to a depression in Wyoming that lasted for 20 years. Economic hard times on Wyoming’s Carey Act (1894) and Reclamation Act (1902) projects prompted Tayloe Ross to become a specialist on water rights and appropriations. Other foci of Tayloe Ross’s tenure included law and order initiatives. Her administration cracked down on two notable county sheriffs who engaged in vice and petty crimes. She also instituted a zero-tolerance policy for prize fighting, which was then illegal in Wyoming. Tayloe Ross ran for office again in

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Nellie Tayloe Ross served Wyoming from 1925 to 1927 as the nation’s first elected woman governor. (Library of Congress)

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1926 but was defeated through a combination of proRepublican machinations, KKK involvement, and Republican concern that a Democratic governor would appoint another Democrat to the Senate when the sitting senator, then in his eighties died. Tayloe Ross lost by just 700 votes. Tayloe Ross did not leave the public eye upon defeat. Although she always contended that her family and the people of Wyoming were her priorities—a stance required at the time by any woman in professional life—she sought new opportunities. In 1933, she accepted the appointment by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to serve as director of the Bureau of the Mint. Tayloe Ross remained active in civic life, writing and speaking, until her death in 1977 at the age of 101. Her long life of service spanned a century that witnessed the explosion of opportunities for white women throughout the United States. The efforts of western women, building on a tradition of suffrage in western states, helped to make possible these political advances and the feminist movements of the 1960s–1980s.

By 1929, the Klan had lost its support in the American West and throughout the nation because of the highly publicized murder trial and conviction of its leader, Grand Dragon David C. Stephenson. A political leader from Indiana and potential presidential candidate, Stephenson had forced his young female secretary onto a train after a bootleg liquor party. Throughout the night he repeatedly raped and beat her. When the young woman later killed herself by swallowing poison, Stephenson went on trial and then to jail. Stephenson’s actions did not play well with the conservative nativist core of the KKK movement in the Midwest, South, and American West.

DEPRESSION ON THE PLAINS AND PRAIRIES For most women living in the western United States, the stock market crash of 1929 signaled only the continuation of a depressed economy, not the start of one. Rural western people had endured nearly a decade of low farm prices and environmental problems by 1930. The 1920s were lean years for farmers. Prices had been high during World War I,

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but after Europe’s guns fell silent and its men returned home from war, European farmers began producing again, and American farmers were met with oversupply and lower prices. Moreover, many farmers in the United States had borrowed money during the boom years of the 1910s to buy equipment and plow more ground. On the Great Plains, huge swaths of marginal prairie land had been plowed up; these new fields failed to produce at a competitive rate, and thus many fell fallow. Historian Dee Garceau’s analysis of life in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, between 1880 and 1929 revealed the economic struggles of western women before the Great Depression. Using manuscript sources and oral interviews, Garceau found that ranching wives throughout the late-settlement period (1880s–1920s) were focused on their roles as producers—of gardens, preserved foods, and sewing— instead of on their roles as housekeepers. Garceau also found that only a few women actively participated as homesteaders, even though widows and single women were allowed to file claims under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862.

ANNIE PIKE GREENWOOD When Annie Pike Greenwood’s husband, Charley, announced his dream to move to Idaho and farm, she “almost went on a hunger-strike, through horror.” Charles Greenwood had fallen under the spell of booster literature about new Carey Act communities in Idaho. The couple enjoyed a comfortable life in Kansas, where Greenwood drew a good salary from the local sugar beet factory, “but Charley brought home a certain magazine published for city farmers, who love to make fortunes on the imaginary acres in their heads” (Greenwood, We Sagebrush Folks, 6). Produced by the Oregon Short Line Railroad or local commercial clubs, such publications represented the Snake River plain as a Garden of Eden, where man’s command of the rivers meant farmers never had to concern themselves with vagrancies of weather. Annie remained unconvinced by the boosters, but while this was an era in which women achieved greater rights than ever before, including universal suffrage with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Annie did not believe—like many other female pioneers

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before and after her—that she had any other choice but to accompany her husband. Charles Greenwood’s desire for a farm life, in spite of his apparent job stability, highlighted the attraction of irrigated settlement for middle-class, educated individuals: independence from the endless monotony of wage labor. Annie Pike Greenwood’s lyrical memoir of the Greenwoods’ experience on an irrigated homestead near Hazelton made it clear that 20th-century irrigated homesteading was no panacea. First published in 1934, We Sagebrush Folks detailed the difficulties of waiting for irrigation projects to deliver water; the suffering in tar-paper shacks poorly insulated against southern Idaho’s harsh winter winds; and the real fear of losing a child in the project’s myriad swiftrunning canals. Yet Greenwood embraced the homesteading life, and fell in love with the Idaho landscape, where she could view “a million stars in the dark-blue sky—a million stars, seen at a breath” (Greenwood, We Sagebrush Folks, 23). Annie Pike Greenwood opened the only school in the region and actively participated in political campaigns. Her one-room schoolhouse still stands just off Interstate 84 in what is still a rural area of southern Idaho. The Greenwoods lost their farm, in spite of the advantages of class and education they enjoyed. Annie’s account of their struggle gave voice to countless others who did not possess the privileges of the Greenwoods, or their literacy, and whose failures remain lost to history.

As the Great Depression hit eastern markets, farm prices hit rock bottom. If the Great Depression did not signal a new era for western farmers, it did represent a low point. The region as a whole suffered the worst of the Depression, despite the era and history’s tendency to view the event as an urban problem centered in New York City. All of the West’s economies were struck by halted production and bottom-feeding prices: Idaho’s famous silver mines dropped from $39 million in production in 1929 to just $9 million in 1930; salmon canneries in Washington watched their sales fall by more than 120 million pounds of fish during the first three years of the Depression; Pacific Northwest lumber mills fell silent as shipments dropped by 66 percent between 1926 and 1933; and the price of wheat collapsed in Montana, where the 12 cents per acre

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price in 1932 was the lowest since the 16th century in Queen Elizabeth’s England. Everywhere in the West, families struggled to make a living and find work. Unemployed loggers, miners, and farmhands became migrant workers, leaving their families for weeks or months at a time. Within this environment, women left back on the farm or in the logging camp made do with what they had. They raised chickens and sold the eggs to their neighbors for a few pennies; they shared tasks, such as canning, with their friends; and they made quilts out of whatever fabric they could find. Western Depression-era quilts reflect the washed-out colors of worn blue jeans, faded shirts, and flour sacks. Women who had never worked outside the home went to work in the West’s orchards and fields, making additional competition for migrant workers who lived marginal existences even before the Depression (see Chapter Six). Compounding the region’s woes was the greatest environmental disaster of the 20th century. The Dust Bowl’s gigantic, rolling dust storms scoured the southern Great Plains and forced thousands of people out of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Farmers from the southern plains packed up whatever they could, leaving their farms and farm houses buried under up to a foot of fine dirt. These migrants had been sedentary farm families just a few years earlier, but the plowing and farming practices on the plains, coupled with severe drought in the early 1930s, turned the dry farming fields into walls of blowing dust. Dust Bowl women survivors remembered lighting oil lamps at midday because of the darkness caused by the dirt and the inability to hang clothes on the line or prepare food that did not taste and feel of dusty grit. Respiratory problems and the sheer number of the rolling dust storms literally forced families to leave their homesteads with dinner on the table and flee the plains for the milder climate of California and the Pacific Northwest. Known as “Okies” because so many came from Oklahoma, they suffered from deprivation and the elements as they moved across the windswept plains. Once these migrants arrived, they struggled to find their way within the migrant farm economy of Washington’s and California’s fruit orchards and lettuce, bean, and corn fields. Refugees from Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas joined thousands of migrant workers who moved from one ranch, farm, or orchard to

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another in Arizona and California. Many of the existing migrant workers were Mexican immigrants; camp life in the farm regions of the Southwest became segregated as white Okies arrived from the east. As more workers flooded Arizona, California, Washington, and Oregon, the number of migrant jobs declined because of lower production and prices during the Depression. The daughter of migrant workers living in California during the late 1930s, Frances Esquibel Tywoniak remembered that the rhythms of family life were dictated by work, or lack of it. “An atmosphere of tension and stress was not uncommon at dinnertime,” she recalled. Her father would come home from long hours in the orchards pruning trees, and he would be “tired and preoccupied . . . . Any childish banter, particularly in English, would upset him, so we rushed through the meal in silence.” Esquibel Tywoniak also noted that Depression-era migrant life was most difficult for her mother, for whom “every day was a struggle” to find food for her family, deal with her pregnancies, and manage her autocratic husband (quoted in Frances Esquibel Tywoniak, Migrant Daughter, 43). Like many migrant families, the Esquibels found that the demands of providing food, shelter, and basic security were so great that they did not have the resources or time to ensure that their children attended school. One of the female professions hardest hit by the Depression was teaching. School districts found that they could not afford to keep their schools open, or they cut back the number of months they were open for instruction. Idaho and South Dakota returned to the 19th-century practice of boarding schoolteachers; Wyoming cut back to a six-month school year, and at the height of the Dust Bowl, some Oklahoma and New Mexico school districts simply shut their doors. For a woman, the difficulty in finding work as a teacher was compounded by the common Depression-era practice of hiring only heads of households. During the Depression, as historian Alice Kessler-Harris has shown, gendered policies often protected “the independence of the white male household head at the cost of women’s autonomy in the family” (Kessler-Harris, “Limits of Social Citizenship,” 1259). Female homelessness rose during the Depression, due in part to policies that restricted women’s wage earning. The female jobs first affected included low-paying posts like domestics, garment workers, and waitresses, occupations that suddenly

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disappeared or were replaced by desperate male workers. By 1932, however, educated women—the so-called New Woman of the 1920s—who had been employed before the Depression found their work eliminated or reassigned to men. If they were single, they often ended up homeless or in shelters. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs used the power of the federal government to put the United States back to work and to ease the financial crises of the 1930s, but these programs targeted male workers and unemployed male heads of households. The National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in 1933 and designed to stimulate recovery by setting wages, hours, and prices for major economic sectors, discriminated against women by institutionalizing separate wage codes for men and women within industries. The standardized wages differed from 5 to 25 cents per hour. The act did not apply to the nation’s domestic and agricultural workers, thus exempting the largest group of western women workers. Little relief for single women could be procured in the United States until the funding of the New Deal Federal Emergency Relief Act in 1934, and even then for women in more rural locations relief outlets were virtually nonexistent. Women in need of relief, moreover, were reluctant to take advantage of shelters or soup kitchens dominated by homeless and unemployed men, an environment that could turn dangerous for a single woman without resources. Nationwide, the 1932 female homeless population constituted roughly 10 percent of the total urban homeless. Some single women were forced—or fortunate—to take jobs that they might not have considered otherwise. One of these single women teachers, Marion Billbrough Dreamer, chose to take a job in the Indian Service as a day-school teacher when she failed to find other opportunities. Arriving at Pine Ridge Reservation in the early 1930s, Billbrough was unprepared for the extreme poverty she encountered. Billbrough taught at Day School Number Nine on the Pine Ridge Reservation until 1939, when she left to take a job elsewhere. While on the reservation, Billbrough married a Lakota Sioux Indian man, George Dreamer, and she battled the challenges of teaching at arguably the economically poorest place in North America. Dreamer’s diary—actually a daily record of

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This photograph is one of a series that photographer Dorothea Lange took of 32-year-old Florence Owens Thompson and her children in 1936 in Nipomo, California. Lange was employed by the Resettlement Administration. While she traveled, she took photographs of agricultural workers. Thompson and her children had been subsisting on frozen, rotting vegetables from nearby fields and birds that her children killed and cooked. The camp housed hundreds of others in similar circumstances. One of Lange’s photos of Thompson has become the most famous representation of migrant labor during the Depression. (Library of Congress)

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work, not feelings—of her experience at Pine Ridge during the Depression is a chronicle of despair. She records instances of young children walking through the snow to school, in subzero temperatures, without shoes; episodes of children coming to school so ill they could not lift their heads, but coming anyway because school lunch was the only meal they received; and stories of cold mornings spent chopping wood, boiling water, and having nothing but squirrels for breakfast. Dreamer’s diary is also a litany of death—young adults dying of tuberculosis; children dying of scarlet fever, pneumonia, and influenza; and the elderly dying of hunger and exposure. Starvation stalked the Pine Ridge Reservation. Dreamer often visited the families of her students, and in 1937 she wrote a typical diary entry that described a reservation family “in desperate circumstances . . . two beds for nine of them with hardly any bedding” (quoted in Woodworth-Ney, “Diary of a Day-School Teacher,” 199). The Dreamers left Pine Ridge in 1942. Marion’s entries from the late 1930s reveal her dissatisfaction with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidential administration, what she viewed as antiwomen work policies, and with bureaucratic struggles on the reservation. For African American western residents and newcomers, the employment situation was even more challenging. Employers often refused to hire African American men, let alone black women. Many African American migrants to the West settled in urban centers, including Portland, Denver, Seattle, and Los Angeles. The experiences of these individuals, as recorded in oral interviews, reveal dramatic differences in economic and educational opportunities and perception of familial circumstances. “There wasn’t any particular jobs you could get,” Seattle resident Sara Oliver Jackson recalled of the Depression. “So, you got a domestic job and made $10.00 a month, ’cause that was what they were paying, a big 35 cents a day” (quoted in Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier, 228). Educated San Francisco residents William and Tarea Pittman had experienced some success in California before the Depression, but after 1929, William was unable to continue his dental practice and was forced to take a job for $80 per month as a chauffeur, one of the only jobs open to black men during the Depression. His wife tried to find a job to help make ends meet. A college graduate of the California university system, Tarea could find no work at all, “on account,” she

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noted, “of my race” (quoted in Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier, 228). Systematic discrimination occurred at every level. When Marie Anderson Greenwood was called, as one of the students in the upper 10 percent of the class, to visit her school counselor during her sophomore year of high school in Denver to discuss college plans, the counselor believed a mistake had been made when she saw the color of Greenwood’s skin. When Marie insisted that she intended to attend college, the counselor dismissed the goal, saying that she would be wasting her father’s money because Greenwood could never get a job outside domestic service. Greenwood eventually earned a degree from Colorado State College of Education (now the University of Northern Colorado) and became the first African American to secure tenure in the Denver Public School District. In Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona, state-level New Deal agencies discriminated against blacks applying for New Deal–sponsored relief programs. The challenges of the Depression mobilized the West’s urban black populations, who began to use direct action, sit-ins, and marches as a political tool, thus foreshadowing the tactics of the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement (see Chapter Eight). The International Defense League and the Afro-American League jointly sponsored a march to Arizona’s state capitol in 1932 to demand equitable pay scales for African American state workers and access for blacks to direct relief programs. Also in 1932, the Communist Party in Denver organized a rally of 150 African Americans to forcibly desegregate South Denver’s public swimming area, Smith Lake. Such activities depended on the support of African American women, who demanded access to relief for their hungry families and admission to western facilities for what little leisure was available.

WOMEN’S LABOR ORGANIZATIONS Women pouring into the Pacific Northwest, California, Arizona, and Nevada from Mexico, Europe, the American South, and the Midwest often found that for wage work, farms, orchards, and the related agricultural food processing industry provided the main sources of paid labor. Seventy-five percent of the workers in California’s food-processing plants during the interwar years were women. Many of these were either

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Mexican immigrants or American-born women of Mexican descent, but Russian and other Eastern European immigrants also worked at the plants. In southern Texas and Arizona white and African American women from wind-ravaged Oklahoma and West Texas worked alongside Mexican migrants in pecan- and cotton-processing plants. In Southern California, Japanese and Japanese American women and children worked in berry fields and berry processing until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which ended—through legal and ultra-legal means— most Japanese employment in Pacific coastal states (see Chapter Eight). María Rodríguez, an employee of the California Walnut Growers Association, remembered that she was friends with a Jewish coworker. The two did not socialize outside work, but they remained close while on the job. Food processing plant owners did not pay female workers a set salary, but instead they paid a certain amount for each production level. As a result, a cannery culture developed in which workers supported and encouraged one another to reach production levels and would issue peer sanctions if workers fell behind, as all workers were adversely affected by low production (Ruiz, Cannery Women, 32). In addition, an intricate web of family and social relationships connected cannery workers, who might be sisters, sisters-in-law, mothers and daughters, or a mix of all of these relationships. Women working side by side in walnut and fruit processing plants often developed connections to their coworkers, who were frequently from a different culture. Cannery workers from Armenia chatted with workers from Mexico, while Russian Jewish women made work friendships with Mexican American women. In Alaska and Seattle, Native and immigrant women worked side by side in salmon canneries. Although many canneries in Alaska’s Bristol Bay contracted with firms that supplied male labor from Asia, women found work at the canneries as dishwashers or as assembly workers. Photographs from the dishwashing galley of the Columbia River Packers’ Association salmon cannery in Bristol Bay show women of diverse ethnic backgrounds laughing and working together. Historians have shown that relationships between female workers offered an important asset on the job. Working conditions in canneries and processing plants during the 1930s and 1940s were often brutal and dangerous. Scalding hot water, cutting machines, pitting machines, and

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Diverse group of women working as dishwashers in galley at Columbia River Packers’ Association salmon cannery in either Naknek or Dillingham, Alaska (has been identified as both) in Bristol Bay area, 1954. Women often found work in the kitchen areas of canneries. Women are identified on the back of the photo as Delores Johnson, Mary Smith, Sassa Wallona, and Bertha Schroeder. (Anchorage Museum of History & Art)

fruit- and fish scale–slicked floors made canneries treacherous places, and many canneries lacked even rudimentary benches for sitting, or basic bathroom amenities. During the Depression years, factory and field owners cut the pay scale, and relief organizations often refused to help seasonal, migrant workers. Shared experiences meant that when workers wanted to organize to protest factory conditions or pay, they could rely on a built-in network of associations and relationships. Such was the case with Mexican American women and the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA), a union organized in 1936 as an affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Historian Vicki Ruiz has found that the UCAPAWA, which experienced little success initially, was maintained and sustained by Mexican American

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women, who found unprecedented opportunities for leadership in the organization. The UCAPAWA offered hope and organizational support to local chapters struggling to maintain a successful strike. When San Antonio’s pecan shellers went on strike—many of them women and children—to protest 1934 wages as low as $2.00 per week, the UCAPAWA sent female organizers to San Antonio to solidify the local union and begin the transition from demonstrations to negotiations. UCAPAWA activist Luisa Moreno succeeded in organizing the San Antonio pecan workers and achieved an agreement that resulted in managerial recognition of the union and a piece-rate scale in compliance with new minimum-wage requirements. Unlike their counterparts in the agricultural industries, women working in Las Vegas resorts and casinos were able to use the community’s labor shortage to their benefit. The new posh hotels along the Strip desperately needed maid and domestic labor, and as historian Claytee D. White has found, would pay more to keep reliable and dependable workers. Working as leaders within the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, African American women lobbied and secured advancement in certain positions and adequate wages—$8 per day to clean 10 to 14 rooms—plus the right to keep gratuities. White argues that black women workers in Las Vegas also used the town’s boom nature to advance through the ranks. They moved often, horizontally and vertically, among hotel housekeeping units when they found a more attractive or higher-paying opportunity. Using this kind of employment gyration, Las Vegas’s African American female employees advanced from maid to inspector to executive housekeeper (White, “‘Eight Dollars a Day and Working in the Shade,’” 281), and thus provided the basis for later advances into higher-paid and more visible positions outside of the maid room.

CONCLUSION Between World War I and World War II, women throughout the American West battled poverty, depression, racism, and sexist hiring and labor policies. Women from the drought-ravaged plains traveled with their families to orchards and fields in Arizona, California, and the Pacific Northwest, where they joined thousands of migrant families from

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Mexico who were also seeking agricultural work. Women working for wages in fields and factories secured better working conditions and benefits for all workers by serving in leadership positions in labor unions and by leaving less-satisfying jobs for better ones. Women workers and women writers and artists resided at the center of the contradiction of western culture during these years. Although most of the West’s population labored for pennies in migrant camps, fields, and factories, some of the West’s educated women used their abilities to help create a new image for the West as a leisure destination. The West became, at once, a playground for middle-class and wealthy Americans, but the playground rested on the work of migrant, immigrant, and white working women. White women found new ways to be heard and to exercise political and cultural authority during these years. A few became active in state and local politics. Many college-educated western women participated in women’s suffrage organizations and the women’s club movement, and a number of women wrote memoirs intended to help shape the cultural landscape of the West. For white women activists, western history became a tool to affirm the valid political and cultural role of women. With the arrival of World War II, the economic and social landscapes of the American West would be transformed. Defense-related industries established along the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington created an enormous demand for labor, including that of women. Accompanying the job shortage was a significant demographic shift, as populations from the rural South and the Midwest flocked to the region. The presidential order to force Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent to move from the West Coast to internment camps within the Interior West violated the rights of Japanese families and further altered western demographics. World War II would permanently transform the American West and the lives of the women who lived there.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY Population figures were obtained from “World Population Information,” U.S. Census Bureau, www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/ www.census.gov/ipc/www/ world.html. For a popular, well-researched account of the flu epidemic, see John

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M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (New York: Penguin Books, 2004). Much more could be done to explore the connections between women, gender, and the flu epidemic in the American West. For the story of how women were everywhere in the city of Montreal, Canada, during the flu outbreak, see Magda Fahrni, “‘They Are Everywhere . . .’: Women and the City during the Montreal Epidemics, 1918–20,” Revue d’Histoire de l’Amérique Française [Canada], Volume 58, Issue 1 (2004): 67–85. Literature on the promotion of California is extensive, although more needs to be done on the gendered implications of California’s “sunny” propaganda. For more on the plague and Los Angeles, see William Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), and “Plague in Los Angeles, 1924: Ethnicity and Typicality,” in Valerie J. Matsumoto and Blake Allmendinger, editors, Over the Edge: Remapping the American West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 172–200. The Los Angeles Health Department made a detailed photographic record of its activities during the 1924 plague outbreak. Those photographs are housed at the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, and can be accessed for viewing at “Photographic Documentation of Pneumonic Plague Outbreak Sites and Rats in Los Angeles, 1924,” Online Archive of California, University of California at Berkeley, bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/. oac.cdlib.org/. Virginia Scharff ’s Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age (New York: The Free Press, 1991) provides an overview of women’s participation in the explosion of U.S. automobile culture in the early 20th century. “To its users,” Scharff writes of the automobile, “it meant both new freedoms and new burdens, the lure of the open road and the anchor of the chauffeur’s job,” which, Scharff contends, fell to women (169). Women’s freedom was not revolutionized by the automobile during the interwar years, but women’s daily routine was transformed, as the chore of transporting the family was transferred to women—and stayed there. The history of Sun Valley, Idaho, can be found in Carlos A. Schwantes, In Mountain Shadows: A History of Idaho (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), and Jennifer Eastman Attebery, Building Idaho: An Architectural History (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1991). Anne M. Butler offers a general treatment of the marketing of the American West in “Selling the Popular Myth,” in Clyde A. Milner II, Carol A. O’Connor, and Martha A. Sandweiss, The Oxford History of the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). A general synthesis of western tourism and the uses of leisure imagery can be found in Marguerite S. Shaffer, “‘The West Plays West’: Western Tourism and the Landscape of Leisure,” in William Deverell, editor, A Companion to the American West, Blackwell Companions to American History (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 375–389. See also Hal

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Rothman’s indispensable resource, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the TwentiethCentury American West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998). For the history of Yellowstone National Park, see National Park Service, “Architecture in the Parks,” at www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/harrison/harrison3.htm. Laura Jane Moore’s article, “Elle Meets the President: Weaving Navajo Culture and Commerce in the Southwestern Tourist Industry,” Frontiers, Volume 22, Issue 1 (2001): 21–44 explores the life and artistic contributions of Elle of Ganado, or Asdzaa Lichii’ (Red Woman), a Navajo weaver, and the connectivity of Native women’s creative work and the early 20th-century Southwest tourism industry. A great deal has been written about the attraction and culture of Hollywood and Las Vegas, perhaps the best-known western sites in the world outside Disneyland. I have relied on Claytee D. White’s analysis, “‘Eight Dollars a Day and Working in the Shade’”: An Oral History of African American Migrant Women in the Las Vegas Gaming Industry,” in Quintard Taylor and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, editors, African American Women Confront the West, 1600–2000 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), 276–289, in which she argues that African American women workers in Las Vegas changed jobs frequently to take advantage of more attractive offers and that many of them experienced upward mobility through this process. My interpretation of the San Diego world’s fairs relies on Matthew F. Bokovoy’s analysis in The San Diego World’s Fairs and Southwestern Memory, 1880–1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005). The women scholars and writers mentioned here were members of the nonimmigrant, non-Indian establishment, and they used—to varying degrees— the histories of American Indians for their own purposes. The charge that white scholars appropriate the lives of Native people for the pursuit of their own political, intellectual, or financial benefit remains true and continues to create friction between white academics and Native American communities. But the experiences of these white women should not be cast aside simply because they appropriated history or because their histories provided a certain slant on the American western past. Their lives tell us much about the status of women in the historical profession and about the difficulties of writing western women’s history. The marginalization of state and local history by the history academy persists today, and conflict between academia’s definition of scholarship and the public’s desire for accessibility continues to create divisiveness within state historical societies and the editorial staffs of state history journals. Differences in interpretation between the two groups continue to hamper the development of connections between state-funded universities and state history museums, societies, and publications. The slow development of the field of western women’s history can be attributed, in part, to the academy’s rejection of female academics

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and its negative view of local and regional history. Criticisms from nonwhites about the prevalence of whites and white perceptions in state historical societies, moreover, are often well deserved. For more on Eva Emery Dye and Grace Raymond Hebard, see Sheri Bartlett Browne, Eva Emery Dye: Romance with the West (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2004), and Virginia Scharff ’s essay on Hebard in her book, Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). Additional sources that examine the connections between white women’s activism, suffrage, and the appropriation of the image of Sacagawea include Donna J. Kessler, “Sacagawea: A Uniquely American Legend,” (PhD dissertation, Emory University, 1993); Jan C. Dawson, “Sacagawea: Pilot or Pioneer Mother?” Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Volume 83, Number 1 (January 1992): 22–28; and Gail Landsman, “The ‘Other’ as Political Symbol: Images of Indians in the Woman Suffrage Movement,” Ethnohistory, Volume 39, Number 3 (Summer 1992): 247–284. I have relied on Patricia Loughlin’s interpretations of Muriel H. Wright and Angie Debo from her biographical work, Hidden Treasures of the American West: Muriel H. Wright, Angie Debo, and Alice Marriott (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005). For more on women, memory, and the writing of western history and literature, see David M. Wrobel’s Promised Lands: Promotion, Memory, and the Creation of the American West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002) and his article, “The Literary West and the Twentieth Century,” in William Deverell, editor, A Companion to the American West (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 460–480. The impact of the Ku Klux Klan in western communities has been examined in several general studies, including Carlos A. Schwantes, The Pacific Northwest: An Interpretive History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), and Kathleen M. Blee, Women of the Ku Klux Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), and “Women in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan Movement,” Feminist Studies, Volume 17, Issue 1 (1991): 57–77. For more on the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon, see David Horowitz, Inside the Klavern: The Secret History of a Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press: 1999), and Dane Bevan, ”Pamphlet: The Truth about the Ku Klux Klan, 1922,” Oregon History Project (Oregon Historical Society, 2004), www.ohs.org. See also Shawn Lay, editor, The Invisible Empire in the West: Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). I have used the economic statistics of the Great Depression in the American West provided in the general history of the 20th century, Michael P. Malone and Richard Etulain, The American West: A Twentieth-Century History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), especially 88–92. Alice Kessler-Harris’s article “In the Nation’s Image: The Gendered Limits of Social Citizenship in the Depression Era,” Journal of American History, Volume 86, Number 3 (December

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1999): 1251–1279 examines the ways “gendered economic assumptions led American policy makers” during the Great Depression “to opt for programs tied to wage work rather than to citizenship ‘rights’”(1259). Elaine S. Abelson’s article, ‘“Women Who Have No Men to Work for Them,’” Feminist Studies, Volume 29, Issue 1 (Spring 2003): 104–128, also explores the role of gendered Depression-era policies, particularly in their relationship to a rise in female homelessness during the 1930s. Marion Billbrough Dreamer’s story of life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation during the 1930s is featured in Laura Woodworth-Ney, “The Diaries of a Day-School Teacher: Daily Realities on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation,” South Dakota History, Volume 24, Numbers 3–4 (Fall/Winter 1994): 194–211. Insight into early 20th-century interracial unions between Native men and white women, such as that of the Dreamers, can be found in Margaret D. Jacobs, “The Eastmans and the Luhans: Interracial Marriage between White Women and Native American Men, 1875–1935,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Volume 23, Issue 3 (2002): 29–55. Jacobs explores the laws forbidding interracial unions, the court cases that challenged the laws, and the ways such unions forced social/cultural change within their own circle of interaction. For an in-depth study of women in a small region of the American West, see Dee Garceau, The Important Things of Life: Women, Work and Family in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, 1880–1929 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). Garceau’s work was in the vanguard of studies that looked at the daily lives of women in smaller geographic areas as opposed to large, sweeping syntheses and regions. Annie Pike Greenwood’s memoir is the classic account of homesteading life on a 20th-century irrigation project; see Greenwood, Foreword by Jo Ann Ruckman (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1988). Catherine McNicol Stock’s work analyzed how the Great Depression transformed relationships of power and class on the northern Great Plains; see Catherine McNicol Stock, Main Street in Crisis: The Great Depression and the Old Middle Class on the Northern Plains (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992). For more on the experience of African American women in the Depressionera and wartime West, see Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998). Marie Anderson Greenwood’s story appears in Moya B. Hansen’s article, “‘Try Being a Black Woman!’: Jobs in Denver, 1900–1970,” in Quintard Taylor and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, editors, African American Women Confront the West, 1600–2000 (Norman: University Press of Oklahoma, 2003), 207–227. Statistics for Denver were taken from the “Jobs in Denver” article. There is now a substantial body of literature exploring the organization of Chicana, Latino, and Mexican American workers in California and elsewhere.

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The classic, essential reference for Mexican American cannery workers is Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930–1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987). Ruiz makes the compelling case that Mexican American women’s activism sustained labor organizing in California’s food-processing centers. Ruiz’s From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998) offers a broad view of Mexican American women’s work and domestic lives. Patricia Zavella’s Women’s Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987) also examines cannery women’s lives and activism, but for the 1970s and 1980s. Using a feminist theoretical underpinning, Zavella finds differences among female factory workers based on ethnic networks, adherence to patriarchal ideologies, and job status. She argues that, in the end, despite terrible working conditions, some women opted for work in canneries because its seasonal nature fit well with their commitment to hierarchical family ideologies. See also Zavella’s study of the differences of Chicana social and work networks, “‘Abnormal Intimacy’: The Varying Work Networks of Chicana Cannery Workers,” Feminist Studies, Volume 11, Number 3 (1985): 541–557. For a view of cannery workers in northern California, see Elizabeth Reis, “Cannery Row: The AFL, The IWW and Bay Area Cannery Workers,” California History, Volume 64, Number 3 (1985): 174–191. For an examination of labor organizing in the 1990s Los Angeles garment industry, an effort that built on the traditions of Mexican American labor organizing established earlier in the century, see María A. Gutierrez De Soldatenko, “ILGWU Labor Organizers,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Volume 23, Issue 1 (2002): 46–67. For the story of a Mexican American woman whose life spanned nearly the entire 20th century, see Frances Esquibel Tywoniak and Mario T. Garcia, Migrant Daughter: Coming of Age as a Mexican American Woman (Berkeley: University of California, 2000). For a unique history of Latinos and Latino workers in California, see David E. Hayes-Bautista, La Nueva California: Latinos in the Golden State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). Hayes-Bautista is a professor of medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the University of California, Los Angeles. His medical perspective offers insights into the health care status of Latino immigrants to California throughout the 20th century. For more on Nellie Tayloe Ross, see Mike Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” Journal of the West, Volume 42, Number 3 (Summer 2003): 25–35. Mackey overemphasizes the extent to which Ross followed her husband’s agenda, but the article provides insight into the anti-Ross coalition that defeated her in 1926. Certainly more research could be done on Ross, her personal life, and her political influence.

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Hattie McDaniel’s life represents many facets of early 20th-century western U.S. history: the migration of black Americans from the South to the West, the discriminatory gender and racial practices of Hollywood, the film industry’s stereotyping of female characters, the movement of women in search of economic opportunity, and the cultural importance of Southern California. For more on McDaniel, see U.S. Postal Service, “Hattie McDaniel, First African American to Win an Academy Award,” Stamp News Release No. 06–005, www.usps.com/communications/news/stamps/2006/sr06_005.htm www.usps.com; and Jill Watts, Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood (New York: Amistad Publishing, 2005). Robert M. Fogelson’s now classic history of Los Angeles, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850–1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), provides a history of California’s motion picture industry. For more on Hollywood female stereotyping and for a history of the lives of Mexican American actresses Dolores Del Rio and Lupe Velez, see Alicia I. Rodríquez-Estrada, “Dolores Del Rio and Lupe Velez: Images on and off of the Screen, 1925–1944,” in Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage, Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 475–492. Rodríquez-Estrada finds that the images portrayed in the media of these two Hispanic actresses were shaped by Hollywood’s stereotype of Mexican women; the roles they accepted; and their own interaction with, and shaping of, the images they projected.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

THE

GENDERED WARTIME AND POSTWAR WEST, 1941–1980

T

he home-front mobilization required to participate in World War II forever changed the social, cultural, and physical landscapes of the American West. As immigrant and migrant workers poured into the region, the demographics and politics changed. The isolation and low population density of the Interior West became an asset to government agents seeking to house new military installations in remote locations. Women workers poured into the West from the Midwest and the South, and the working female population of the West skyrocketed. No specific event so captured the discrepancy between image and reality—between opportunity and oppression—in the American West as the internment of thousands of Japanese immigrants and U.S. citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. At the same time, the nation’s women went to work in munitions factories, mines, and other previously male-dominated workplaces. Many of these operations—including the nation’s largest shipbuilder, its aeronautical factories, and its munitions suppliers—were located in western locales that would be forever transformed by the World War II mobilization. The number of women in the workplace would never again be as low as before the war, and the war created additional educational and political opportunities for western women. At the same time, the factories and shipyards helped to transform the diversity of the region’s population, particularly that of women. In a region long dominated by male settlement, the influx of women « 263 »

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workers and families during the interwar period transformed a region already accustomed to constant influx and change.

WORK AND WORLD WAR II After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the United States was at war with Japan and Germany. The United States declared war on Japan, and Adolf Hitler, Germany’s leader, declared war on the United States the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States had spent the decades since World War I in diplomatic isolation, and as a result needed significant amounts of infrastructure rebuilding in order to meet the needs of war. Factories had to be retrofitted to build tanks instead of cars and to produce munitions rather than household goods, and massive numbers of new workers were needed at precisely the same time that the nation’s young men were headed overseas. The West hosted many of the new plants, as the U.S. Defense Department sought to geographically decentralize production of vital war materials. A string of huge manufacturing facilities opened within the American West during the early years of the war: Lockheed in Southern California expanded its Long Beach operations in 1941; Kaiser launched new shipbuilding enterprises from San Francisco to Portland; Alcoa built an aluminum plant in Vancouver, Washington, in 1940; and the demand for copper, silver, zinc, and molybdenum propelled Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Colorado mining communities out of the Depression. New production techniques transformed the shipbuilding and aircraft industries by instituting mass production and reducing the need for highly skilled labor. The answer for manufacturers early in the war was African American labor from the American South. Black men whose lives had previously been defined by sharecropping and despair found opportunity in the new munitions factories in the Midwest and West. Western employers also hired Oklahoma and Texas Dust Bowl migrants, but when the male labor supply from the American South tapped out, employers were forced to look elsewhere. Female employees became a necessity, and the federal government launched a campaign featuring the image of “Rosie the Riveter” that encouraged women to leave home, do their patriotic duty, and go to work in a defense-related industry. Women who had not worked outside traditional female occupations,

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like housekeeping and laundry; who had never worked for wages; or who had previously toiled in orchards and fields found themselves in a fastpaced, diverse environment where the wages were stable. Young Mexican American women living in predominately Hispanic neighborhoods in Los Angeles, for example, challenged the strict gender expectations of their parents and cultures by participating in home-front activities. With their husbands and/or fathers away at war, they worked in local factories, rode streetcars without chaperones, and socialized in nightclubs outside their neighborhoods. As historian Susan A. Glenn has argued, the presence and power of Mexican American women in the Los Angeles urban scene signaled a change in identity for the urban West’s Hispanic youth. The change was often controversial; both the older generation within Los Angeles Mexican neighborhoods and elite whites often viewed the new freedoms exercised by Mexican American women as sexually and culturally threatening. Many World War II women workers found the new skills and pace of the work exciting, especially if they believed they were pursuing a vocational opportunity that would not have been otherwise available. One young mother in Portland, Oregon, said that her welding job allowed her to capitalize on the interests she had developed in her father’s blacksmith shop as a child: “I was always around metal and fire burning, drills and the whole bit. I really liked it” (quoted in Karen Beck Skold, “Women in the Shipyards during World War II,” 163). Other women worked mostly for the money or to contribute to the war effort. The work took on added significance as the connection between the number of planes, ships, or guns produced and success on the battlefields of Europe became clear. In Seattle, Boeing managers “hired anybody who had a warm body and could walk through the gate,” a policy that meant that 46 percent of their wartime hires were women (quoted in Carlos A. Schwantes, “Wage Earners and Wealth Makers,” 453). The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was also forced to hire women workers, and by 1943, 21 percent of its workforce was female (compared with virtually zero percent five years earlier). The Kaiser shipyards in Portland, Oregon, hired women at a faster rate and as a larger percentage of the workforce than did other West Coast shipyards, even at the height of the war. Portland shipyards

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“We Can Do It,” a poster by J. Howard Miller, is the quintessential image of the female defense worker during World War II. The image of the factory woman, depicted in many ways and popularized as “Rosie the Riveter,” became a national symbol of American unity and patriotism. (National Archives)

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had no other choice—the available pool of eligible workers was smaller than in Kaiser’s other plant locations, and the Portland building boom had created a distinct labor shortage. Eastern shipyards maintained an 8 to 10 percent female workforce in 1944. During the same year, Kaiser’s Richmond, California, plants registered an 18 percent female workforce, and the Portland-Vancouver shipyards registered 27 percent female. Migration to the West for midwesterners and southerners was nothing new; those migrations had defined western demographics since the California gold rush. The gender ratio of the mid-20th-century migration was, markedly different. Most migrants who came to western lumber and mining camps had been men. Most of the World War II migrants, however, were women. Nearly two-thirds of the African Americans who chose to leave the rural South for opportunities in the wartime San Francisco Bay area were female, and half of those were married with children. In addition, a majority of these migrant workers needed child care. In locations with a prevalence of defense-related industries, like the San Francisco Bay area, the federal government paid for child care installations to keep women working. Through provisions in the 1940 Lanham Act, Congress authorized $51,922,977 in federal spending for child care related to war production, an amount that states matched with an additional $26,008,839. The funding supported more than 3,000 child care centers, which served around 600,000 children during the war. Nearly all of the states received some of the funding, but the bulk of it went to California. Eligibility of the services was open to any mother working in a defense- or war-related industry, and initially cost 50 cents per day, which was later increased to 75 cents per day. The Kaiser shipyards became known for the high-quality care that their facilities provided. The day care centers were located at the entrance to the shipyards, so that workers could easily drop off their children on their way through the gates, and the company hired child development experts to operate the establishments. The facilities provided meals and light snacks, prepared by child nutritionists, on-site medical care, and precooked meals that workers could purchase to take home to reheat if they were too tired to fix dinner for their children (and themselves).

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Not all women who worked for the war effort were “Rosies.” Indeed, as historian David M. Kennedy has written, Rosie the Riveter typified few of the nation’s 19 million working women during World War II. Many women volunteered their time and effort during the war for warrelated programs. Thousands of western women made and packed bandages for the American Red Cross, served food and entertained troops at U.S. Service Organization (USO) centers, maintained their family’s ration of meat and other products, and planted victory gardens. Women who worked for wages included those who put on uniforms to serve in the women’s armed forces auxiliary units: the army’s Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WACs after 1943); the air corps’ Women Auxiliary Service Pilots (WASPS); the navy’s Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES); and the Coast Guard’s SPARS (a contraction derived from the Latin Semper Paratus and its English translation, “Always Ready”).

WAR BRIDES The postwar western United States became home not just to returning GIs, but also to their foreign wives. European single women had joined the war effort by enlisting in their countries’ various volunteer wartime service organizations, and many met American soldiers whom they later married. In wartime Britain, service organizations for young women included the Civil Defense Women’s Volunteer Service, Women’s Land Army, and Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. These women came into direct contact with American soldiers, who often seemed, according to oral interviews with war brides, well fed, optimistic, and comparatively wealthy. When soldiers visited the homes of the women they were courting, they were encouraged by their commanding officers to arrive with “hospitality rations”—cigarettes for the woman’s father, canned fruit for her mother—as many European families subsisted on meager rations throughout the war. Young women and their families were impressed by these bright, clean-scrubbed soldiers, and many families (though not all) perceived marriage to an American as a chance at a more affluent life. British World War II brides enjoyed special immigration status, including the fast-tracking of their citizenship applications.

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The U.S. government also paid for their transportation to the states. Around 70,000 British brides came to the United States during and after World War II; they joined other foreign national brides whose total number approached 1 million. Known as “war brides,” these women often came to the United States with little comprehension of the nation, the community they were joining, or the family they had married into. Those who came to the American West experienced the additional shock of having to absorb sparsely populated, wide-open spaces and challenging climates. When she stepped off the train in Harlowton, Montana, to join her husband, Frank Tuss, British war bride Evelyn “Chub” Tuss recalled that “All I saw was nothing, nothing, nothing!” (quoted in Kohl, “Love, Valor, and Endurance,” 30). Joyce Butler met her GI husband while working for a transistor and battery factory in Hampshire, England. Butler married Russell DeLong, a native of Montana, before the Normandy invasion and then joined her husband in Montana in 1945. Traveling in winter with a nine-month-old baby, Joyce DeLong spent two weeks aboard a ship on turbulent seas; became stranded for 18 hours in a blizzard at Wolf Point, Montana; and finally met her husband in Kalispell. She admitted that the adjustment to life in the rural American West was very difficult. “When I first came over,” DeLong recalled, “I cried myself to sleep every night” (quoted in Kohl, “Love, Valor, and Endurance,” 23). If the western landscape appeared barren and foreboding, the shelves in American grocery stores were a welcome shock. Years later, war brides remembered how wonderful and awe inspiring the availability of food in the United States appeared after living in war-torn Europe and Japan. Other aspects of American life were also attractive. As war brides struggled to reconcile their new lives, they helped transform the communities that they joined. Their presence helped change American perceptions of Europe and Asia. The American Red Cross and the YWCA offered formal support for war brides looking for help adjusting to life in the United States. Perhaps more important for the brides were the groups that they formed with each other, such as the Overseas Wives Club of Kalispell and Whitefish, Montana, which claimed 20 active members by

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1966. Clubs introduced foreign brides to local social norms, such as playing bridge; they exchanged letters from home; and threw parties to celebrate special occasions like holidays, birthdays, weddings, and births. Not all war brides were foreign nationals. The marriage rate in the United States during the early years of the war increased substantially. In 1942, the second year of U.S. involvement in the war, 1.8 million weddings were held in the United States, more than in any single year in U.S. history. Many of these weddings took place after short engagements, while American servicemen were home on furlough. These “hurry-up” weddings tended to be less formal than other mid-20thcentury weddings, and they often took only days to plan. In June 1943, the Saturday Evening Post, one of the nation’s most popular serial publications, noted that most of the wartime hurry-up weddings were taking place within the nation’s military centers. The South and the West led in sheer numbers of rapid weddings. In the West’s military post towns, weddings sometimes occurred within hours of courtship. San Diego’s wartime increase in weddings was 176 percent during the early years of the war. These numbers would increase even more dramatically, as would national birthrate averages, when World War II ended with the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945.

JAPANESE INTERNMENT CAMPS After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans throughout the United States endured bitter racism and negative backlash, and their patriotism and citizenship were brutally challenged based on their racial heritage. The United States was also at war with Germany, but antiGerman propaganda focused on Hitler and the German army, not on race and the German people at large. Anti-Japanese propaganda tended to lump all Japanese together as evil “Japs.” After 1941, many restaurants along the West Coast refused to serve Japanese customers, and Japanese American citizens who had shopped at local grocery, butcher, and drug stores found themselves suddenly turned away. Signs went up that said, “We don’t serve Japs.” The anti-Japanese backlash revealed a virulent strain of latent anti-Asian sentiment running through western communities.

The Gendered Wartime and Postwar West, 1941–1980

DOROTHEA LANGE

Dorothea Lange, photographed while working as a photographer for the Resettlement Administration in California, in 1936. (Library of Congress)

Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the American West remain some of the most recognizable and memorable images of the region. Born in 1895, Lange grew up in New York, but moved to San Francisco in 1919, where she established her own photography studio. Photography was still a maledominated profession when Lange established herself, and her early work in San Francisco was predominately portraiture photography for the city’s upper classes. The New Deal

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Women in the American West programs of the Great Depression offered Lange the opportunity to photograph other subjects, and the programs came at a time when few people had money for studio photography. In 1935, Lange accepted a position as a staff photographer for the Federal Resettlement Administration. Her job for the agency, which was later retitled the Farm Security Administration, required her to travel to rural locations in the American South and West to visually document the lives of agricultural workers and their families. Lange’s focus on migrant labor and Dust Bowl refugee camps captured the difficulty of life in rural America during the 1930s and 1940s. Her photographs of migrant mothers in camp conditions, for which she is best known, were beautiful and haunting records of dust, poverty, despair, and pain (see photograph of young migrant mother in Chapter Seven). Lange’s lens was able to pick up the hunger and fear in the faces of the mothers and fathers in dusty work camps throughout California’s Depression-era agricultural districts. In 1938 Lange and her husband, Paul Taylor, published a collection of her influential Depression-era photos, along with histories of some of the families of the Dust Bowl, in An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion. During World War II, Lange was hired by the War Relocation Authority to photograph the development of the Manzanar internment camp in California. Her photographs of life during the first years of Manzanar’s operation show the disparity between the federal government’s cheerful characterization of internment and the stark reality of life in the camps. These images brought her into conflict with the WRA, which censored some of the photographs. The brilliance and importance of the internment images did not become widely known until they were displayed at art galleries during the 1970s. Lange also took photographs of the Kaiser shipyards, including those of women workers, for the Office of War Information. After the war, Lange suffered from bouts of poor health, but she continued her work for the federal government, including the photography for the founding of the United Nations, commissioned by the State Department. She also took private photographic journalism jobs for Life Magazine. Lange died in 1965.

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The derogatory racial slurs did less material harm than the official U.S. policy for dealing with the perceived threat of Japanese spying and sabotage. Responding to pressure to do something about the possibility of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Orders 9066 and 9102 in 1942. Together, the orders mandated that all persons of Japanese ancestry—including American-born citizens, or Nisei—be identified and relocated to government-controlled detention centers away from the coast for the duration of the war. Executive Order 9102 established the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which built internment camps in the Interior West and Arkansas and executed the forced relocation of thousands of Japanese American families to the detention centers. Isolation and distance from main urban areas dictated the WRA’s choice of locations for the internment camps. The deserts of the Interior West housed most of the centers: Heart Mountain in northwestern Wyoming, Minidoka in southern Idaho, Amache in eastern Colorado, Tule Lake in northeastern California, Manzanar in southern California’s desert, Topaz in south-central Utah, and Poston and Gila River in Arizona. Camps were also located at Rohwer and Jerome, Arkansas. The WRA issued notices to residents of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast to report to local offices for relocation. Many lost their businesses, their houses, and all of their property. Forced to evacuate within a window of just weeks, they had to make as many provisions as they could and take only as many items as would fit on the buses. No pets were allowed and either had to be given away to friends or euthanized. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the forced relocations was the disrespect and perceived loss of dignity experienced by Japanese immigrants who had chosen to make the United States their home and whose hard work had allowed their American-born children to live in comfort. The loss of homes, property, and jobs meant that the years of labor and adjustment for these immigrant families disappeared into the dust of the deserts they were forced to inhabit for the duration of the war. Ultimately, the WRA authorized the relocation of approximately 40,000 Japanese-born residents of the West Coast and about 70,000 Americanborn citizens of Japanese descent. Residents of California were moved to Manzanar or Topaz, Utah, while those from Oregon and Washington

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Photographer Dorothea Lange captured this row of barracks at Manzanar Relocation Camp in California in 1942. (National Park Service)

generally went to Minidoka, Idaho, or Heart Mountain, Wyoming. The stark contrast of the Minidoka lava desert, outside what is now Shoshone, Idaho, must have been a distressing shock to residents used to the verdant, humid climate of western Washington and Oregon. Issei, or Japanese-born American residents, who refused to revoke their allegiance to Japan were sent to Arizona camps as suspicious persons, along with others who were under surveillance. To foreswear allegiance to Japan meant giving up all citizenship rights, as these persons were then neither citizens of Japan nor the United States. All of the internment camps were hastily constructed in military barracks style, with neat rows of plain buildings lined up on dusty, treeless plains. The Minidoka, Idaho, center was built on a 33,000-acre site in the southern Idaho desert and ultimately housed more than 600 buildings and a total population of about 13,000 Japanese internees from Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. Like other centers, its neat rows

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of wooden-frame houses covered with tar paper were divided into designated blocks, which functioned like addresses. Internees lived in “Block 21” or “Block 36.” Each block consisted of six small one-room apartments, a communal cafeteria space, a laundry unit with communal showers and toilets, and a recreation house. Barrack houses possessed no insulation, light fixtures, or appliances. Light came from a single hanging bulb, and each house was heated by a single coal stove. Residents received U.S. Army–issue cots for sleeping. All coal and water had to be transported by hand into the units, and when fuel ran out during the winter months, sagebrush and scraps of wood served as fuel. The stark conditions were portrayed in WRA photography as comfortable, clean, and well lit. In these photographs, mostly housed at the National Archives and Records Administration, smiling Japanese families play games or read the paper while their mother knits. Such portrayals, along with the U.S. government’s use of nearby businesses to supply the camps with food and fuel, led to the misconception locally that Japanese camp residents were leading a well-cared-for and even carefree existence. In Twin Falls and Jerome, Idaho, local white residents did not see that inside the camps, the flimsy, poorly heated barracks were immeasurably dull and freezing in winter and sweltering in summer. Japanese internees endured subzero temperatures in the winter, knee-deep mud in the spring, and temperatures over 100 degrees in the summer. During the southern Idaho winter of 1942, temperatures dropped to minus 21 degrees Fahrenheit. The camp burned more than 100 tons of coal per day during that cold snap. The ways Japanese internees, whose individual stays at the camps varied from several months to several years, dealt with their stark and vastly changed environments varied by gender, age, and location. At all of the camps, men and women residents—often the Issei, or firstgeneration immigrants—planted lush vegetable and flower gardens behind the barracks, and carefully hauled water for their plants. At the Minidoka camp, residents laid stone walkways connecting barracks and gardens. Women decorated their homes with rugs and textiles, hung screens and drapes to provide a modicum of privacy within the oneroom shelters, and tried to recreate their previous home environments. Camp residents organized activities, such as games, beauty pageants, and

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bands, and they helped one another when it came time for a woman to give birth or a family to move in and out of the barracks or send a son to the war. Mrs. Kumiko Noda (as was the practice in 1942, the photograph did not supply Mrs. Noda’s first name) gave birth to the first baby born at the Tule Lake center in Newell, California—Newell Kazuo Noda—in June 1942. The WRA used Noda’s birth as an opportunity to show the stability and comfort of life in the camps. The camps were equipped with modern hospital facilities, staffed by well-paid white health care workers and unpaid Japanese internees. Velma Kessel, a white nurse who earned $80 per month working at Yellowstone County Hospital in 1941, became a senior staff registered nurse at the Heart Mountain relocation center after the start of the war, where she earned nearly twice her previous pay. For local white women like Velma Kessel, the internment camps offered employment opportunities, but Japanese internees had to leave the camps to find jobs that earned living wages. Although many Issei attempted to recreate the patterns of their lives before they moved into the barracks, at least to the extent that they could do so, their Nisei children often experienced the camps differently. Historian Leslie A. Ito has found that Nisei daughters were encouraged by their parents to assume leadership roles within the camps and to pursue their educations. Makeshift high schools were set up within the camps, and some Nisei daughters achieved higher educational levels than would have been possible, or encouraged, before the war and the relocation. Before the war, as historian Valerie J. Matsumoto has shown, young Nisei women in Japanese American communities in San Francisco and elsewhere faced strict expectations of female behavior. Their parents, teachers, and cultural connections pressured them to marry and conform to the quiet, soft-spoken role of ideal Japanese womanhood. Many second-generation Japanese women found understanding and compassion among their peers in Japanese urban youth groups, such as YWCA affiliates, church-sponsored groups, and women’s student clubs. These groups created networks of interaction and support within Japanese communities that developed and sustained urban Japanese American culture. They also offered outlets for careful social experimentation outside the Japanese community. Forced incarceration during World War II destroyed these youth networks, but

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young Nisei women continued their roles as community leaders and builders while in the internment camps. After the implementation of Executive Order 9066, a small group of religious leaders, educators, and policy makers recognized that the educational opportunities of Nisei relocated to the camps would be severely restricted. The collective intent of the reformers was not simply to provide for these students’ education, but also to assimilate Japanese Americans. In this sense, these efforts differed little from the Indian reformers of the nineteenth century, whose ethnocentric motivations were to forcibly assimilate Native Americans. The reformers founded the National Japanese Student Relocation Council (NJASRC) to fund and place college-age Nisei students in U.S. colleges in the Midwest and East. Partially sponsored by the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee, the NJASRC located colleges that would accept Nisei students. The goals of NJASRC, in addition to providing educational opportunities to Nisei college students in concentration camps, included building morale and encouraging Japanese American families from the West Coast to relocate to the East and Midwest after the war and internment ended. Many of the colleges that participated in the NJASRC program preferred female to male students. College administrators believed female students would invite less suspicion and less scrutiny from the federal government, so the rate of female Nisei participation in the program was quite high. Women students made up about 39 percent of the Nisei who attended college during the war. Both the WRA and NJASRC viewed the students as ambassadors whose presence on college campuses would help to improve public opinion of Japanese people at the war’s end and who would become models of assimilation. The decision for Nisei women to attend college affected Japanese families inside and outside the camps. The departure of some members of the family from the camp—to attend college or join the war—fragmented the family. The heart-wrenching nature of these decisions rested heavily on Nisei sons and daughters, whose parents begged them to remain with their families during internment. When college-aged Gordon Hirabayashi, then a student at the University of Washington, heard that his family would be forcibly removed from the White River Valley south of Seattle, he chose not to accompany them but rather to defy the curfew

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Michiko Kataoka and Meriko Hoshiyama, students from the Manzanar Relocation Center, are pictured with other female students on the University of California campus at Los Angeles in this 1945 photo taken by the War Relocation Authority (WRA). The WRA sought to use such photographs to show that life proceeded uninterrupted for internment camp residents after “resettlement.” (War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement, 1967.014, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley)

and relocation. His mother begged him to move with the family, but Hirabayashi resisted, despite admitting to tremendous amounts of guilt. He was later arrested, convicted, and jailed for violating military curfew and internment orders. Hirabayashi’s unsuccessful case against the federal government, Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), was the first wartime challenge of internment to reach the Supreme Court. His mother, by then incarcerated at Tule Lake, was visited by numerous women internees who informed her that they knew of the heroics of her son and were supportive of her and of the family. Hirabayashi’s mother

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was later subpoenaed in her son’s case, and jailed while she waited to give her testimony, where she was treated like royalty by the jail’s white and nonwhite female residents, mostly prostitutes and shoplifters. Practical, rather than political, considerations were the most common reasons for dividing the family during the internment period. For example, Michi Yasui Ando, a woman from Hood River, Oregon, attended the University of Denver instead of relocating to Tule Lake. She received a master’s degree in education and became a teacher in the Denver school district. The splintering of Japanese families also altered family power dynamics, as did other aspects of camp life. The lack of authority over the family within the barracks negatively affected the role of Issei fathers, whose patriarchal authority was called into question by relocation and, in some cases, by absence if the father was sent to a different relocation camp based on his status as a suspicious person. The restructuring of the family offered Nisei daughters certain freedoms they had not possessed in Japanese communities before the war. Nisei who were away at college also found friends outside the Japanese community and became exposed to women’s roles and choices that contrasted with the traditional choices of marrying, having children, and staying at home. Many, in an effort to prove their loyalty to the United States, became active in college activities and served as campus leaders. A significant number of Nisei women also took jobs while they attended college, to help pay for books or other expenses. Nisei women who attended college during World War II became teachers, bank vice presidents, college professors, scientists, journalists, librarians, and physicians. After the war, some educated Nisei women struggled to find jobs suitable for college-educated women, and the climate for all working women changed, setting back some of the advances gained by all women in the workplace. Still, the patriarchal structure of the Japanese community-based family had been altered by war and relocation. Moreover, the demographic concentration of Japanese American communities had been altered. Before the war, 90 percent of Japanese Americans living outside Hawaii lived in Washington, Oregon, or California; in 1950, only 50 percent lived in those states (Nugent, Into the West, 264).

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THE POSTWAR WEST Many of the changes the war brought to the American West were permanent. The West retained a strong federal presence, which became even more pronounced during the Cold War. Western demographics continued to reflect a shift from the South, East, and Midwest to the West, particularly to the Sunbelt and coastal states. After the war ended, women who had worked in munitions plants during the war were asked to return home. Many did so, although the national rate of women working for wages never dropped below prewar averages. Many Japanese families, forced into camps by Executive Order 9066, remained in the Interior West, changing the demographics of that region. The children of the wartime generation exercised new ideas about rights and freedoms that were starting to emerge before the war. The West was a different place after World War II, and western women’s lives would be transformed by an explosion of highway development and concomitant urban sprawl; by a massive baby boom; by the impact of government programs and agencies in the West; by the civil rights, anti–Vietnam War, and women’s movements; by expanded opportunities in the workplace and politics; and by social and cultural changes that affected gender roles. After the war ended in 1945 and the troops came home, many women workers were fired, or asked to return to their homes. Federal support and funding for day care centers was discontinued. The World War II period remains the only era in U.S. history in which large numbers of female workers were provided with federal funding for day care, irrespective of financial need. Many women wanted to keep their wartime jobs, which often had higher paychecks than what they could get after the war, but they found this was not an option, as men returned from the war and demanded the welding and construction jobs they had held before the war. In addition, without the war’s industrial requirements, fewer manufacturing jobs remained in the market during the years immediately after the war. The propaganda produced by various agencies, including the Office of War Information, changed from poster slogans such as “The More Women at Work the Sooner We Win!” (Office of War Information

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Poster, 1943, Northwestern University Library) to admonitions that now that the war was over, a woman’s place was in the home. By 1946, a significant number of the female wartime employed—around 2.25 million women workers—had quit their jobs, and another million were laid off or fired. Women in the defense industries represented the greatest decline in the female workforce, for these jobs either disappeared or were quickly transferred to men returning from war. Although many women stayed in the workforce, they found jobs in an increasingly gendersegregated economy. The service industry created the most jobs for women after the war, including clerical, cleaning, secretarial, or waitress positions. By the late 1950s, 75 percent of working women in the United States worked in positions considered suitable only for women, creating a more gender-segregated workforce than had existed before the war. These jobs paid less, came with fewer benefits, and often did not allow for advancement. The popular perception of Rosies happily returning to new suburban houses with their husbands to have babies and make cookies obscured the reality of postwar wage work for women who had worked before the war. Those women—white, black, immigrant—found themselves forced to give up high-paying jobs in factories with day care for jobs as cooks in schools, attendants in laundries, or maids in wealthy households. One study found that almost 75 percent of women defense-industry workers interviewed after the war wished to keep their wartime positions. Despite the struggles for women in the postwar economy, the demographic trend for more women—married, single, uneducated, educated—to leave the household for wage work continued, particularly in the nation’s, and the West’s, urban centers. By 1950, around 18 million women collected paychecks, only around a million fewer than during wartime production in 1945. The percentage of working women in the United States increased to 35 percent in 1960 and 42 percent in 1970. In the immediate postwar years, the increasing number of women in the workforce did not reflect a shift in national values about a woman’s responsibilities; a 1945 poll found that 63 percent of Americans disapproved of women working if they were married and their husbands could provide for the family. Women, in other words, were told in the media, at home, and at work that they

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should only work if necessary, a view that continued to marginalize working-class women. Women were continually passed up for jobs that offered more responsibility and pay, and they often faced discrimination in the workforce, particularly if they were competing directly with men viewed as the main breadwinner of their families. Not surprisingly, many women returned to their homes if their financial circumstances allowed them to do so. Working-class women continued to organize, participate in labor unions, and demand structural changes to make their workplaces safer and the pay more equitable and stable.

LABOR ACTIVISM The postwar period witnessed the continued labor activism of Latino, Mexican American, and other immigrant workers in the American West’s industrial centers and agricultural communities. Building on prewar Chicana activism, migrant workers formed unions and demanded safer work conditions and better pay. Perhaps the most highly publicized postwar labor struggle was the unionization of Mexican and Chicano farm laborers in the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), founded in 1962. The precursor to the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), NFWA was an independent agricultural organization that, beginning in the mid-1960s, used boycotts and strikes to target agricultural producers with antilabor practices and poor working conditions. Of the NFWA’s founders, César Chávez has received the most credit (indeed, as I write this in my office in southern Idaho, a street two blocks away bears Chávez’s name). The other founder was a woman, Dolores Huerta, and historian Margaret Rose has shown that Huerta’s view of the structure of boycotts and the dependence on women and the family unit was integral to the NFWA/UFW movements. The NFWA depended on the publicity of their boycotts and the ability of families to ride out strikes against California wine grape and lettuce producers. Huerta believed families were the core of UFW, “because a family can stick it out in a strange place, on $5 a week per person, the wages everyone in the union is paid” (quoted in Rose, “From the Fields to the Picket Line,” 272). Chicanas and their children picketed in the sun outside Safeway and Giant grocery stores. They also left Southern California to travel to cities like Chicago to publicize boycotts. In the case of a

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United Farm Workers activist Dolores Huerta at work during a grape pickers’ strike in California, 1968. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

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western woman leaving the West to publicize a labor issue, Juanita and Merced Valdez took their children to Cincinnati in the early 1970s to assist with the ongoing lettuce boycotts. The couple’s seven children, ranging in age from 8 to 18, picketed outside giant Kroger stores with signs that said, “Please Do Not Shop at Kroger until the Valdez Family and 3 Million Farm Worker Families Secure Justice” (Rose, “From the Fields to the Picket Line,” 276). Juanita Valdez, like thousands of agricultural mother activists, took care of her children, lived in camps and cars, walked for miles in strange cities and neighborhoods, endured the abuse of white customers who complained about their presence at large shopping centers, and otherwise carried out the footwork of the postwar labor movement.

FREEWAYS, BABIES, AND BOOM As the war came to a close, families that had lived together in apartments and urban tenements during Depression and war looked to the suburbs for space, a place for the kids to play, and opportunity for a new life. The years immediately after the end of World War II were ones of optimism and affluence on the American home front. Many people had inadvertently saved money during the war years, as rations and a lack of opportunity limited spending, and earnings had picked up because of the industrial mobilization associated with the war. Changes in the lending structure of loans, including the extension of Federal Home Administration (FHA) loan repayment periods to 25 or 30 years, made house purchases accessible to large numbers of lower- and middle-income families. Created by the New Deal’s National Housing Act of 1934, the FHA was designed to promote private building and encourage the improvement of national housing conditions. The Veterans Administration, too, provided low-interest loans to the more than 16 million servicemen and women returning from military assignments after 1945. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, known also as the GI Bill of Rights, provided assistance with housing, education, and unemployment benefits. College enrollment and housing starts both skyrocketed after the war, due in large part to the GI Bill. The postwar, middle-class house was often a three-bedroom, onebath, ranch-style single-family dwelling with an attached carport and a

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backyard. Architectural styles varied slightly throughout the country, but every town saw new neighborhoods with rows of these houses pop up during the 1940s and 1950s. These 1,500 or 1,900 square-foot houses were considered spacious and luxurious. An attached carport, a fenced yard, and a bathroom to be shared only by the members of the immediate family were tremendous luxuries to those who had endured cramped housing and sleeping arrangements, or migrant labor camps, during the Depression’s worst years. Preceding generations of urban middle-class Americans had rarely been able to afford a house with a yard. Farm families, too, witnessed change as they moved from the countryside to town, especially during the winter months. Between 1934, the start of FHA programs, and 1972, the percentage of U.S. families living in their own homes rose from 44 to 63 percent (Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 205). In the American West, where few cities were compact, walkable cities (San Francisco and Portland were exceptions) before the war, the advent of the suburbs created western sprawl—the tendency of housing to extend ever more distant from the core of the city. Western places like Phoenix and Salt Lake City were surrounded by relatively inexpensive, undeveloped land. New crops of identical tract homes popped up as suburbia plowed under farmland. In the West, suburbs came to define a middle ground between wilderness and civilization, a place where inhabitants could enjoy the outdoor life without the complications associated with camping. Outdoor living became a marketable commodity, advertised in slick regional magazines like Salt Lake City and Sunset Magazine. Western suburbs were a place not just to live in but also a retreat to go to and get away from the stresses of urban life. In per capita terms, the development of western suburbs affected a large segment of the region’s population. Throughout the 20th century, the American West remained, as it does today, the most urban of regions: a greater percentage of the West’s population lives in an area designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as “urban” than in the remainder of the country. Western populations clustered around cities because distances in the West were more difficult to navigate. Deserts, mountain ranges, and other geographic limitations—especially aridity—meant that people settled close to centers of commerce and transportation. Western suburban development, then, followed a pattern created during

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the 19th century. Populations radiated out from towns and cities. Environmental constraints limit suburban expansion in the western United States, but those limitations would not become apparent until after the initial suburbanization phase (see Chapter Nine). One of the main reasons young families chose to move to the suburbs during the postwar years was because they were having more babies, as a whole, than their parents (they would end up having more than their children as well). Between the early 1940s and the mid-1960s, the United States experienced an unprecedented baby boom. Birthrates started to rise during 1941, surpassing 20 live births for every 1,000 people, and by the peak year of the boom, 1954, the national birthrate reached 25.3 and the number of live babies born surpassed 4 million. These numbers were shocking, particularly as the number of live births per woman in the United States had been dropping since the early 19th century. By the end of 1965, the birthrate dropped to prewar numbers, and the official boom ended. The baby boom represented one of the greatest demographic events in American history, and certainly of the 20th century. More babies meant more houses, more baby clothes, more baby food, and more toys, and the boom itself became an industry as retailers marketed to the huge number of young parents. Migration patterns during wartime mobilization and the return of thousands of GIs to military installations on the West Coast made the western region the fastest-growing area of the nation, and therefore also a main contributor to the baby boom. In 1951, the states with the highest birthrates were New Mexico, at a whopping 35.4 percent, and Utah, at 32.8 percent. Other western states, including Arizona (30.5 percent), North Dakota (28.8 percent), South Dakota (28.5 percent), Idaho (28.1 percent), Texas (28 percent), Wyoming (27.3 percent), and Montana (26.9 percent), all had birthrates higher than the national average of 24.9 percent. In 1961, 12 western states, including the seven Rocky Mountain states, North and South Dakota, and Alaska and Hawaii, still occupied places in the top 16 overall birthrates. Why did so many families want so many children, especially in the American West, during these years? A combination of historical factors contributed to the sky-high birthrates. The marriage rate had been inching upward as early as 1941, and during the war years the marriage rate

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continued to rise. When GIs returned home, they settled down with their wives for the first time, or they married women who had waited for them to return. Women, too, during these years wanted to be married. Young women in their early twenties in 1945 had spent their childhoods in the depths of the Great Depression. The rising economy and proliferation of goods and services that the end of the war brought to many middle-class Americans represented a kind of security lacking in their lives before. The economy, growth of suburbia, and end of the war ushered in a period of optimism that made the risks inherent in getting married and having children seem minor. For many postwar women, a house in the suburbs represented the culmination of a dream. The reality, although not necessarily a nightmare, did not always live up to expectations. The suburbs were isolated in ways that city neighborhoods were not. This kind of urban isolation created two separate, but connected, patterns: women at home in the suburbs created networks of support and socialization, and the geography of the suburbs revolved around the automobile. Left at home by their working husbands, suburban wives met for coffee; traded child care duties; attended bridge, civic, and cultural clubs; and participated in weekly carpools. Television programs and magazines romanticized the suburban life, and advertisers tried to capitalize on it. Retail centers emerged to meet the needs of consumers in cars who wanted one-stop shopping. In the West, as elsewhere, increasingly the only way to get to the suburbs was in an automobile. To leave to go shopping or to visit friends who lived outside of the neighborhood, one needed a car, and many families possessed one automobile that was driven to work by the husband. Some cities, such as Chicago and New York, possessed transit systems that limited freeway traffic and increased transportation options for suburban dwellers. In the West, however, the freeway would become synonymous with suburbia, and nowhere would this be more apparent than in Los Angeles. Los Angeles’s choked freeways and hazy air epitomized the freeway-dependent, suburban West. Although a housewife living in the suburbs of Phoenix, Los Angeles, Denver, or Seattle could have been Asian, Hispanic, African American, or American Indian, she was always depicted in advertising and television as white and as projecting middle-class American values and

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consumer choices, such as driving a station wagon, fixing casseroles for dinner, or attending a parent-teacher association meeting. The Brady Bunch, a television sitcom based in Southern California, depicted a combined family (both parents had lost their first spouses) of six. The family was white, the kids were well scrubbed, they lived in a split-level home, and Carol Brady drove a station wagon. The show represented a progressive move forward from 1950s programs like Leave it to Beaver, as the parents, Mike and Carol Brady, slept in the same bed and had African American neighbors, but the underlying moral or message of each episode highlighted the Brady’s status as the all-American white family. As Mimi Marinucci has argued, the program’s underlying message was traditional. During the episode “Marcia’s Liberation,” Marcia Brady decides that it is unfair for an all-male organization to exclude her, and she launches a protest that leads to her inclusion. She finds that the club’s requirements are too difficult, however, while Peter Brady— her brother—has no difficulty meeting the requirements of the all-girl club, which include baking cookies. The message: boys’ activities are more difficult, and girls are happier baking cookies, anyway. The Brady Bunch avoided controversy, just as people in the suburbs did. Marcia Brady became a cult figure representative of the clean-cut, blonde, suburban California girl. But for many women, the suburban housewife life seemed unfulfilling, and the resulting tension and guilt for failing to feel happy led to a sort of malaise characterized by feminist Betty Friedan in her influential book, The Feminine Mystique (1963). Certainly, not all Americans took part in or benefited from the postwar housing boom. FHA’s borrowing practices, which included ratings of the property, the borrower, and the neighborhood, advantaged white, educated, middle-class Americans. In other words, FHA’s mortgage criteria favored new neighborhoods over old, established white families over African Americans recently migrated from the American South to Western towns, and long-time American citizens over new immigrants. The purpose of FHA’s rating system was to secure its mortgages and avoid long-term risk, but the end result was a favoritism toward white suburbs and a decline in the market value and attractiveness of America’s inner-city neighborhoods. As more affluent families left the confines of the city in search of a house, a barbecue, and a lawn,

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A group of African American women step through rubble and demolished storefronts on Central and Vernon Avenues in Los Angeles, California, where businesses were destroyed and looted during the Watts riots of August, 1965. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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the tax base in the city proper shrank, leading to the financial decline of essential infrastructure elements, including schools, playgrounds, transportation, and civic centers. In the American West, the growth of suburbs negatively affected resources and services for inner-city dwellers in Los Angeles, Denver, and Seattle. Postwar growth in the West occurred through sprawl and annexation, and as cities spread out, city centers died. By the 1970s, most Americans did not live on a farm or in the city: they lived in the suburbs. In the Watts area of Los Angeles, segregation and migration created a predominately African American community with a vibrant culture. The explosion of suburbs and the decline of inner-city services, such as public schools; clean, affordable housing; transportation; and retail outlets created a terrible crisis of poverty, despair, and homelessness in neighborhoods like Watts. Watts exploded in violent riots during August 1965 as desperate residents lashed out. The riots killed 34 people, injured more than 1,000, and destroyed as much as $200,000 worth of property. The riots also created anti-black sentiment in Southern California’s white suburbs, which began to shift dramatically to the political right. Throughout the West, suburbanization led to a declining tax base and infrastructure for inner cities; the development of huge disenfranchised neighborhoods like Watts; and the physical transformation of the western landscape with the introduction of shopping malls, large movie theaters, gas stations, and mobile home parks. The West’s inner cities became isolated enclaves of the female working poor.

THE NUCLEAR WEST By 1949, the Cold War between the United States and Russia had begun. For the next 40 years, the war would be characterized by a nuclear arms race that resulted from each side wanting to have the same capability as the other, so that neither would opt to use weapons that threatened the world. The United States built nuclear installations throughout the Interior West, where remote locations and sparse populations made nuclear testing less damaging, it was thought, to the population at large. Nuclear research centers were established at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Hanford, Washington; and Arco, Idaho.

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Western communities, like those downwind from Hanford, Washington, ultimately paid the price for these choices, as all of the installations emitted radioactive materials into the air and dumped waste into the soil and water. Teri Hein remembered a nearly idyllic childhood among the rolling wheat fields of eastern Washington’s Palouse country. Growing up on the farm her great-grandparents homesteaded, Hein may have been sheltered from much of the 1950s and 1960s postwar changes if it had not been for the fact that her community was downwind from the federal nuclear installation at Hanford. One by one, Hein watched as her neighbors, friends, and family members were stricken by thyroid cancer, pancreatic cancer, lupus, and brain tumors. In Hein’s one-squaremile country neighborhood there were 10 farm families; during the decades after 1945, seven had at least one case of cancer—and several had more—within their households. Beginning in the early 1990s the federal government released information about Hanford and other nuclear establishments. Early in the nuclear development phase, little was known about the problems associated with radiation exposure, and in 1945 alone Hanford installations released more than 500,000 curies of radioactive iodine-131 into the atmosphere. In 1949, a planned release called the “Green Run” emitted an additional 8,000 curies of radioactive material. A filter failure in 1951 led to the release of nearly 30,000 curies over eastern Washington’s wheat fields at the height of the growing season. Between the late 1940s and the 1970s, Hanford released large emissions containing plutonium, strontium, and cerium into the air, and more than 100 billion gallons of low-level radioactive waste into the Columbia River. The public was not told about these discharges, the danger to public health, or the threat to the drinking-water supply. Hein’s story of her neighbors’ illnesses and her family’s court battle to get restitution for Hanford’s victims brought the tragedy to a national audience. “I don’t care that expensive scientific studies claim there is no definitive proof that Hanford caused cancers,” Hein wrote, “I just care about my father, and he is only one of thousands of people probably, and quite tragically, affected by activities during the Cold War” (Hein, Atomic Farmgirl, x). Although many western women and their families unwittingly paid for civil defense with their health, women also voluntarily defended the

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nation during the Cold War. Indeed, the nation’s civil defense structure depended on volunteer labor, particularly for key 1950s advertising campaigns and defensive domestic programs, and women provided the bulk of this labor. Passage of the Federal Civil Defense Act in 1950 created the Federal Civil Defense Agency (FCDA), which received the charge of teaching Americans how to defend themselves against nuclear attacks and how to use their own resourcefulness to survive if the worstcase scenario came to pass. The FCDA focused on educating women about survival, as the agency viewed housewives as the front line in civil defense at home. FCDA contingency plans included volunteer female labor to perform some of the basic social services that would become necessary in the event of an attack. The men, it was presumed, would be called up for service, leaving women at home to protect their children and to rebuild a semblance of order and community. The FCDA needed women volunteers, but it was careful not to challenge pervasive 1950s gender expectations of women as homemakers. The civil defense campaign “Grandma’s Pantry” urged women to stock their shelves with canned and preserved foods to prepare for a long stint without ready access to a store, to maintain a complete first aid kit, and to teach their children how to use the radios and flashlights. The “duck and cover” campaign disseminated thousands of films and packets to schools and homes, where teachers and parents were supposed to teach the drill to children. Few believed duckand-cover drills would actually save anyone during an attack, but the action of going through the motions was intended to calm children and suppress fear. In effect, the duck-and-cover campaign terrified many children, who grew up believing that an atomic attack could happen at any moment and that they should be hiding under their desks. Civil defense also recruited suburban housewives to act as neighborhood block wardens, because, agency officers surmised, these women were home all day anyway. Block wardens created emergency response plans, mapped neighborhoods, and held workshops to inform other women in the neighborhood. Western suburbs, particularly in California, played an essential role in the feminization of the nation’s civil defense. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower named Jean Wood Fuller, then president of the California Federation of Republican Women, to

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School children practice survival methods during a civil defense test on February 1, 1951. (Bettmann/Corbis)

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chair the National Women’s Advisory Committee on Civil Defense, which worked closely with the FCDA to see how women could best provide for the defense of their families, homes, and states. Fuller’s experience at using grassroots, female volunteers to build California’s Republican Party prepared her for the highest female post in civil defense. Fuller used the skills she had honed in the suburbs of Southern California to recruit women into the service on the basis of their “female” abilities of nursing, comforting, and teaching (Johnson, “Women Defend the Nation,” www.coldwar.org/articles/50s/women_civildefense .html).

POLITICS OF CONSERVATISM Jean Wood Fuller’s ascendancy to one of the most powerful posts within the FCDA reflected a shift in political power from the nation’s eastern seaboard and midwestern industrial core to the West and to the Sunbelt. The 1940s and 1950s population boom in the West’s urban centers allowed the region to exercise previously elusive national political power. California, especially, became important in electoral politics as its post-1945 population exploded and its industrial capacity rose to become one of the most productive in the world. California’s split personality in politics represented two of the trends of the postwar period. By the 1960s, northern California would become the center of antiwar, antiestablishment, left-wing movements. Southern California, in contrast, emerged as a focal point for political conservatism grounded in affluence. Studying western women’s history is essential to understanding California’s political dichotomies, trends that would come to define politics in the late 20th-century United States. The power of western conservatism would not be nationally apparent until the 1980s, but women’s organizations in Southern California were at the forefront of the movement as early as the 1950s. The vibrant civil rights and counterculture movements of the 1960s have received more scholarly attention, but western white women quietly created the grassroots structure necessary for western conservatism to take hold, and eventually to contribute substantially to the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Historians have shown that western conservatism drew on the images of the old American West—the gunslinging, individualist

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hero—to support a host of common values and issues, including patriotism, anticommunism, support for states’ rights, opposition to federal spending and the welfare state, and suspicion of leftist and antiwar movements. Women’s Republican Party clubs in Southern California played a pivotal role in shaping the political agenda of the western Right, and were central to the advance of its power. The California Federation of Republican Women (CFRW) exploded during the 1950s. The CFRW listed 12,000 members in 1949, but by 1957 the organization counted about 50,000 women as members, a staggering increase of more than 300 percent. The CFRW expanded in large part because it targeted the very audience that grew as a result of suburbia and the baby boom. The national trend that glorified the role of the housewife worked to the benefit of CFRW as women living in Southern California’s affluent, white suburbs had the time and resources needed to move the state’s Democratic voters to the Republican ticket. The CFRW did not promote or engage in discriminatory membership practices, but the nature of CFRW activities and the locations of recruitment efforts ensured that the group would remain predominately white and affluent. Local federated clubs tended to hold meetings and luncheons during midday, making it difficult for working-class or any working woman to attend. Republican women provided the grassroots political activity necessary to reach out to voters and make a personal connection. Direct political “precincting,” or knocking on doors and calling neighborhood constituents to make sure that they had voted, became the hallmark of the California Republican Party. Direct campaigning of this sort was also the job of Republican clubwomen. California’s Republican national committeewoman during the early 1950s, Marjorie Benedict, emphasized the connection between women’s traditional activities and volunteer political activities. Jean Wood Fuller’s role as president of the California Federation made her a natural choice to head the National Women’s Advisory Committee on civil defense, as the politics of domesticity in Republican Southern California corresponded to the FCDA’s motherhood tactics. Republican women volunteers hosted cocktail parties to meet candidates and introduce them to the community; produced fund-raising cookbooks; and hosted bake sales to help keep the local

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party office open. The National Federation of Republican Women produced a recipe booklet entitled “The Nixons’ Recipes for Nixons’ Neighbors” (quoted in Nickerson, “The Power of a Morally Indignant Woman,” 39) and distributed it throughout mostly white, middle- and upper-class neighborhoods during Richard Nixon’s 1960 presidential campaign. Nixon lost to John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the national election, but the early use of these tactics in California eventually led to feminine morality-based precincting methods that won Barry Goldwater the California presidential primary in 1964. The staunchly conservative Goldwater won all counties in Southern California. At the height of the liberal movements in northern California, Republican women in California’s southland were creating the mechanisms that would later help shift part of the state, and the country, to the right. The West in the postwar period experienced not so much political swings, but simultaneous political movements grounded in gender, race, class, and geographic location that jockeyed for position and traded wins and losses at the polls.

GRACIE PFOST Born in Arkansas in 1906, Gracie Bowers Pfost moved with her family to a farm in Idaho’s Boise Valley in 1911. The Bowers joined other families, white and black, from the rural South who moved to newly opened irrigated tracts in the arid West during the early 20th century. Gracie Bowers attended public schools in the state of Idaho and graduated from a business college. In 1923, at the age of 17, she married Walter (Jack) Pfost. Gracie Pfost continued to work after marrying, serving as a county deputy clerk, auditor, and recorder. Hers was the first generation of educated women who chose, in significant numbers, to remain in the workforce after marriage. Pfost became active in the state of Idaho’s Democratic Party, where she repeatedly served as a state delegate to the national convention and created important political and civic connections. Pfost’s peers in the professional women’s organizations to which she belonged, including Soroptomists and Business and Professional Women, urged her to run for office to promote the role of women in political affairs. Pfost

The Gendered Wartime and Postwar West, 1941–1980 ran for Idaho’s First Congressional District and won in 1952. Her campaign confronted the issue of her gender straight on, by featuring a pretty and well-coiffed Pfost on election posters and campaign cards but likening her womanhood to strength and upright behavior by declaring that a vote for Pfost was to “Tie Your Vote to a Solid Pfost.” The cards and posters featured a hitching post, thus connecting themes of the Old West with female moral authority. Pfost also appeared in rodeos, riding her white palomino horse and sporting bright western shirts and hats. By participating in cow-milking contests, riding horses in rodeos and parades, and going underground with miners in northern Idaho, Pfost collapsed western symbolism and gender. When Pfost became the victim of a slander campaign aimed at questioning her sexual conduct while on the campaign trail, she elicited the help of her husband, who thereafter traveled with her, loaded her bags, and drove the car. Pfost’s conscious use of gender on the campaign trail won her elections, and she served as one of Idaho’s congressional delegates from 1952 to 1962, when she unsuccessfully ran for a U.S. Senate seat. After her election, Pfost continued to juggle the competing visions of womanhood represented in 1950s television sitcoms and the responsibilities of her office. She sent cards to constituents, agreed to newspaper articles that showed that she could cook, and made women’s club appearances. At the same time, she became a staunch advocate for the construction of a dam at Hell’s Canyon, one of the deepest and most scenic canyons in the world. She believed a federally funded dam—as opposed to the construction of a series of Idaho Power structures—would provide inexpensive hydroelectric power and irrigation to Idaho’s residents, attract new businesses, and increase the property values of the Boise River valley and elsewhere. Her position was opposed by environmental groups in the West and conservative Congress members who feared that a federally funded dam would create a subsidized, or socialist, system for power and water generation. She was defeated by environmental forces that ultimately succeeded in establishing the Hell’s Canyon Recreational Area. Her pro-dam campaign earned her the nickname “Hell’s Belle.” Pfost’s tenure in the U.S. Congress reflects the complex interplay of gender and western politics in the middle of the 20th century. Pfost used her marriage to portray traditional

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MOBILITY, ACTIVISM, AND HOME Before the country became mired in the Great Depression and the demands of World War II, the early phases of the civil rights and women’s movements had begun to emerge and demand attention. Women in the United States had finally received the hard-fought right to vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, but the efforts of activist leader Alice Paul and others to implement much wider reforms, such as the Equal Rights Amendment, either failed or were blown aside by the storms of financial crisis and war. Similarly, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had formed and initiated reforms and protests during the early 20th century, but civil rights issues took a back seat during the ensuing decades of Depression and fighting Hitler. During the postwar period, long-standing tensions and concerns exploded onto center stage. Civil rights, women’s rights, and the other movements of the New Left were national in scope, but the western region and women in the West played pivotal, if little known, roles in these movements. As western U.S. historian Virginia Scharff has shown, it was precisely the movements and mobility of women in and out of the West, and in and out of restrictive boundaries of race, gender, and patriarchal standards, that made the western region a hotbed of activism in the postwar period. As women from the American South, the Midwest, and Europe and Asia moved to the West, they brought ideas about race, privilege, and protest with them. The places from which they came could not restrict these ideas, and once in the West, they sprouted. Some women who moved into the region brought a tradition of activism with them that helped to transform their new western places. Others, moving

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out of the West, took western protest traditions and implanted them elsewhere. Women who already lived in the western United States became activists, participating in free speech, student, antiwar, and civil rights activism from Phoenix to Seattle. The student free speech movement, which itself was influenced by civil rights activism, appeared first in the American West, at the University of California–Berkeley. Historian William H. Chafe has characterized 1960s Berkeley as “the wave of the future for American universities” (Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, 323). In 1964, the year students gathered to protest the university administration’s refusal to allow the dissemination of noncampus political material, Berkeley was a large institution in the vanguard of rapidly expanding, state-funded universities with burgeoning student populations. People born during the first year of the baby boom, 1946, turned 18 in 1964. The baby boom generation hit college campuses as a powerful force. Raised in an era of affluence, these students were not shaped by depression and war, as their parents had been. They also had additional resources with which to pay for college, including their parents’ relative wealth compared with earlier generations and new federal programs aimed at helping middle- and low-income students gain access to higher education. In 1958, the National Defense Education Act provided for graduate fellowship programs and funded the National Defense Student Loan Program (later called the Perkins Loan Program), which for the first time offered federal financial aid to low-income college students. Other legislation in the early 1960s provided support for married students and authorized college work-study programs. Access to college expanded at precisely the same time the number of college-aged people increased. The boomers were not only large in number, but they also had different ideas about hierarchy, deference to authority, and institutional loyalty. Berkeley’s white, male, middle- and upper-class student population came mostly from California’s new affluent suburbs, but like other large state institutions, Berkeley’s student population was increasingly diverse, and some of its students came from the declining inner-city neighborhoods. White men still dominated student life. Led by Mario Savio, a student who had participated in the Freedom Summer rides for civil rights in Mississippi, Berkeley students launched huge protests

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demanding that institutions of higher learning cease to function as pseudo parents. The students wanted free speech protections, changes in social regulations, dress-code leniency, and greater participation in academic affairs. Through the efforts of Berkeley students and the spread of protest to campuses across the United States, a number of dramatic changes took place on campuses. Student evaluations of faculty were instituted; housemothers and other forms of chaperoning disappeared; dress codes were lifted, so that female students could wear pants and men could eschew ties; and students gained greater access to their grades and to campus politics. As campus climates changed, the move away from rigid hierarchies ultimately benefited female students. Institutions throughout the country began offering coeducational dormitories, which gave women access to the resources previously available only to male students. Missing from the Berkeley student movement was the participation of large numbers of African American, Asian, and women students. This was partly due to the fact that, like other campuses, Berkeley’s student population was mostly male and white. Still, the student movement motivated students across the nation and encouraged white student participation in the civil rights movement. It also motivated nonwhite students in other settings, including high schools. In March 1968, more than 10,000 high school students in predominately Hispanic and Mexican American schools in East Los Angeles walked out to protest their overcrowded schools’ lack of resources, racist curriculum, and poor instruction. Led by a grassroots Chicana coalition, these students convinced the Los Angeles Unified School District to enact reforms, including the establishment of Chicano Studies and bilingual education. While white male college students in state schools throughout the West advanced a new climate for students, boomer women found other ways to participate in movements. Some white women traveled to the American South and elsewhere to take part in the civil rights movement. Most boomers, however, participated in protests—some public, some private—much closer to home. In the West Coast’s urban centers young women used the changing cityscape to test the boundaries of acceptable behavior. In Los Angeles, young women like Pamela Miller left their suburb homes at night to roam the streets of Hollywood and the Sunset

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Freedom Riders enroute to Washington, D.C., from New York City hang signs from bus windows to protest segregation. During the summer of 1961, hundreds of Freedom Riders rode in interstate buses into the prosegregationist South to test a U.S. Supreme Court decision that banned segregation of interstate transportation facilities. (Library of Congress)

Strip, where they chased bands, fantasized about rock stars, bought and wore sexy clothes considered offensive by their parents, and founded an urban, drug-oriented youth culture. Miller rejected the dating rituals of her parents, participated in numerous sit-ins and protest marches, spent nights in trailers with men of questionable connections and desires, and in 1967 hitched a ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco to join the hippie scene centered in the Haight-Ashbury district adjacent to Golden Gate Park. Disgusted by the filth and incipient violence of the alternative lifestyle culture, Miller returned to her Los Angeles home where she, like many other “California girls” of her generation, attempted to become an actress but instead became a rock-and-roll groupie. Without marketable skills, Miller was vulnerable to financial climate change, and her sexual habits exposed her to the soup of diseases that ran through the rock and

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counterculture movements. When she contracted hepatitis she was forced into the nonpaying ward at the county hospital. She became one of rock star Frank Zappa’s GTOs, groupie girls who appeared in photo shots with the singer and tried to create their own performance art. As the 1960s turned into the 1970s, the Los Angeles drug scene exploded, and groupies, singers, and even casual club goers increasingly traded hashish and hallucinogens for cocaine and heroin. And, after rejecting all sexual and female convention, after watching her friends die of drug overdoses, Miller married the second-rate, glitter-rock singer Michael Des Barres. The two had a child, fought their addictions with therapy, and then divorced after 13 years of marriage. A thousand miles away in rural Idaho, another woman of Miller’s generation wrestled with the social, cultural, and gender changes introduced by 1960s and 1970s movements. Kim Barnes grew up in one of northern Idaho’s timber towns. Nestled among the trees and completely dependent on local sawmill and/or giant timber companies like Weyerhauser, Potlatch, and Georgia Pacific, these communities experienced boom and bust in the postwar economy. The immediate postwar period had witnessed a flurry of timber extraction. Between 1952 and 1987, more than 40 percent of the state of Idaho’s famed ponderosa pine trees were cut or burned for fire suppression (Aiken and others, Idaho, 80). Similar rates of production occurred in Oregon and Washington. Kim Barnes remembered that her timber camp had neither neighborhoods nor blocks: We had camps and settlements and a new development built by Potlatch Forest Industries to house its workers. Some of our parents stayed home at night; some went to the bars, where they drank and danced and, more than once, shot one another to death in fits of jealous rage (Barnes, Hungry for the World, 40).

Then the timber industry experienced a dramatic shift during the late 1970s. A wave of mill closures, massive layoffs, and rampant unemployment washed over mill and timber towns stretching from northern California to northern Idaho. The old-growth trees that had been the staple of the Pacific Northwest timber industry were either gone or restricted from cutting, and new environmental regulations limited the options of

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the timber companies. Many sawmills opted to close rather than convert their machinery over to processing the smaller logs then available. Before 1970, the Georgia-Pacific Corporation employed around 1,000 workers in the small, southern Oregon community of Coos Bay. In 1979, the company closed its Coos Bay mill, and in 1982, it moved its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia. For families in Coos Bay and elsewhere that had been dependent on the industry for more than a century, these changes signaled insecurity, hardship, and hunger. The companies had hired mostly men for the higher-paying jobs in the mills. When the good jobs disappeared, men could only find what historian William G. Robbins has called “marginal employment in jobs that were once considered demeaning” (Robbins, Hard Times in Paradise, 164). The transition to lowpaying jobs had a dramatic impact on families and on the outlook of communities like Coos Bay and Potlatch, Idaho. Families lost their houses, their cars, and their savings. Women went to work in large numbers because they had an easier time finding jobs in the new serviceoriented tourism industry than their husbands, whose skills were obsolete. Younger members of families also started to work in the restaurants that gradually replaced the old cafés, truck stops, and coffee houses. A school counselor in Coos Bay reported that during the early days of the mill closures student income from fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Pizza Hut often provided the only income for timber families. In Coos Bay, relative family income plummeted. Alcoholism and child and spousal abuse increased. By the 1980s, Coos Bay had a reputation as the most depressed place in Oregon; the same could be said for timber communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. Timber towns transitioned to a landscape dotted with abandoned main street businesses, rundown mid-century homes, and trailer parks. Timber families moved out, found other work, or tried to make a living with seasonal labor. Kim Barnes’s family was one that chose to leave the migrant life of the timber camps. The family moved to Lewiston, Idaho, in 1970, where Barnes’s father looked for work while the family lived with her grandparents. Barnes graduated from Lewiston High in 1976 and, after a heated argument with her intensely evangelical religious father, left the family to enter into the alternative lifestyle of the 1970s rural West. Barnes found

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work as a bank teller for $2.75 per hour. She fell in love with a man who introduced her to drugs, alcohol, and his brand of free sex, which meant that he asked her to share her bed with his friends and acquaintances. He used seduction, sex, and fear to control her, and she found herself completely isolated under the wide skies of the West—she lacked education, transportation, money, and choices. Like millions of young women in depressed western communities in the 1970s and 1980s, she found few options in Lewiston outside menial service jobs, trailer parks, and alcoholic, abusive sexual encounters. This was not a world of affluence and sunny suburbs, but rather the world of the rural West in transition. Barnes found a way out of the misery, got an education, and later married. Her writing about her childhood and young adulthood has contributed to the expanding genre of literary western memoir. Janet Campbell Hale’s own memoir of growing up Indian in the Pacific Northwest revealed that for some Native Americans in the postwar period, coming home was not just difficult, it was nearly impossible. Raised by a mother who was herself chastised by her own mother and by her sisters for marrying a full-blooded Indian man, Hale was admonished to behave politely so that whites would believe she was a “good Indian.” Her childhood was marked by frequent moves, from Southern California to the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation in northern Idaho, to Tacoma, and back to the reservation. Most of the time, she and her mother were on the run from her hard-drinking father. The daughter of a Coeur d’Alene father and a mixed-race Canadian mother, Hale’s home base remained the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, but she did not always feel at home there, or anywhere. The Coeur d’Alene Reservation, like other reservations during the 1950s and 1960s, offered few opportunities for young, poor Native women. Hale became one of the postwar period’s expanding population of college-educated minority women when she enrolled at the University of California–Berkeley, after a long year at San Francisco City College waiting for her tribal financial aid and living on $28 per month after tuition and child care. “I would be a welfare mother,” Hale later wrote about the Berkeley acceptance, “no more” (Hale, Bloodlines, 106). She graduated with a degree in rhetoric in 1974. She ultimately returned to the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation to live, just as Kim Barnes returned to the woods of northern Idaho. The

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relationship between contemporary memoir and the historical profession remains a reluctant one. Historian Sherry L. Smith called Bloodlines “depressing” but “important,” because it gave “voice to the ‘urban Indian’: one who rarely returns to her reservation and cannot claim it as ‘home’” (Smith 1994, 836).

CONCLUSION In the end, the journeys of Pamela Miller, Kim Barnes, Janet Campbell Hale, and many others like them suggest that changing gender roles, new expectations, and shifting opportunities converged in startling and frightening ways in the urban and rural West of the 1960s and 1970s. For Hispanic working women in the Southwest, or struggling single mothers like Hale, women like Miller and Barnes could appear selfish, frivolous, and ungrateful for the opportunities accorded white privilege throughout the West, from Los Angeles to Lewiston, Idaho. For conservative white women, who were themselves rapidly becoming a political force in urban centers and rural backwaters, the lives of Miller and Barnes represented the hedonistic excesses of a generation gone wrong. They would be the female side of the Moral Majority responsible for the presidential election of Richard Nixon in 1968 and, eventually, of the transformation of much of the West to “Red states,” or Republican Party strongholds. The divisions between liberal and conservative, stay-at-home mothers and working mothers, rural and urban, inner city and suburbs, industry and environmentalism, and Old West versus New West would shape the social, political, and economic landscapes negotiated by women of the late 20th- and early 21st-century West.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY For a concise survey of the economic transformations created in the American West by World War II, see Carlos A. Schwantes, “Wage Earners and Wealth Makers,” in Clyde A. Milner II, Carol A. O’Conner, and Martha A. Sandweiss, editors, The Oxford History of the American West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 426–467. For the national story of women at work during World War II, see Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil, Through Women’s Eyes: An American History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005). David M. Kennedy’s Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War,

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1929–1945, Oxford History of the United States (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999) is one of the best general histories of the World War II period; another important synthesis is William H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II, Third Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). A rich literature exists for specific groups of women workers during the war. For less generalized treatments of women workers in the American West during the war, see Karen Beck Skold, “The Job He Left Behind: Women in the Shipyards during World War II,” in Karen J. Blair, editor, Women in Pacific Northwest History, Revised Edition. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 158–179; Sherna Berger Gluck, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War, and Social Change (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987); Karen Tucker Anderson, “Last Hired, First Fired: Black Women Workers during World War II,” Journal of American History, Volume 69 (1982) 82–97; Sherrie A. Kossoudji and Laura J. Dresser, “Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers during World War II,” Journal of Economic History, Volume 51 (1992): 431–446; and Amy Vita Kesselman, Fleeting Opportunities: Women Shipyard Workers in Portland and Vancouver during World War II and Reconversion (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990). Susan A. Glenn’s PhD dissertation, “Mexican American Home Front: The Politics of Gender, Culture, and Community in World War II Los Angeles” explores the gender landscape of Mexican American neighborhoods and the contradictions of wartime debates about immigrant women, their participation in the workforce, and their sexuality (Glenn, PhD dissertation, University of Washington, 2004). For an analysis of the day care movement during the war, and its defeat after the war, see Amina Hassan, “Rosie Re-Revited in Public Memory: A Rhetorical Study of WWII Shipyard Childcare in Richmond, California and the 1946–1957 Campaign to Preserve Public Supported Childcare (PhD dissertation, Ohio University, 2005). Abby J. Cohen’s article “A Brief History of Federal Financing for Child Care in the United States” (The Future of Children, Volume 6, Number 2 [Summer/Fall 1996]: 26–40) is an indispensable resource for understanding U.S. federal initiatives relative to funding child care for working parents. Cohen concludes that “the United States has yet to establish an underlying principle or set of principles to justify public support of child care” (36) or to appreciate the value and need for subsidized, high-quality child care. This statement remains true in 2007. For more on the USO and its current activities, visit the USO Media Room at uso.mediaroom.com. Much has been written about the incidence of wartime marriages between foreign nationals and American men serving overseas during World War II, though little of the literature focuses on the experiences of war brides in the western United States. Jenel Virden’s Goodbye, Piccadilly: British War Brides in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996) provides a general overview of the motivation and experience of the war’s 70,000 British brides.

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Ellie Shukert and Barbara Scibetta’s War Brides of World War II (New York: Random House, 1991) synthesizes and analyzes the oral histories and other reminiscences of more than 2,000 war brides and their husbands. For information specifically about World War II war brides in the American West, I have relied on Seena B. Kohl’s “Love, Valor, and Endurance: World War II War Brides Making a Home in Montana,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Volume 56, Number 3 (Autumn 2006): 22–37. Kohl’s article grew out of the Montana Historical Society’s “War Bride Project,” an oral history project implemented between 2000 and 2003 that “sought to give voice to a unique group of immigrants and to explore not only the impact of World War II but also the process of becoming a Montanan.” (Kohl, 24). The Saturday Evening Post article about domestic war brides and “hurry-up weddings” appeared in Volume 215, Issue 50, June 12, 1943, 28–85; it contains numerous photographs showing the style of wartime wedding apparel. For a perspective from a war bride located in the American South, see Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith, “Since You Went Away: The World War II Letters of Barbara Wooddall Taylor,” Women’s Studies, Volume 17, Number 3–4 (1990): 249–276. The history of Japanese American women in the West is slowly expanding. A number of articles have been written about gender and women within the context of Japanese internment. I have relied on Leslie A. Ito’s pivotal article, “Japanese American Women and the Student Relocation Movement, 1942–1945,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Volume 21, Issue 3 (2000): 1–25. Ito found that to understand the lives of Japanese women students in the context of Japanese internment, scholars must consider both race and gender. Valerie J. Matsumoto provides an overview of the development of Nisei women’s social networks in urban California in “Japanese American Women and the Creation of Urban Nisei Culture,” in Valerie J. Matsumoto and Blake Allmendinger, editors, Over the Edge: Remapping the American West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 291–306. Gordon Hirabayashi pressed his case against the federal government for more than 30 years. In 1987, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of Hirabayashi and reversed his wartime convictions. See Gordon Hirabayashi, “Growing Up American in Washington,” in David H. Stratton, editor, Washington Comes of Age: The State in the National Experience (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1992), 21–39. Susan L. Smith explores the differences between the health care pay and opportunities for whites and Japanese Americans at internment camps in “Women Health Workers and the Color Line in the Japanese American ‘Relocation Centers’ of World War II,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Volume 73, Number 4 (1999): 585–601. For more on the experiences of Japanese American students, scholars should consult Gary Okihiro’s classic work, Against Racism: Japanese American Students and World War II (Seattle: University of Washington, 1999). For the full text of Executive Order 9066 and other

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pivotal U.S. documents, visit the Our Documents Initiative, www.our documents.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=74, a cooperative effort among National History Day, the National Archives and Records Administration, and United States Freedom Corps. The Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive (JARDA) at The Bancroft Library, University of California–Berkeley houses historical photographs and primary documents about Japanese internment; go to bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/jarda.html. For a lyrical, highly readable novel about the Japanese internment experience, students should consult Julie Otsuka, When the Emperor Was Divine (New York: Random House, 2002). Julie Otsuka grew up in California; both of her parents were forced into internment camps during World War II. An interview with Otsuka, who is still an active writer, can be accessed at Penguin Books, readers.penguin.co.uk/. For more about the immediate postwar lives of World War II women workers, see Karen Anderson, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women during World War II (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981) and D’Ann Campbell, “Was the West Different? Values and Attitudes of Young Women in 1943,” Pacific Historical Review, Volume 47 (August 1978): 453–464. Northwestern University’s digital archive of World War II posters can be obtained at www.library.northwestern.edu/otcgi/digilib/llscgi60.exe. Statistics regarding working women in the postwar United States came from James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996). The labor activism of Mexican American and other immigrant women in California and the American Southwest is the richest area of postwar women’s western history. Margaret Rose’s article is “From the Fields to the Picket Line: Huelga Women and the Boycott, 1965–1975,” Labor History, Volume 31, Issue 3 (Summer 1990): 271–293. Other sources on the subject include María A. Gutierrez de Soldatenko, “ILGWU Labor Organizers: Chicana and Latina Leadership in the Los Angeles Garment Industry,” Frontiers, Volume 23, Number 1 (2002): 46–66; John R. Chavez, Eastside Landmark: A History of the East Los Angeles Community Union, 1968–1993 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998); Mary S. Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Angeles Communities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998); and Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). Although the literature about Western women and suburbia is sparse, there is a considerable, and growing, body of work that analyzes the development and meaning of America’s suburbs. For general information and statistics, see the classic work by Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1985). Elizabeth Carny Sowards argues in her dissertation (Sowards, “Outdoor Living:

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Suburban Landscapes, Sense of Place, and Environmentalism in the American West,” PhD dissertation, Arizona State University, 2004) that in the West, suburban landscapes became synonymous with an outdoor living ethic. More on suburbanization, gender, and women can be found in Robyn Muncy, “Cooperative Motherhood and Democratic Civic Culture in Postwar Suburbia, 1940–1965,” Journal of Social History, Volume 38, Issue 2 (Winter 2004): 285–310, and Timothy J. Gilfoyle, “White Cities, Linguistic Turns, and Disneylands: The New Paradigms of Urban History,” Reviews in American History, Volume 26, Number 1 (1998): 175–204. Baby boom statistics for the American West can be obtained at the U.S. Census Bureau Web site at www.censusbureau.com. The 1951 statistics came from U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1954, now available at www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/. See also Nugent, Into the West, especially 271–280. The Brady Bunch continues to air in syndication on cable television and has acquired a cult following. More recent movies and television programs have made fun of the naive content of Brady plots and situations, though the show’s continued popularity suggests the allure of its suburban dream. For more on The Brady Bunch and other television programs, visit the Museum of Broadcast Communications, www.museum.tv/ archives/etv/B/htmlB/bradybunch/bradybunch.htm. Mimi Marinucci’s commentary appears in “Television, Generation X, and Third Wave Feminism: A Contextual Analysis of The Brady Bunch,” Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 38, Issue 3 (February 2005): 505–524. Teri Hein’s memoir about life downwind from Hanford is Atomic Farmgirl: Growing Up Right in the Wrong Place (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003). The significant role played by women, particularly by women in the American West, in the nation’s postwar civil defense is analyzed in Kathleen Johnson, “Women Defend the Nation,” The Cold War Museum, www.coldwar.org/articles/50s/ women_civildefense.html, and Lisa Yaszek, “Stories ‘That Only a Mother’ Could Write: Midcentury Peace Activism, Maternalist Politics, and Judith Merril’s Early Fiction,” National Women’s Studies Journal, Volume 16, Number 2 (Summer 2004): 70–97. For more on the nuclear West, see Bruce Hevly and John M. Findlay, The Atomic West (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998). This collection of essays, unfortunately, does not contain a chapter written by a woman or expressly about women. Western women became a significant force in regional and national politics during the post–World War II period. This history is documented in a wide variety of sources, some general histories of politics, others biographical accounts of individual women. Michelle Nickerson looked at the role of white, suburban women in the grassroots development of Southern California’s conservative Republican Party in “‘The Power of a Morally Indignant Woman’: Republican Women and the Making of California Conservatism,” Journal of

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the West, Volume 42, Number 3 (Summer 2003): 35–43. For an analysis of one of the West’s 1950s female U.S. congressional representatives, see Katherine G. Aiken, “Gender and the Congressional Career of Idaho’s Gracie Pfost,” Journal of the West, Volume 42, Number 3 (Summer 2003): 44–51. For more on the Berkeley student movement, see Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik, editors, The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Women’s participation in the 1968 East Los Angeles School Blowouts is chronicled in Dolores Delgado Bernal, “Grassroots Leadership Reconceptualized: Chicana Oral Histories and the 1968 East Los Angeles School Blowouts,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Volume 19, Issue 2 (1998): 113–142. For more on the boom and collapse of timber communities in the Pacific Northwest, see William G. Robbins, Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850–1986 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988); Norman H. Clark, Mill Town: A Social History of Everett, Washington (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970); Keith Petersen, Company Town: Potlatch, Idaho, and the Potlatch Lumber Company (Pullman: Washington State University: 1987); and Linda Carlson, Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003). Thomas Michael Power explores the economics of the West’s extractive economy in Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: The Search for a Value of Place (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996). The story of Pamela Miller Des Barres is outlined in Virginia Scharff, Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). Kim Barnes’s memoir of her childhood and young adulthood in Lewiston is Hungry for the World: A Memoir (New York: Villard, 2000); Janet Campbell Hale’s is Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter (New York: Random House, 1993). Janet Campbell Hale has remained active in tribal affairs in northern Idaho. Sherry L. Smith’s review of Bloodlines appeared in The Journal of American History, Volume 81, Number 2 (September 1994): 836. These memoirs are part of a larger genre of contemporary western women’s memoir and essay writing; see also Carolyn Ross Johnston, “In the White Woman’s Image? Resistance, Transformation, and Identity in Recent Native American Women’s History,” Journal of Women’s History, Volume 8, Number 3 (Fall): 205–218; and Dennis Walsh, “The Place of Janet Campbell Hale and Sherman Alexie in American Indian Literature,” Idaho Commission for Libraries, libraries.idaho.gov/node/495; and Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman (New York: Harper, 1991). Brief biographies of Dorothea Lange, and galleries of her photographs, can be obtained at the National Archive’s photographic history Web site, “Picturing the Century,” at www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/portfolios/ port_lange.html# and U.S. Library of Congress, “Women Come to the Front:

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Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters during World War II,” at www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html. See also National Archives and Records Service, The American Image: Photographs from the National Archives, 1860–1960, with an introduction by Alan Trachtenberg (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979).

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CHAPTER NINE

LATE TRENDS AND NEW DIRECTIONS

N

atalie Maines, the award-winning, 30-something lead singer for the country singing group Dixie Chicks, told a concert audience in Sydney, Australia, in 2003 that the Chicks were “ashamed the president of the United States [George W. Bush] is from Texas” (quoted in Clarke, Guardian Unlimited). She later told an interviewer that the Dixie Chicks would prefer “a smaller following of really cool people” rather “than people who have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith” (quoted in “Country Special,” People, 75), inferring that she would prefer not to be listened to by those with conservative, rural values. Maines was particularly critical of Toby Keith’s patriotic music. Keith responded to Maines’s comments on his own public stage, prompting a media war between Keith and Maines in which Keith questioned the Dixie Chicks’ patriotism. Maines’s anti-Bush rhetoric was aimed at the Bush administration’s foreign policy, and, coming as it did just 10 days before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the comments created a firestorm of protest from country music fans and radio stations. The public’s response to Maines’s comments proved that the western myth was alive and well in the 21st century. Stung by the gall of a female group of country musicians to voice liberal political views on foreign soil, fans struck back, refusing to buy records, boycotting stations, and sending hate mail filled with sexual expletives and death threats. The group was banned from the national Country Music Awards and their songs ceased to be played on country radio stations throughout the United States. The backlash against the Dixie Chicks uncovered the persistence of the Old West myth and showed that even in 2003, country girls were supposed to play nice, revere authority, exhibit patriotism, and uphold « 313 »

Natalie Maines, the lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, performs at a concert in Sydney, Australia in 2003. The 2003 comments that Maines made at an overseas concert about President George W. Bush caused a firestorm of protest in the United States. (Bob King/ Corbis)

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the virtues of the pioneer mother (and sister). Maines broke these rules: she criticized a sitting president during wartime, her group’s lyrics contained explicit feminist material, and she laid bare the stark fissure between rural conservatives and urban liberals within the American West and elsewhere. As concert reviewer Betty Clarke noted, old-guard country western fans prefer “their women fiesty but second-class, preferably wearing cowgirl outfits and a smile.” But the Chicks “were renegade ladies of country who sung gleefully about killing abusive spouses and dressed like an older Britney Spears,” and the combination was a threat to country masculinity (Clarke, Guardian Unlimited).The controversy surrounding the Dixie Chicks was not about their music, their individual opinions or lives, or even about their positions on the Iraq War. Maines’s comments, her gender, and her genre opened up conflict raging in many rural western communities, between Democrats and Republicans, between environmentalists and extractive industrialists, and between family-value voters and progressive-issue voters. Support for the Iraq War eroded by 2006, and the Dixie Chicks came back into favor with some fans. But their fan base changed from the traditional country crowd to a more urban group. The Dixie Chicks hired a new manager, catered to a different audience, embraced the controversy surrounding their politics, and issued an album that rejected the pioneer woman stereotype that had been thrust on them. In the lead song on the 2006 album Taking the Long Way, Maines told fans and political pundits that she was “not ready to make nice / I’m not ready to back down / I’m still mad as hell and / I don’t have time to go round and round and round” (Dixie Chicks, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” Taking the Long Way). Although the song and the album were banned from many radio stations throughout the nation and the West—some people in Salt Lake City were the most vehement in their opposition to Maines—the album did well in online sales and sat atop Amazon.com for a time. Critics also liked the album, further angering conservative country music fans. The group’s 2007 tour saw smaller audiences, but Taking the Long Way had sold 1.5 million copies as of December 2006. At the 49th annual Grammy Awards, the Chicks won five Grammys, including best record, song, and album. In July 2006 a documentary about the Dixie Chicks and the politics of patriotism premiered in Canada.

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The Dixie Chicks’s online support and success—despite boycotts and death threats—reflected shifting demographics in the United States and the American West, from rural to urban; the feminization of country music; the challenge to western mythmaking; and the ongoing struggle between evangelical Christians and liberal interests. The reaction against the Dixie Chicks also revealed that a white, largely male rural audience did not like a politically vocal female lead singer, even in the 21st century, and that definitions of a “western woman” remain hotly contested.

DEFINITIONS What, after all, is a western woman? Do gender and regionalism offer interpretive frameworks useful in understanding women’s history? The field of western women’s history, as shown in Chapter One, began as a response to the overwhelmingly masculine, linear, and racist themes of what is now considered the “Old Western” history. Because the field was formed largely in opposition to the Turnerian model of western U.S. history, the earliest literature examined women’s experience—mostly white women’s experience—in relation to the Turner thesis. These works focused on the 19th century. Influenced by the scholars of the New West, gender, African American, literary, and environmental history, the field committed itself to a more inclusive, diverse perspective, grounded in the American West as a place—a location on a map—where diverse women interacted and affected the social, cultural, and physical landscape. There is no scholarly consensus on the West as a place—or its boundaries—or the definition of a western woman. I contend that consensus on these points is not necessary for there to exist a viable field of study. Indeed, these inconsistencies and disagreements infuse the field and its scholarship with life. We should not run from something because we cannot agree on how to define it. In the end, the field’s lack of consensus and definition comes from the resistance to categorization, fluid boundaries, and mobility of its subject matter. Women move; they play many different roles throughout their lives, no matter in which period they live; and they defy categorization, especially in the western region. The persistence of the Old West mythology, particularly its adherence to traditional roles for women, has frustrated and challenged western women’s history. The field has moved beyond questions associated

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with the Old West, but nonacademic writers and audiences, and even some academic colleagues, have not. The result is that the field must continually counter the linear, Turnerian model while simultaneously growing and moving away from defining itself in opposition to the Turnerian model. Some of the scholarship that most successfully moves gender, women, and region to the next level of understanding does not fall into the western history category, according to its authors’ discipline or definition. Some of it does not even fall into the history category. Because of this, writing a synthesis of western women’s history based on secondary sources becomes much more challenging for the period after 1960. At that point in U.S. history, and western studies, the notion of region as a separate, defining entity begins to break down. Many scholars are writing about topics that could be considered “western” for this time period, including labor movements in the Southwest, immigration issues in the southern borderlands, suburban development in California, the failure of farming on the Great Plains, and habits of home in the Pacific Northwest. Although these topics might be western in location, theme, or scope, they are often pursued by academics who do not consider themselves to be scholars of western history. Sarah Lichtman’s examination of the U.S. government’s Cold War bomb-shelter initiative is a case in point. Lichtman’s work has much to say about gender, the American West, and the Cold War. Bomb-shelter advocates and build-it-yourself companies used gendered and patriotic language to sell their products. Lichtman argues that the bomb-shelter movement perpetuated gender stereotypes at the height of the Cold War. There is a regional component to this argument, as western women often had the space to build their own bomb shelter (my grandmothers—Imogene Woodworth and Orda Glodowski—both residents of Idaho in the 1950s, had bomb shelters that by my childhood had been converted to a pantry for canned goods and a wine cellar, respectively).Women in the West were big consumers of the items and the ideal, but Lichtman’s article appeared not in the Western Historical Quarterly—she would not have thought to send it there—but in the Journal of Design History. The questions asked by these scholars reflect on an understanding of the West as a region, but they are not inherently regional. Virginia Scharff has suggested that the lack of region for the late 20th-century

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A woman identified as “Mrs. Norman C. Madsen” stands beside the 14-day emergency food supply for two recommended by the Office of Civil Defense. In the early 1960s, when this photo was taken, the food supply cost under $28. (National Archives)

West is itself a reflection of regional character: the mythic West has always been perceived as a place of mobility, freedom, access, and open space, notions that set it aside from the perceived rigidity of the East or the emphasis on social place and structure in the American South. The scholarship synthesized in this book disproves the existence of the Turnerian ideal for many people who lived in or came to the West, especially immigrant, ethnic, or minority women. But for women like Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, an African American activist, the West really was a place of few boundaries relative to the South she had left (Scharff, Twenty Thousand Roads, 141). One historian of women in the West has recently argued that “the concepts of gender and regionalism are deeply at odds” (Armitage, “Rethinking the Region,” 199). Regional historians distinguish differences between geographical spaces, not within them,

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and therefore highlight the experiences of the dominant group within a region, or that of white men for the American West. Another of the continuing challenges of western women’s history is its deference and adherence to biography, a tendency well represented in the bibliographic essays in this book. Why do so many scholars of women in the West, and of women generally, rely on biographical interpretations? This book is full of biographical examples, ranging from Sacagawea to Kim Barnes, lives that span centuries, cultures, and boundaries. Susan Armitage has recently pointed to the problems of biographical studies, noting that “the feminist biographer faces the added task of cutting through conformist verbiage,” expressed by the woman herself and her contemporaries, to “glimpse the ‘real’ person” (Armitage “Western Women’s Biographies,” 67). In other words, all people show the world only what they want the world to see; for women, and perhaps for women in the West, this tendency is exacerbated. Western women were often on the run from other lives, as Virginia Scharff and others have shown. Western Asian, African American, and Latino women often voiced conformist views in order to survive in sexist, racist environments. How, then, can we really know these women? New scholarship tries to answer the question of “how do we know the woman” by looking not at what she said, but how she said it, why she said it, when she said it, and where she said it. In this sense, place matters. An Asian woman might portray a very different self in Boston in 1870 than she would in Salmon, Idaho, in 1870—not because place made her a different person, but because place gave her different choices. As Susan Armitage has written, “the puzzle of motivation is the key” to understanding the individual lives of women (Armitage “Western Women’s Biographies,” 71). The confluence of motivation, choice, race, gender, class, and place can give a much clearer picture of the past.

DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS One area in need of further study is the impact of 20th-century and 21st-century western demographic shifts and social changes on women and families. Changing demographic gender ratios and western styles of living, urbanization, and the shift from extractive to nonextractive economies have affected western families in dramatic ways. These

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changes speak to regionalism in the most urban of regions. More people in the West experience congested freeways, urban sprawl, and gated suburban communities—per capita—than those in other regions. What does this mean for western women? Throughout the 19th century, men outnumbered women throughout the West, particularly in mining and timber communities, where men outnumbered women by ratios as high as 10 to 1 or 13 to 1. Men outnumbered women in the American West until the 1980 census recorded that more women than man lived in the West. For every 49.3 men living in the western states in 1980 there were 50.7 women, a ratio closer to the national average of 48.6 men to every 51.4 women. All of the states that still reflected a majority of males were western states; these included North Dakota, Wyoming, and Nevada, where maledominated industries still prevailed. In the 2000 census, all of the western states had between 49 and 50 percent female populations. Gender ratios no longer provide the most distinguishable western demographic trait. Other data in the 2000 census do suggest regional differences. Although the American West as a whole witnessed little net immigration between 1995 and 2000—about as many people moved out of the region as moved into it—the region contained the state with the highest net immigration rate of all the states, a gain in Nevada of more than 150 people for every 1,000 residents. California, despite public handwringing about Mexican immigration and border issues, experienced a net decline in migration patterns: between 1995 and 2000, California’s net migration was a negative 755,536. Just who is moving out, where they are going, and what their gender and socioeconomic status indicates deserves further study. For women, demographics in the West present a mixed picture. Six of the 10 states with the highest proportion of firms owned by women in 1997 were located in the West: 29 percent of all businesses were owned by women in New Mexico; 28 percent each in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii; and 27 percent in California. Nationally, receipts for woman-owned businesses averaged $151,100; receipts for maleowned businesses averaged $582,500. The stark financial inequities suggested by the numbers for women-owned businesses are also reflected in

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poverty rates for the nation and the West. Between 2001 and 2003, of the 18 states above the national average for percentage of residents without healthcare coverage, 11 were western: Texas, New Mexico, California, Oklahoma, Nevada, Alaska, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana. Two of these—Texas and New Mexico—had the highest percentage of uninsured residents. Moreover, seven western states saw an increase in the percentage of uninsured between 2002 and 2003: South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. The state with the largest percentage increase in uninsured residents for the nation was Montana, with a nearly 3 percent increase. Southern states had large percentages of uninsured people and high poverty rates. These numbers suggest that for the very recent period, in some cases rural versus urban location matters more than region of the country. Women without health care coverage in rural areas of the American West face a triple whammy: they lack the resources to procure insurance for themselves and their children, their towns lack health care services for the uninsured, and they lack the transportation necessary to drive to a place that does have services. Women like Juanita Buschkoetter, the woman featured on public television’s The Farmer’s Wife documentary series, are forced to choose between doctor visits for a child’s earaches and food for their children or between antibiotics and food. Buschkoetter was a married woman living on a 1990s Nebraska farm owned by her husband. Life for single, uninsured parents is even more difficult.

NEW DIRECTIONS Changes in the western landscape mean new directions in scholarship. New studies of women’s influence in politics in the American West, as well as western women’s influence on national politics, need to be done. Women from western states have been increasingly active in politics from the local to the national level. As the population of the United States moves West—the fastest-growing state in the country is Nevada— westerners and western women will have more power within the electoral college and in national elections generally. The 1990s saw the greatest percentage increase in female participation in the Senate. Four

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female senators were elected in 1992, three from the West: Patty Murray, a state senator from Washington who allegedly ran for the U.S. Senate in response to Anita Hill’s treatment during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nominations; Dianne Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco; and Barbara Boxer, a 10-year veteran of the House of Representatives. Before 1992, dubbed by some “The Year of the Woman,” only two women served in the Senate. As of 2007, there were 16 female senators, the largest number ever. Although 16 sounds like a low number, consider that only 35 women have served in the Senate since its inception in 1789. The 2006 congressional elections also resulted in a political shift that for the first time placed a woman, California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, in the position of Speaker of the House. Connected to politics is the involvement of women in immigration reform efforts and protest movements. A huge amount of primary source material is now being amassed as Congress holds hearings and grapples with the question of illegal border crossings in the United States. What are the gender implications of current and past U.S. immigration policies? How does the construction of a wall dividing the United States from Mexico reflect gender, and how does it affect women on both sides of the border? Recently, scholars of the West have shined a light on the region’s own gender stereotypes and how these images influence national consumption habits. Annie Gilbert Coleman’s work on women skiers and winter tourists tracks the evolution and amazing staying power of the “snow bunny” image. Snow bunnies emerged long before Hugh Hefner’s Playboy bunnies, and they retain power in the ski industry as tools of consumption. Snow bunnies seek out the slopes to look pretty and find a husband; they do not threaten the athleticism of the men around them or the men who purchase ski condos or ski equipment. Such stereotypes influenced the media’s portrayal of successful women athletes, such as Andrea Mead Lawrence, the most decorated American woman alpine skier in any single Olympics. Lawrence won two alpine gold medals at the 1952 Olympics in Oslo, Norway, and was elected to the International Skiing Hall of Fame in 1992 and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1983. During the 1950s, however, the press

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focused on Lawrence’s marriage to a fellow skier and her good looks rather than her athletic ability. Places like Aspen, Colorado, and Sun Valley, Idaho, were portrayed as being occupied by man-hunting ski bunnies working as waitresses or hotel maids while they waited for their real life to begin. The term “ski bum,” on the other hand, has been reserved for young men who might lack ambition, but certainly not athletic prowess (they are also decidedly not looking, according to the stereotype, for a wife, even the ski bunny sort). New scholarship also examines women and sport and how women’s participation changed stereotypes like the ski bunny. By the 1970s and 1980s, a new generation of women consumers changed the media portrayal of female skiers by demanding equipment and spending money. They were taken seriously as athletes during a time that corresponded to the passage of Title IX in 1972, far-reaching legislation that bars any federally assisted educational institution from excluding, “on the basis of sex,” any individual from participation in any educational program or activity (Public Law 92-318, Serial Set 104–131).The move from snow bunny to “shred betty” (term for a cool, competitive, tough, and highly skilled female snowboarder) paralleled Title IX’s impact on collegiate sports. The women of the West’s collegiate Pacific Ten Conference have been particularly successful in attracting fans and winning national championships. Scholarship about the western region has exploded during the past 20 years, but more remains to be done, especially in the study of a more inclusive western history. Some of the new work related to the American West, while addressing issues or history within what is now the American West, is categorized outside of the field of western history. Scholars of borderlands, cultural, American, Latino, gender, and environmental studies are producing significant works that reexamine the West as a region and reconsider the roles of men and women in shaping the region’s past. Some of them prefer not to be associated with the field of western history, as they see it as being responsible for propagating the Turner conquest model in the first place. Indeed, the continued categorization of western history into blocks of conquest— conquering done by explorers, trappers, cowboys, nuclear physicists,

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Stanford University basketball guard Candice Wiggins, shown here in a 2005 game against the University of Arizona, earned a 2005 Freshman of the Year award from the Pac-10 athletic conference. (AP/Wide World Photos)

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and, more recently, computer geeks—make it difficult to include women and people of color. Because of the structure of so many of the western narratives and themes, someone like me finds herself occasionally falling into the trap of looking for women and inserting them into a story about men. As Elizabeth Jameson has recently written, past surveys of western history contained no references to a “gardeners’ frontier, no butter or poultry frontier, no cooking and sewing and childrearing frontier” (Jameson 2005, 145). In addition, there have been no women in a historiographical western sports frontier, no women in a nuclear science frontier, and no women in a Silicon Valley frontier. These frontiers are out there, waiting for historians—not gunslinging cowboys—to find them. While serving as president of the Western Historical Association in 2006, historian Peter Iverson told a packed luncheon audience of historians of the western United States that it was time to move to a more expansive definition of “pioneer” in order to examine more fully a region filled with diversity. “Without denying the power of prejudice and the reality of racism,” Iverson stated, “we should consider more completely peoples of color throughout the region.” “We could use,” he continued, “a little less emphasis on conquest and a little more attention to continuation” (Iverson, “Discoverers,” paragraph 10). If we focus on “continuation,” we will surely focus more on the experience of women, immigrants, and Native Americans, for their presence is a constant in a region of continual transformation. The study of gender and women in the western region transcends disciplinary boundaries, and that is good, but western historians can offer a unique perspective on this vast, diverse, complex, and dynamic region. Women’s experiences in what we now know as the American West have been as different and far ranging as its rugged landscapes. Much more scholarly work and analysis need to be done to understand this complex region, the ways it has influenced and interacted with gender, and the impact of women on its culture and history. In addition, more scholarship that integrates women into historical narratives as legitimate players—not add-ons or token inclusions—will enrich the present by illuminating the past.

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BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY Natalie Maines’s comments were quoted in Betty Clarke’s concert review, “The Dixie Chicks,” Guardian Unlimited, March 12, 2003, arts.guardian .co.uk/reviews/story/0,,912236,00.html. The controversy surrounding the Dixie Chicks attracted a storm of media coverage: “Simon Renshaw,” Advertising Age, May 21, 2007: S-8; “Country Special,” People Magazine, November 8, 2006: 75; “The Dixie Chicks Have Something to Say,” Maclean’s, April 24, 2006; Jeff Leeds and Lorne Manly, “Dixie Chicks Are the Big Winners at the Grammys,” New York Times, February 12, 2007, B1–B8. To view the Dixie Chicks’ own comments and their press releases, visit the official Dixie Chicks Web site at www.frontpagepublicity.com/dixiechicks/news/073006-2.html. Virginia Scharff ’s essay about Jo Ann Gibson Robinson appears in her book Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement and the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Statistics about the ratio of men to women in the 1980s American West were taken from Michael P. Malone and Richard Etulain, The American West: A Twentieth-Century History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 155. Statistics for the 1995–2000 period came from the following U.S. Census Bureau reports, found at www.census.gov/population/www/: “Women-Owned Businesses, 1997,” “Domestic Migration across Regions, Divisions, and States, 1995–2000,” “Tables of Profiles of General Demographic Characteristics, 2000,” “Differences in 2-Year Average Uninsured Rates by State: 2002–2003 Less 2001–2002,” “Three-Year Average Percentage of People without Health Insurance Coverage by State: 2001–2003.” Poverty information for 2003 is contained in the U.S. Census Bureau publication, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003. Nancy Pelosi’s role as Speaker of the House was, as of December 2007, chronicled at speaker.gov/. A David Sutherland film, The Farmer’s Wife was one of the first realitybased documentary shows. It tracked the lives of a rural farm wife and her family while they tried to hold on to their Nebraska farm. For more, visit public television’s Frontline Web site at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ farmerswife/. Susan Armitage’s analysis of historical biography about western women appears in her article “Western Women’s Biographies,” Western American Literature, Volume 41, Number 1 (Spring 2006): 66–72; her thoughts on region and gender came from her article “Rethinking the Region: Gender, Class and Race in Pacific Northwest History,” in David H. Stratton, editor (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2007), 199–214. Sarah A. Lichtman’s article on bomb shelters appeared in Journal of Design History, Volume 19, Number 1 (Spring 2006): 39–55. For more on women in the Senate, visit the U.S. Senate

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Web site at www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/women_ senators.htm. Annie Gilbert Coleman’s analysis of gender and skiing appears in “From Snow Bunnies to Shred Betties: Gender, Consumption, and the Skiing Landscape,” in Virginia J. Scharff, editor, Seeing Nature through Gender (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003): 194–217; and Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004). More on Andrea Mead Lawrence can be found at the official Web site of the U.S. Olympic Team, www.usoc.org/26_568.htm. A list of women’s Pac-10 championships can be found at the Pac-10 Conference official Web site, www.pac-10.org/ Before Title IX, women’s athletics received 0.5 percent of the postsecondary institutional budgets for athletics. Initially, Title IX was considered to be a reform aimed at equalizing scholarly opportunities for women. Although its early proponents understood the impact for sports, many in the collegiate sports environment failed to see the changes inherent in the legislation and thus did not fight it. Once implemented, Title IX was hugely controversial and remains so today. The full text of Title IX is published within a U.S. House of Representatives document, “Hearing on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 before the Subcommittee on Post Secondary Education . . . of the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities,” 104th Congress, 1st Session, May 9, 1995, Serial Set 104–131. Recent university press offerings dealing with gender, women, and the American West are not expressly about women. They include Maria Cristina Garcia, Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Kurt E. Kinbacher, Immigration, the American West, and the Twentieth Century: German from Russia, Omaha Indian, and Vietnamese-Urban Villagers in Lincoln, Nebraska (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006); and Carl Abbott, Frontiers Past and Future: Science Fiction and the American West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006). Recent articles appearing in the Western Historical Quarterly or the Western Literature Quarterly include David A. Reichard, “How Do Students Understand the History of the American West? An Argument for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,” Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 37, Number 2 (2006): 207–214; Dominique Bregent-Heald, “Primitive Encounters: Film and Tourism in the North American West,” Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 38, Number 1 (2007): 47–67. Elizabeth Jameson’s comments, based on a Western History Association meeting panel on the influence of historian Howard Lamar, appear in Jameson, “Howard Lamar: The Thoughts of a Southerner at Calgary,” Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, Number 2 (Summer 2005): 143–148. Peter Iverson’s article is based on his Western History Association president’s address. See Peter

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Iverson, “Discoverers, Pioneers, and Settlers: Toward a More Inclusive History of the North American West,” Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 37, Number 1 (2006): 5–19. I quoted the online version available from the History Cooperative at www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url= www.historycooperative.org/journals/whq/37.1/iverson.html. The 20th and 21st centuries offer much greater access to primary sources relative to people of color than do previous centuries. For information about the current status of black Americans (and others) in higher education in the West and elsewhere, for example, see American Council on Education, Minorities in Higher Education: Twenty-Second Annual Status Report (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, November 2006); for more on the report, visit www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=187 25&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm.

CHRONOLOGY ca. 1500– 1000 BCE

Though maize was domesticated in Mesoamerica between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, maize agriculture spread from central Mexico to what is today the American Southwest between 1500 and 1000 BCE. Trade and travel pushed maize and indigenous varieties of squash and beans both north and south, and the crops became the basis for a Native North American agriculture maintained by women.

1000– 1450 CE

Ancient Puebloan peoples constructed the North House (Hlauuma) and South House (Hlaukwima) at Taos, New Mexico. These structures are often cited as the oldest continuously inhabited buildings within the continental United States.

ca. 1100 CE

Ancient Puebloan towns in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, supported a population of between 5,000 and 15,000 residents.

1500s

Spanish explorers and missionaries introduced horses into northern Mexico. Trade networks spread the horse throughout North America by the 1700s.

1540–1541

Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado wintered within the Rio Grande Pueblos. By the time Coronado departed from New Mexico his men had destroyed 13 Pueblos, killed hundreds of residents, infected Pueblo communities with European diseases, and raped countless Native women.

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1598

Juan de Oñate, a wealthy and well-connected Spaniard, led hundreds of Spanish families up the Rio Grande River to establish the first permanent Spanish colony among the Pueblos.

1666

The census of New France, in North America, showed a population of only 3,215 non-Indian inhabitants. Of these, less than one-third (1,181) were women.

1680

The Pueblo revolt involved two dozen independent communities, resulted in the death of more than 400 Spanish colonists and 21 Franciscan fathers, and ousted the Spanish. The Spanish would not again assert control in the region until 1692.

1763

The French and Indian War ended in victory for Great Britain. The French were forced to give up their North American empire.

1775–1782

Smallpox epidemics spread throughout North America and severely impacted Native American populations. By 1781, the smallpox epidemic had moved northward from Mexico City to Baja California, where Spanish mission priests attempted inoculation.

1776

The British colonies on the eastern seaboard of North America declared their independence. The American Revolution ended with an American victory in 1783.

1804

Sacagawea joined the Lewis and Clark expedition while it camped in the Mandan and Hidatsa villages, near the Missouri River. While never an official guide, Sacagawea provided informal but valuable interpretive and directional assistance to the Corps of Discovery during its journey from present-day North Dakota to the Pacific Coast.

1833

Mary Austin Holley, cousin to Stephen F. Austin, published Texas: Observations. Historical, Geographical and Descriptive in a Series of Letters Written during a Visit

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to Austin’s Colony, with a View to a Permanent Settlement in That Country in the Autumn of 1831, a femalecentered guide to Texas that promoted American settlement but urged women to relax their expectations of domesticity. 1840–1860

More than 250,000 people traveled the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails, from starting points in Missouri to destinations in Oregon, Utah, and California.

1842

Jesuit missionaries entered what is now northern Idaho and established a Catholic mission—Sacred Heart— among the Schitsu’umsh people (also know as the Coeur d’Alene). The mission would serve as the center of nonIndian authority in the region for the next 40 years, and would alter the relative authority of Native women.

1846

Oregon Treaty, negotiated between the United States and Great Britain, transferred the Oregon Country (with the exception of British Columbia) to the United States. This peaceable transfer was, in large part, a response to the influx of American families to the region by way of the Oregon Trail.

1847

The Cayuse tribal attack on the Whitman Mission on November 29 killed missionaries Narcissa and Marcus Whitman and 13 other members of the mission community. The Whitman Massacre touched off a war on the Columbian Plateau that ended in 1850.

1848

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the MexicanAmerican War and transferred the Mexican Cession (present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, and portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) to the United States. Under the terms of the treaty, former Mexican citizens living within the cession area became citizens of the United States.

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1848–1849

The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in northern California touched off an international gold rush. Thousands of aspirant miners—known as “fortyniners”—traveled the trails to California, where they joined Asian and Mexican immigrants in the gold fields.

1862

Congress approved the Homestead Act, perhaps the most famous piece of legislation in the United States. Under its terms, heads of households could claim up to 160 acres of available public domain for a nominal filing fee, if they lived on—and improved—the land for a period of five years.

1863

A group of Union troops under the command of Colonel Patrick Connor attacked a small encampment of Northwestern Shoshone people along the Bear River in present-day Idaho. The ensuing slaughter of upward of 400 men, women, and children made the Bear River Massacre the bloodiest in U.S. history.

1866

Mary Ellen Pleasant, an African American woman activist in San Francisco, sued the San Francisco Streetcar Company. A lower court held that Pleasant’s right to public transportation had been violated and awarded her $500, but the case was later overturned by the California Supreme Court.

1869

The Wyoming Territory became the first U.S. territory or state to grant women universal suffrage. Fewer than 400 women lived in the territory at the time.

1887

Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act, which authorized the allotment of Indian reservations into 160-, 80-, and 40-acre parcels to be deeded to tribal members after certain requirements were met. Remaining reservation lands were sold to non-Indians. Under the terms of the Dawes Act, tribal reservations’ landholdings were reduced from 138 million acres to 52 million acres.

Chronology

1893

333

Marian Shaw, a correspondent for the Fargo, North Dakota, pioneer newspaper The Argus, filed a series of reports from the Chicago World’s Fair (the Columbian Exposition), which ran from May through October. The fair consisted of a White City of stately buildings representing American ingenuity, commerce, and engineering and was designed to show that American expansionism signaled progress and the end of savagery. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show performed at the Columbian Exposition. As the last attraction on the Midway Plaisance, the show represented the move from the frontier to civilization, embodied by the fair’s White City.

1913–1914

National United Mineworkers of America went on strike against the three largest coal mining companies in Colorado, including the Rockefeller family’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The governor of Colorado, Elias M. Ammons, called up the National Guard, and during a one-sided clash now known as the Ludlow Massacre, guard units killed 20 people, mostly immigrant women and children, who suffocated or were burned alive in their tent colony.

1918

International pandemic of Spanish Influenza killed as many as 100 million people worldwide.

1921

A pro–Ku Klux Klan lecture presented at Portland’s Municipal Auditorium attracted as many as 6,000 people, revealing the influence of the KKK in the predominately white Pacific Northwest.

1924

Bubonic plague outbreak in Los Angeles resulted in the destruction of low-income and immigrant housing. Nellie Tayloe Ross won the gubernatorial election in Wyoming by a landslide and thus became the first woman elected to a governorship.

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1933

The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), passed by Congress to stimulate recovery from the Great Depression, discriminated against women by institutionalizing separate wage codes for men and women within industries. The standardized wages differed from between 5 to 25 cents per hour.

1934

Congress authorized the Indian Reorganization Act, which ended the allotment of Indian reservations (see Dawes Severalty Act, 1887). Annie Pike Greenwood published the now-classic book We Sagebrush Folks, a memoir of life on an early 20thcentury irrigated homestead in southern Idaho.

1936

The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) was organized in 1936 as an affiliate of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The union depended on the support and social networks of working Mexican American women.

1940

Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to be nominated for, and win, an Oscar when she was recognized for her role as Best Supporting Actress in the epic film Gone with the Wind. Through provisions in the Lanham Act, Congress authorized $51,922,977 in federal spending for child care related to war production, an amount the states matched with an additional $26,008,839. The funding supported more than 3,000 child care centers, which served around 600,000 children during the war.

1941–1965

The baby boom resulted in U.S. birthrates that surpassed 20 live births for every 1,000 people. By the end of 1965, the birthrate had dropped to prewar numbers, and the official boom ended.

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1942

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Orders 9066 and 9102, mandating that all persons of Japanese ancestry living along the Pacific Coast— including American-born citizens, or Nisei— be identified and relocated to government-controlled detention centers for the duration of the war.

1954

President Dwight Eisenhower named Jean Wood Fuller, then president of the California Federation of Republican Women, to chair the National Women’s Advisory Committee on Civil Defense, which emphasized the ways in which women could provide for the defense of their families, homes, and states.

1962

Mexican and Chicano farm laborers founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). The precursor to the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), NFWA was an independent agricultural organization that used boycotts and strikes to target the low pay and poor working conditions provided by agricultural producers.

1963

Feminist Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique.

1980

The U.S. Census revealed that for the first time, women living in the West outnumbered men. For every 49.3 men living in the western states in 1980 there were 50.7 women.

1983

One hundred years after the Columbian Exposition, the first Women’s West Conference was held in Sun Valley, Idaho. The women’s western history movement emerged from this conference and later resulted in the publication of The Women’s West, edited by Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson.

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1987

Patricia Nelson Limerick’s Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West was published by W.W. Norton. Legacy of Conquest became the cornerstone of the New Western History movement.

1990

Congress authorized the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which required institutions holding the skeletal remains or sacred objects of tribal nations to identify likely descendants and to take action to return, or repatriate, them to the tribes.

1997

The publication of Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage’s Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West served both as a call for a more balanced western women’s history and as an example of what could be done to make western women’s history more multicultural.

1995

Poll conducted by the Arizona Republic newspaper chose the Navajo taco as the “state dish.”

2004

Women scholars at the Western Historical Association (WHA) meeting staged a walk-out protest during banquet keynote speaker Bill Kurtis’s talk, which emphasized a Turnerian vision of the West, ignored the role of women and nonwhite groups in western history, and included offensive jokes about women. A reform of the WHA banquet and conference program resulted.

2006

Congressional elections resulted in a shift in the power of the House of Representatives from Republican to Democrat, and Nancy Pelosi, a congresswoman from San Francisco, became Speaker of the House. Pelosi, a western woman, is the first woman to hold that highranking post.

GLOSSARY abolitionism A movement that gained momentum in the 19th century and sought to secure the freedoms and rights of African American slaves. acculturation Adoption of cultural habits and distinctions that arise after long-term contact between various ethnic groups. allotment Program of the late 19th century in which certain sections and amounts of land were allocated to Native Americans in an effort to create a Native society of agriculturalists. American Board of Foreign Missions This organization, founded in 1810, sought to institute religious denominations, including the Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Reformed denominations, throughout the West. Missions were established wherever the board believed Christianity was lacking. Anasazi The Anasazi were an ancient Puebloan culture that occupied the ancient American Southwest. Builders of great urban centers, they are most commonly known for their architecturally impressive sandstone homes, which were constructed along cliff walls. Armitage, Susan Early advocate and practitioner of women’s western U.S. history. Her book, coedited with Elizabeth Jameson, The Women’s West, helped to launch the field of western women’s history. arroyo

A dry creek that can temporarily fill with seasonal rain water.

Arts and Crafts Movement An architectural trend that emerged in the United States around 1910–1925 as a rejection of mass-produced goods.

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The unique method, which contained European influences, most often resulted in simple, craftsman-style buildings that exhibited particular aesthetic influences, including patterned stained glass and woodwork. assimilation Begun in 1870, assimilation was the federal government’s attempt to absorb Native Americans into white society. Different means were used to accomplish this, such as allotment, forced education, and banning traditional religious ceremonies. baby boom A term used to describe the unprecedented number of children born during the years of relative security and prosperity that existed after World War II. Most historians date the period from 1945 to 1964. berdache A Native American term that describes nonheterosexual persons; it means “two spirit.” Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 The revolution that overturned the Russian Provisional Government and gave power to the Bolsheviks. The October Revolution was followed by a civil war that led to the eventual creation of the Soviet Union in 1922. bubonic plague An epidemic disease carried by rodents and transmitted to humans by infected fleas. Bubonic plague causes symptoms of fever, chills, and swellings. The first recorded outbreak occurred in 541 and has been followed by many others. In 1924 bubonic plague spread through the city of Los Angeles. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Large staged shows performed by Buffalo Bill Cody to large audiences in the United States and Europe during the 1880s through the early 1900s. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows provided the only knowledge that many Easterners had of western life. California Trail Use of the trail from present-day Missouri began in 1841, but traffic increased rapidly with the discovery of gold in California in 1849. Because of the emergence of the railroad industry, heavy use of the trail declined toward the end of the 1800s. Carey Act Passed in 1894, the act provided states with access to public domain to create irrigation networks in western states. Private companies

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set up these systems, many times also erecting communities at the same time. The Carey Act was successfully used mainly in Idaho and Wyoming. Chinese Exclusion Act Passed on May 6, 1882, this act put an end to Chinese immigration to the United States for a period of 10 years. The Magnuson Act repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. cholera A disease caused by drinking contaminated water. Symptoms include severe diarrhea and cramps, and in the 19th century the disease was often fatal. Cholera epidemics raged in U.S. and European cities prior to and throughout the 19th century. Because of poor sanitation, streams along the Oregon Trail and other westward trails became prime areas for cholera consumption. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints A religious organization that states it is the original church founded by Jesus Christ and restored in the present, or “latter,” day by the prophet Joseph Smith. Columbian Exposition The World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago in 1893. The first World’s Fair building devoted entirely to women’s production appeared at this event. Compromise of 1850 Drafted by Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas, the compromise determined the slavery status of territories that had been acquired as a result of the Texas annexation and the Mexican cession. Aspects of the compromise that were critical for the West included the creation of New Mexico as a territory, payment of Texas’s debts by the federal government, and finally the standing of California as a free territory. Comstock Lode The most productive silver mine in the United States, discovered in 1857 in what was then Utah Territory and what is currently known as Virginia City, Nevada. The mine functioned until its resources were exhausted by 1898. criollo A term applied to a person born in New Spain of pure Spanish descent. cult of true womanhood Ideology of the 19th century that women were to follow and live four specific values: domesticity, purity, piety, and

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submissiveness. These values represented the ideal woman and set middleclass women apart from those of “lesser” status. Dawes Severalty Act Sponsored by Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts and passed in 1887, the act attempted to dissolve Native reservations by allotting tribal members private ownership of land parcels of 160 acres. The act, which produced negative effects on Native society and culture, was eventually overturned by the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. day school School where children receive instruction during the day after which they return to their homes. Day schools were instituted on Indian reservations as a reform measure meant to replace boarding schools. Díaz, Porfirio President and political leader of Mexico during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Díaz focused his efforts on the modernization of Mexico, increasing railway tracks and bolstering industry within the country. With this modernization, communal landholdings faded, and as a result many workers were displaced. Eventually, a revolution broke out and Díaz’s regime collapsed. Dust Bowl Region affected by dust storms that devastated farmland throughout the southern Great Plains during the 1930s. Enhanced by damaging farming practices that resulted in soil erosion and combined with a season of heavy drought, the dust storms forced many—known as “Okies”—to abandon their farms and move to the West Coast in an attempt to salvage their lives. dysentery Disease caused by bacteria, protozoa, or parasitic worms. Symptoms include severe diarrhea, cramps, and fever. Because of the poor sanitation that existed along the trails westward this was a prime area for the development of dysentery. environmental history The study of relationships between humans and nature throughout time, focusing on cultural, social, and political interactions. Equal Rights Amendment Controversial proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlines equal rights that are not determined

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by sex. First introduced in 1923 as the Lucretia Mott Amendment, the ERA is most widely known for the attention it received by women’s rights activists during the 1960s and 1970s. The amendment remains controversial and still awaits ratification by all states. In 2007 it had been ratified by 35 of the necessary 38 states. Erie Canal Transportation route that runs from the Hudson River and Lake Erie to the Atlantic Ocean. Completed in 1825, the canal was a breakthrough in river transportation and opened the way to further settlement west. Executive Order 9066 Issued by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. The order designated certain areas of the United States as “military areas” and made such regions prohibited to the general public, specifically “high-risk” individuals. This led to the eventual internment of thousands of people of Japanese ancestry, many born in the United States and thus citizens. Executive Order 9102 Issued by President Franklin Roosevelt on March 18, 1942. The order created the War Relocation Authority, which constructed internment camps throughout the West to which it then forcibly relocated Japanese Americans for the duration of World War II. The order terminated in 1946. Farm Security Administration Part of the New Deal public works programs of the 1930s, the FSA, first known as the Resettlement Administration, was formally created in 1935. The main purpose of FSA was to eradicate rural poverty by purchasing failing farms and establishing communities more conducive to farming. The program later became the Farmers Home Administration and is still in operation today. Federal Emergency Relief Act Focusing primarily on unemployment aid and relief, the act was passed in 1933 during President Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days as part of his New Deal program. Federal Home Administration Created under the National Housing Act of 1934, FHA introduced new loan policies as well as mortgage payment plans in an effort to promote home buying and make

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homeownership feasible for more middle- and lower-income families across the country. flu epidemic Also known as the Spanish flu, the epidemic broke out in 1918. The disease attacked mainly the young and healthy; symptoms included difficulty breathing and, in some cases, hemorrhaging. Mortality rates are difficult to ascertain, but during its course the flu epidemic probably killed as many as 100 million people throughout the world. Fort Clark Built by James Kipp of the American Fur Company in 1830, Fort Clark was a trading post resting at the edge of a Mandan village in North Dakota. The fort was partially burned and abandoned by 1861. Frederick Jackson Turner President of the American Historical Association and author of the influential essay, delivered in Chicago in 1893, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” The essay presented the Turner thesis, which argued that the frontier—and the westward movement of Americans and U.S. institutions—was the defining characteristic of American democracy. The Turner Thesis left out women and people of color, but it was very influential well into the 20th century. Friends of the Indian Group created from various reform clubs of the late 1800s whose self-appointed mission was to bring Native Americans out of poverty and into white society. Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Part of the Compromise of 1850, this law allowed slave owners to seize their former slaves, and created the infrastructure to do so, even if they were living in free territories. fur trade A highly successful corporative trade established mainly by the French in the 17th century. Originating in what is today northeastern Canada, the French dominated the trade, trapping mainly beaver and other small fur-bearing animals to fill the high demand for fur in the fashions of Europe. The British entered the scene with the Hudson’s Bay Company in the late 1700s. When the trade spread to the Rocky Mountains and beyond, the United States joined the trade in the early 1800s with the institution of the rendezvous system. Because of resource

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depletion after years of intense trapping, the fur trade began to diminish by the mid-19th century. gente de razón A Spanish term meaning “people of reason” that was applied to Spanish speakers who were considered, in New Spain, to occupy a higher social status than the Native peoples. This kind of terminology was used to maintain a racialized social order. gentiles Commonly meant to describe one who is not of Jewish background, the Catholic monks of New Spain used it to distinguish Natives who were non-Christian. Also used by Mormon settlers in Utah to refer to non-Mormons. Ghost Dance Religious movements of Native Americans, primarily in the northwestern states. The movements consisted of religious ceremonies that were believed to result in the resurrection of dead ancestors, the forsaking of white culture, and the return of traditional ways of life. The most famous of these movements took place in 1870 and again in 1890. The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Lakota Sioux, is widely associated with the Ghost Dance movement. handcart companies Created by Brigham Young, then leader of the Mormon Church, to transport emigrant parties from the eastern United States to Utah on the Mormon Trail. Immigrant families lacked the funds to buy wagons and teams, so handcarts were used instead. In 1856 the Martin Handcart Company ran into storms in Wyoming and tragically lost many of its members to exposure and starvation. Hidatsa Initially called Gross Ventre by French trappers, the Hidatsa people were a sedentary Native American group largely dependent on agriculture. They lived in earthen lodges located on the North Dakota stretch of the Missouri River. The Hidatsa and Mandan villages on the Missouri River occupied a central point in a vast trade network connecting the Great Plains to the Pacific Northwest on the west and the Great Lakes on the east. The well-known Native American woman Sacagawea was captured by the Hidatsa and lived among them until she began her journey with the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804.

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Hohokam Their name literally meaning “those who have gone,” the Hohokam were a Mesoamerican people living in what is now the American Southwest. Homestead Act of 1862 Legislation passed in 1862 that made available to settlers large tracts of land in the American West that had previously been considered public domain. Heads of household could claim up to 160 acres, to which they received title if they lived on the land and improved it for five years. Hudson’s Bay Company Founded in London in 1670 as a joint-stock company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the oldest corporation in North America, granted the British a monopoly on the fur trade and was instrumental in establishing posts throughout North America. The company declined as the fur trade came to a close. The HBC exists today as a number of successful department stores. Indian Country Area of reservations created in present-day Oklahoma authorized by the Indian Appropriations Act of 1851. Indian question The situation of Native American poverty and dispossession, a problem that late 19th-century progressives attempted to solve through a series of reforms such as forced education and assimilation. Indian Reorganization Act Passed in 1934, the act reversed the allotment model of the Dawes Severalty Act by returning control of land to Native Americans and allowing tribal governments to once again be put in place. Issei Japanese term used to describe first-generation Japanese immigrants. Jesuit missionaries Priests who sought to bring the Catholic religion to the Natives of the West. Mostly French speaking and descended from Europeans, the missionaries lived among tribes and encouraged the conversion of Natives. The Sacred Heart mission of Coeur d’Alene was established by Jesuit missionaries in 1842 and is one of the most well known of the western missions.

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Jim Crow laws Laws established and endorsed by state and local governments that upheld the “separate but equal” policy for African American citizens. Jim Crow laws included poll taxes and literacy tests for voting. The laws were in effect from 1876 until they were eliminated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Ku Klux Klan First created in 1866 by Confederate Army veterans. The Klan was built on ideas of racism, nativism, and “traditional” gender roles. Originally based in the South, the Klan spread its white supremacist values to the Midwest and West and reemerged there in the 1910s. The KKK is notorious for its historic use of brutality, lynching, and murder to advance its beliefs. The group exists today in scattered and splintered form, numbering in the low thousands. Lanham Act of 1940 Allocated federal funds to be used to establish and operate child care services to aid working mothers during World War II. maize Dubbed by the English as “corn,” maize was domesticated by Native peoples in what is now central Mexico. It was introduced into North America by 1500 BCE through trade between Rio Grande River tribes and central Mexico. It became a staple agricultural crop throughout North America. Mandan A sedentary Native American group living in North Dakota in lodges constructed along the Missouri River. The Mandans were a neighboring tribe to the Hidatsa peoples and, along with the Hidatsas, were a crucial point in the trade network between the Great Lakes region and the Pacific Coast. Manifest Destiny A term first used by John L. O’Sullivan in 1845, “Manifest Destiny” expressed the common thought that expansion by Euro-Americans into the territories of the American West was sanctioned by God. manifest domesticity The 19th-century idea that the nation as a whole was a home in which women should spread their civilizing influences.

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marriage à la façon du pays A term meaning “the custom of the country” that applied to practices of interracial marriage between indigenous women and European men who were involved in the fur trade (mostly French men). Officially approved and encouraged by the French crown, this was a common practice because of the scarcity of European women in America during the fur-trading years. The practice disappeared by the 1870s, when women of European descent moved into what is now Canada in larger numbers. matrilineal Passing of tribal rights and identity through the female line of a family. matrilocal A cultural tradition that required women to remain with their family after marriage. Matrilocality also created a female social structure on which familial identity was based. mestiza One whose ethnic identity is of mixed-race. métis A distinct race of people whose heritage originates in the intermarriages and sexual relations between Native American women and European fur traders. Today, many descendents reside in Canada where they are officially identified as a separate aboriginal race. Mexican independence The Mexicans gained their independence from Spain in 1821. The Mexican constitution outlawed slavery. Mexican Revolution Begun in 1910 in response to the dispossession of workers, food shortages, and a failing economy, all of which occurred under the administration of Porfirio Díaz. The war was officially brought to a close in 1917 with the creation of the constitution of Mexico, however, turmoil and instability continued into the 1920s. Mexican-American War Fought from 1846 to 1848 as a result of conflicts over the annexation of Texas, which was not recognized by the Mexican government, and border disputes. The war ended in 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the transfer of the Mexican cession—including all of what is today the American Southwest—to the United States.

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middle ground Not only a physical area in North America that included the Great Lakes region, the “middle ground” also consisted of blurred social, cultural, and political boundaries that existed mainly between French fur trappers and traders and the Native Americans of the region. The term was coined by Richard White in his book of the same title. monoculture Form of agricultural planting used by Europeans where each field consisted of only one crop. Mormon culture region Area ranging in territory from present-day Arizona to what is now the Salmon River area of Idaho where the cultural influence of the Mormons was heavily felt. Mormon Trail Westward trail of Mormon immigration spanning from western Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah. Approximately 40,000 emigrants made the journey along this trail before the U.S. Civil War. National Industrial Recovery Act Passed on June 16, 1933, this New Deal legislation was aimed at stimulating the Depression economy. The act gave the president various powers to regulate business more closely. In May 1935, the Supreme Court overturned the act as unconstitutional. New Western History Title given to a group of 1980s and 1990s scholars whose work challenged the Turnerian model of western U.S. history. Its adherents include Patricia Nelson Limerick, Donald Worster, Richard White, and William Cronon. New Woman The description of the changing gender roles and perception of women that surfaced in the latter decades of the 19th century and into the 20th century. It reflected the emergence of women in the workplace, in colleges, and unescorted in public places. Nisei Japanese term used to describe children of Japanese immigrants who are born outside their native country. In the United States it refers to Japanese Americans born in the United States. nomadic Nonsedentary people who move from place to place. The Spanish considered the Apache tribes to be a nomadic people, but they

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failed to appreciate the complex societal and economic structures of peoples they labeled “nomadic.” oral history History passed through the oral tradition instead of through the written word. Many Native American communities rely on this form of transmission for their histories. Such communities possess very accurate oral histories. Oregon Trail A key tool in the progression of Manifest Destiny, the Oregon Trail brought settlers across the country and began in what is today Independence, Missouri, ending in the Willamette Valley of present-day Oregon. Emigrants throughout the 19th century followed the trail on their way to settlements in the Northwest and beyond to the West Coast. As with the California Trail, constant use of the trail to Oregon ceased in the late 1800s with the emergence of the railroad system. Oregon Treaty Ceded the Oregon Country to the United States from Great Britain in 1846. Prior to the Oregon Treaty, the Oregon Country was jointly occupied by the United States and Great Britain. patriarchy Institutionalized male privilege in government, society, and/or culture. patrilineal Passing of tribal rights and identity through the male line of a family. Pearl Harbor Located on Oahu, this Hawaiian harbor is most widely known for the attack that took place on its shores on December 7, 1941. The unsuspected assault by Japanese war planes caused the United States to abandon its isolationist policies and to formally enter World War II by declaring war against Japan. Germany declared war on the United States the following day. pemmican A food frequently eaten by Plateau and Plains Indian tribes because of its useful qualities. Made from dried meat, bone marrow, and berries, it was nutritionally valuable and convenient to pack, and it would remain fresh for extended periods. Thus it became a staple for extended hunting excursions.

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pestle Tools made by early Mesoamerican women and used to grind corn and other grains. peyote Small, flowering cactus found in the Southwest and historically used by indigenous peoples in religious ceremonies. polygamy The practice of having more than one wife. Populism Political movement centered on the promotion and protection of the common people’s interests over that of society’s elite. Populism emerged in the United States in the late 19th century and continues to maintain a presence in current political arenas. prostitution money.

The act of marketing one’s sexuality in exchange for

Reclamation Act Passed in 1902, the act provided federal funding for large-scale irrigation projects to take place in the western states. It also launched the Town Site Act of 1906, which allowed the federal government to found irrigated settlement towns. Reclamation Service Created under the Reclamation Act of 1902. Primarily concerned with the development of water utilization, irrigation, and hydroelectric power in the western states, the service became a separate bureau in 1923 and continues to operate today. It is the secondlargest provider of water services in the United States. Rosie the Riveter Based on Ms. Rose Will Monroe, who worked as a riveter in a Michigan aircraft factory, “Rosie” became the common female icon of the woman worker during the World War II era. smallpox An infectious disease that killed a vast majority of Native Americans once it was introduced in the Americas by Europeans. SPARS The women’s branch of the U.S. Coast Guard created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942. The name was derived from the motto of the Coast Guard, which is semper paratus, meaning “always ready.” stock market crash of 1929 Widespread collapse of share prices that created panic and decline. The first crash, referred to as “Black Thursday,” occurred on October 24 and was followed by another on October

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29, otherwise known as “Black Tuesday.” As a result, the days and weeks that followed were marked by an unstable market, all of which contributed to an international depression, known as the Great Depression in the United States. subterranean mealing rooms A socially and religiously important section of homes in Ancient Puebloan villages where women prepared and stored corn that would later be used for meals as well as for tribal rituals. suffrage The right to vote. In 1869, Wyoming became the first state to grant women the right to vote, and universal suffrage in all western states (except New Mexico) soon followed. It was not until ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 that the federal government granted universal suffrage throughout the country. Texas independence After waging a revolution, Texans declared their independence from Mexico in 1835. An official declaration created the Republic of Texas on March 2, 1836. This republic existed until Texas was made a state of the Union in 1845. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Signed in 1848, the treaty ended the war with Mexico that had been initiated by Texas annexation and border disputes between the United States and Mexico. The Mexican cession was included in the treaty, opening much of the Southwest to American expansion and granting citizenship to Mexicans living within its borders. Turnerian model The model of American western history established by the Turner thesis. This narrative views westward expansion and the frontier experience of whites as the main story in the past of the American West. Variola virus The virus that is the causative agent of smallpox. Victory garden A garden planted on the homefront, most commonly during World War II. Victory gardens enabled families to have access to vegetables, which cut down on the number of ration tickets required. Virginia City, Montana A boomtown of the West created when gold was discovered there in 1863. Hometown of Calamity Jane.

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Virginia City, Nevada A mining community created in 1859 when silver was discovered in what became later known as the “Comstock Lode.” WAACs The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. Created in auxiliary form in 1942, the WAACs did not serve overseas, but rather they performed duties on the home front. In 1943, the title was changed to WACs when the corps left behind auxiliary status and became its own branch within the U.S. Army. The corps was formally disbanded in 1978. WASPs Women’s Auxiliary Service Pilots. WASPs served as civilian pilots who flew military aircrafts for the U.S. Air Force in order to make male pilots available for military service. Created in 1943, the WASPs were disestablished in 1944. WAVES Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service. A branch of the U.S. Navy, the first WAVES were accepted into service in 1942. The WAVES were disbanded at the end of the war. Wikipedia Online encyclopedia that is free to the public. Created in 2001, Wikipedia can be edited or added to by any user and is a pioneer in the open-source movement. WKKK The Women of the KKK emerged during the Klan’s 1910s–1920s incarnation, despite the strong gender rules the Klan supported. YWCA Popular during the first half of the 20th century, the Young Women’s Christian Association is a women’s organization that emphasizes values of leadership and equality.

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INDEX Abolitionists, 108, 147, 152 Abortion, 88 Academic scholars, and western women’s history, 6–10 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 229 Accault, Michel, 55–56 Accommodation, 101 Acculturation, 75 Acoma Pueblo, 72, 76–77 Act in Relation to Service, 152 Activism, 180, 255, 298–299 and African American women, 182 and mobility, women’s, 298–299 and Native American women, 182 and white women, 255 Adultery, 49, 87, 157. See also Marital infidelity African American women, 101, 182 and activism, 182 in California, 128 during Great Depression, 251, 252 and labor organizations, women’s, 254 in Las Vegas casinos, 230–231, 238 and Mexican-American War, 116 in Montana, 128 and motion picture industry, 228 and Native American women, mixed, 99–100 and relief programs, 251 and slavery, 99. See also Slavery in Texas, 116 and tourism, 224 on western trails, 128 and women’s suffrage, 193 during World War II, 267

African Americans as free blacks in California, 132 during Great Depression, 250–251 and housing, post-World War II, 288 in inner-city neighborhoods, 288, 290 and Ku Klux Klan, 238 in Mormon Church, 147, 149 and slavery, 109, 111–113, 115. See also Slavery and student movement, 300 in Texas, 109, 111–113, 114 and women’s suffrage, 192 during World War II, 264 Afro-American League, 251 Agriculture, 35, 83, 104, 106, 111, 189, 190 and ancient women, of the southern borderlands, 65, 66, 67–68 and Hohokam, 69 and Native American women, 53, 182 and Native Americans, 46–47, 58, 68 and Pueblo peoples, 72, 73, 78 See also Farming; Plantations Aiken, Katherine G., 298 Aircraft industry, during World War II, 264 Alaska, 252 Alcoa aluminum plant, 264 Alcohol and Native Americans, 122 and white women, 108 Algonquian, 51, 55 Allotment, 187, 189–190 Almonte, Juan, 113 Amache internment camp, 273

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American Association of University Women, 36 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 118 American democracy, 102, 103 American Friends Service Committee, 277 American Historical Association, 3, 4 American Red Cross, 221–222, 221 (photo), 268, 269 American Revolution, 89 American West as “her story,” 2–5 as “his story,” 1 as male frontier, 2–5 and popular culture, 1 The American Woman’s Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science; Being A Guide To The Formation and Maintenance Of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, And Christian Homes (C. Beecher and H. B. Stowe), 187–188 Americanization, of Native American women, 188 An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion (Lange and Taylor), 272 Anasazi (ancient Puebloan), 67, 70–72 artistry of, 72, 73 (photo) decline of, 71 diet of, 71 and environmental challenge, 71–72 gender roles of, 70–71 and irrigation, 71 and matrilocality, 70 population of, 70–71 and southern borderlands women, 70–72 and subterranean mealing rooms, 70 and trade, 71 violence of, 72 Ancient Puebloan. See Anasazi Ancient women, of the southern borderlands, 67–69 and agriculture, 65, 66, 67–68 diet of, 68–69 and farming, 67–68

gender roles of, 67–69 and maize, 67, 68–69 and material culture, 69 population of, 67, 68 and water allocation, 67 See also Anasazi; Hohokam Ando, Michi Yasui, 279 Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, 229 Antebellum period, 104 Anthony, Susan B., 192 Anthropology, and Native Americans, 35–36 Anti-Asian sentiment, during World War II, 270, 273 Anti-black sentiment, in Southern California, 290 Anti-immigrant sentiment, 222–224, 238, 239 Anti-parochial school movement, 240 Anti-Semitism, 239 Apache, 73, 78, 108, 114 Aprons, as source of western women’s history, 16 Aramepinchieue Rouensa, Marie, 55–56 Arapaho, 49 Archival collections, 15 Arco, Idaho nuclear research center at, 290 The Argus, 2 Arikara, 46, 51 Arizona internment camp in, 273 Mexican immigrants in, 199, 200 migrant workers in, 247 Arizona Republic, 66 Armed forces, women in, during World War II, 268 Armed resistance, of Native American women, 101 Armitage, Susan, 4, 6, 13, 319 Arroyo, 71 Artistry, of Anasazi women, 72 Artists, women, 255 Arts and Crafts movement, 209, 210 Asia, 126

Index Asian Americans and student movement, 300 Asian immigrant women, 99, 203–204, 212 in California, 130 during Great Depression, 252 in mining towns, 159 work of, 203–204, 212 Asian immigrants and bubonic plague, 222, 223–224 in California, 129 and Ku Klux Klan, 239 Asilomar Conference Center, 211 Assimilation, 25, 120, 277 and Mexican immigrants, 200 and Native American women, 101, 182, 189 and Native Americans, 186 Atlanta, Georgia, 303 Atlantic Monthly, 184 Atole, 89 Austin, Moses, 109 Austin, Stephen F., 109, 111 Austin land grant, 111 Authority and Native American women, 182, 188 and Native Americans, 36 Auto camping, 207–209 Automobile, 179, 180 and suburbanization, 287 and tourism, 225 and white women, 182 Aztec Empire, 76 Baby boom generation, 286–287 and student movement, 299 Baptiste, Jean, 46 Barman, Jean, 168 Barnes, Kim, 302–304, 305, 319 Barton, Clara, 221–222 Baseball industry, 225–226 Baskets, as material culture, 19 Bat Cave, New Mexico, 68 Battle of San Jacinto, 114 Bear Hunter, 142

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Bear River Massacre, 141–147, 172–173 The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History (Fleisher), 143 Beecher, Catharine, 187–188 Beecher, Lyman Ward, 187 Belgium, 120 Bemis, Charles, 131, 159 Benedict, Marjorie, 295 Bennett, Judith, 12 Berdache, 11 Bilingual education, 300 Bilingual records, 19 Biography and conformist views, 319 and western women’s history, 319 Birth of a Nation (film), 228–229 Birthrates, during post-World War II period, 286–287 Blackfoot, 41–42, 48, 49–50, 142 Blasphemy, in southern borderlands, 85, 86 Block wardens, 292, 294 Blocks of conquest, 323, 325 Blogs, 25 Bloodlines (Hale), 304, 305 Boag, Peter, 12 Board of Indian Commissioners, 186–187 Boarding schools, 186, 190 Boeing, 265 Bokovoy, Matthew F., 233 Bolshevik Revolution, 219 Bomb-shelter movement, 317 Boomtowns, 159, 169. See also Mining towns Bowls, as material culture, 19 Boxer, Barbara, 322 Brady Bunch (TV sitcom), 288 “Bringing It All Back Home: Rethinking the History of Women and the Nineteenth-Century West” (Jameson), 14 Bristol Bay, 252 British Columbia, Canada Native American women in, 168 sex trade in, 168 Brothel, 131 (photo)

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Women in the American West

Brothel owners, in mining towns, 163 Bryan, Emily Margaret B., 111 Bryan, Guy M., 111–112 Bubonic plague, 222–224, 225, 238. See also Diseases Buffalo, 56, 142 and Native Americans, 49 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 2–3, 4, 5, 232 and Native American women, 3 poster of, 3 (photo) and white women, 3 Bungalow lifestyle, 209–210 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 189 Bureau of the Mint, 243 Bush, George W., 313, 315 Businesses, woman-owned, 320–321 Butte, Montana, 163 Caldwell, Idaho, 67 California African American women in, 128 Asian immigrant women in, 130 Asian immigrants in, 129 bungalow lifestyle in, 209–210 Chinese women in, 130–132 electoral politics in, 294–296 gold rush in, 92, 129, 130–132, 146 immigrants in, 129–132 internment camp in, 273 Japanese Americans in, 273–274, 279 liberal movements in, 296 Mexican immigrant women in, 182–183 Mexican immigrants in, 199–200 Mexican women in, 130 migrant workers in, 246, 247 mining towns in, 159, 166, 167, 207 motion picture industry in, 227, 228 Native Americans in, 129 population in, 129–130, 294 segregation in, 128 sex trade in, 165, 166, 167 slavery in, 128, 132 Spanish-Mexicans in, 129

Spanish missions of, xxv (map) world fairs in, 232–233 California Arts and Crafts style, 210–211 California Federation of Republican Women (CFRW), 292, 294, 295–296 California girls, 301 California-Pacific International Exposition, 231, 232–233 California Republican Party, 294, 295–296 and political “precincting,” 295 California Trail, 129, 150 California Walnut Growers Association, 252 Cameahwait, 45 Canadian women, 99 Cannery culture, 252–253 Carey Act, 241, 244 Carrillo, José Raymundo, 86 Cartier, Rose, 168 Castañeda, Antonia I., 83 Castiza, 76 Cataldo Mission, 121 Cather, Willa, 10, 201, 202 (photo) Catholic missionaries and Native Americans, 181–182 See also Missionaries Catholics and Ku Klux Klan, 238, 240 Cayuse, 122–126 Cazneau, Jane McManus, 116 Celebration fusion, 80–82 Celebrations, and Pueblo peoples, 80, 82 Census records, and the Internet, 37 Central Pacific Railroad, 193 A Century of Dishonor (E. Jackson), 184 CFRW. See California Federation of Republican Women Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, 70–72 Chafe, William H., 299 Challenger Inn, 226–227 Charbonneau, Toussaint, 43–46, 50, 51, 52 Chardon, Francis A., 52

Index Chastity vows, and Franciscan missionaries, 79 Chávez, César, 282 Chávez-García, Miroslava, 84 Cherokee, 100 Chesterfield, Idaho, Mormon women in, 20 Cheyenne, 48, 49, 172 Chicago World’s Fair, 2–3. See also World fairs Chicano Studies, 300 Child care centers. See Day care centers Childbirth, on western trails, 127 Chinese immigrant women, 163, 171 in mining towns, 159 and sex trade, 165, 167 Chinese immigrants in mining towns, 207 and railroad, 194 Chinese women in California, 130–132 Choctaw, 100 Cholera, 116, 123–124, 127, 150. See also European diseases Christian conversion, 118 of Native Americans, 123, 124 of Pueblo peoples, 77, 78 in Spanish California, 82–83 Chronicles of Oklahoma, 235 Chupu, 88 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 141, 161 and African Americans, 147, 149 See also Mormons Cíbola, 75 “City on a Hill” sermon (Winthrop), 102 Ciudad Juàrez, 199 Civic power, and white women, 108 Civil defense, 291–294 and suburban women, 292, 294 Civil defense campaigns, 292, 293 (photo) Civil Defense Women’s Volunteer Service, 268 Civil rights activism, 299–300

357

Civil rights movement, 294, 298, 299–300 Civil War Battle Sites Commission, 143 Clark, William, 42–46, 51 Clarke, Betty, 315 Cliff Palace, 68 (photo) “Clio Bereft of Calliope: Literature and the New Western History” (Robinson), 10 Coahuila, 109 Coal mining, in Colorado, 204–206 Cody, Buffalo Bill, 2–3, 4, 5 Coeur d’Alene district, 204–206 Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, 188, 304 Coeur d’Alene tribe, 120, 121 Cold War, 280, 290–294 and bomb-shelter movement, 317 Coleman, Annie Gilbert, 12, 322 College enrollment, during post-World War II period, 284 Colonization, 14 Colorado coal mining in, 204–206 internment camp in, 273 mining towns in, 159, 182 segregation in, 128 Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 204, 205 Colorado State College of Education, 251 Colorado tick fever, 128 Columbia River, radioactive waste in, 291 Columbia River Packers’ Association, 252 Columbia River Packers’ Association salmon cannery, 253 (photo) Comanche, 48, 108, 114–115 Common law marriage, in Utah, 155 Communism, 219 Communist Party, 251 Community building, 180, 183, 212 Company stores, 204 Compromise of 1850, 132, 152

358

Women in the American West

Computer software industry, 23 Comstock Lode, 132, 144, 160, 164 Conformist views, and biography, 319 Congregational missions, 118 Congress of Industrial Organizations, 253 Connor, Patrick, 141–145, 172 The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark (Dye), 234 Conservatism, 294–296 and working women, 295 Consumerism, and women, 322–323 Consumption habits, and gender stereotypes, 322–323 Conversion, Christian. See Christian conversion Cookbooks, as source of western women’s history, 16, 37 Coon You, 130 Coos Bay mill, 303 Corn Mothers, 82 Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de, 74 Corps of Discovery, 42, 43, 45 Cortés, Hernán, 75–76 Cotton pickers, 26 (photo), 112 (photo) Counterculture movement, 294, 302 Country girls, and Old West myth, 313, 315 Country music, 313, 315–316 Court access, and southern borderlands women, 84, 86 Coyota, 87 Craft organizations, of Native Americans, 49 Creede, Colorado, 129 (photo) Crees, 48 Criollo, 76 Cronon, William, 9 Cross-dressers, 11 Crow tribe, 48, 49 Culinary Workers Union, 254 Cult of True Womanhood, 107 Culture, 5 and evolution classification system, 35, 36

and unilinear cultural evolution theory, 35 Custom of the country, 52–58 Dakotas, 48, 49 Dallas, Texas, 39 Daughters of the American Revolution, 173 Dawes, Henry, 189 Dawes Severalty Act, 184, 187, 189–190, 211 Day care centers during post-World War II period, 280, 281 during World War II, 267 Day school, 186, 190 De Soto, Antonia, 85–86 Deadwood, South Dakota, 165 Death during Great Depression, 50 on western trails, 127–128 Debo, Angie, 236–237 Debo, Edwin, 236 Debo, Leno, 236 Declaration of Independence, 102 Defense industries image of women worker in, 266 (photo) during World War II, 255 Defense industries, during World War II, 255, 264–265, 267, 281 DeLong, Joyce Butler, 269 DeLong, Russell, 269 Democracy, American, 102, 103 Democratic Review, 116 Demographic shifts, and western women’s history, 319–321 Denver Public Library, 23, 165 Des Barres, Michael, 302 DeSmet, Father, 121 Deverell, William, 224 DeWitt, Arthur, 210 Diamond, Jared, 72 Diaz, Porfirio, 198 Diet of the Anasazi, 71

Index in southern borderlands, 66, 68–69, 89 Discrimination during Great Depression, 250–251 in workforce, 282 Diseases on Mormon Trail, 150 on western trails, 127–128 See also Bubonic plague; European diseases; individual diseases; Influenza Diseases, European. See European diseases Divorce and Mormon women, 155–156 and Native American women, 189 and southern borderlands women, 86 Dixie Chicks, 313–316 Dogs, and Native Americans, 48 Domesticity, 187–188 definition of, 108 manifest, 107–113 and Manifest Destiny, 108 politics of, 295–296 public, 194, 196 sentimental, 104–107 Dowry system, and Mormon women, 156 Dreamer, George, 248 Dreamer, Marion Billbrough, 248, 250 Drug scene, in Los Angeles, California, 302 “Duck and cover” civil defense campaign, 292, 293 (photo) Duniway, Abigail Scott, 192, 234–235 Dunlap, Katherine, 124 Dust Bowl, 219, 246–247 Dutch-Reformed missions, 118 Dwellings, of Pueblo peoples, 73, 74 Dye, Eva Emery, 234–235 Dysentery, 124, 127, 150. See also Diseases E-mail, 25 Eastern European immigrant women, 159, 163, 182 Eastern European immigrants, 252

359

“Eating out” mentality, 207 Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 210 Ecosystems, in southern borderlands, 89 Edmunds-Tucker Act, 156–157 Edna and John (Duniway), 192 Education forced, 186, 190 and internment camps, 277–278 and Native American women, 182 and student movement, 299–300 Eisenhower, Dwight, 292, 294 El Paso, Texas, 199 El Rancho casino resort, 230 Electoral politics, in California, 294–296 Elizabeth, Queen, 246 Elks (fraternal organization), 240 Encyclopedia sources, 23–24 England, 150, 246 and fur trade, 51, 53 Environmental challenge, of the Anasazi, 71–72 Environmental degradation, on Great Plains, 219 Environmental history, 9 Environments, 5 Equal Rights Amendment, 298 Esparza, Pasquala, 199 Esquibel Tywoniak, Frances, 247 Euro-American women, and Manifest Destiny, 99–101 Euro-Americans, 1 European colonizers, and Native American women, 67 European diseases and Native Americans, 37–38, 115–116, 123–124, 125 and Pueblo peoples, 75, 77, 82 and southern borderlands women, 88–89 See also Diseases; individual diseases European immigrant women, 99 in mining towns, 159 European immigrants, 201 Evolution classification system, 35, 36 Executive Order 9066, 273, 277

360

Women in the American West

Executive Order 9102, 273 Executive Order of 1867, 172 Expansionism, 102–103, 102–104 and white women, 108 Explorers, 117 Extended family, 106, 153–154. See also Family Family, 153–154 and cannery culture, 252–253 and Great Depression, 246 and internment camps, during World War II, 279 and Ku Klux Klan, 239–240 and labor activism, 282, 284 and migrant workers, 247 in mining towns, 163–164, 164 and Mormon women, 154–155, 158–159 and Native Americans, 84 rituals, and white women, 107 sentimental, 107 and tourism, 225–227 and white women, 103, 105–107, 107–108 See also Extended family; Nuclear family Far West, 101, 118 Farm Security Administration, 272 Farm workers and labor activism, 282 migrant, 182, 183 Farming, 153–154, 188, 285 and Dust Bowl, 246 during Great Depression, 245 See also Agriculture FCDA. See Federal Civil Defense Agency Federal Civil Defense Act, 292 Federal Civil Defense Agency (FCDA), 292, 294, 295 Federal documents, as source of western women’s history, 37 Federal Emergency Relief Act, 248 Federal Home Administration (FHA), 284, 285

Federal Resettlement Administration, 272 Feinstein, Dianne, 322 “Female world of ritual,” 124 The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 288 Feminism, 12 “Feminism and History” (Bennett), 12 Feminist theory, 12, 25 Feminist women’s historical scholarship, 12 Fenn, Elizabeth A., 89 Fertility patterns, and Mormon women, 158–159 FHA. See Federal Home Administration Firearms and Native Americans, 48, 122 and Pueblo peoples, 78 Flamingo casino resort, 230 Fleisher, Kass, 143 Flu epidemic of 1918, 220–222 and population, 220 See also Influenza Food culture, in southern borderlands, 66, 91 Food processing plants, 251–254 and cannery culture, 252–253 Foote, Arthur DeWitt, 165 Foote, Mary Hallock, 10–11, 164–165, 194, 210 Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868, 172 Fort Clark, 52 Fort Hall, 51, 118–119 Fort Hall Indian Reservation, 172 Fort Laramie, 127–128 Fort Vancouver, 118, 119, 122 Forty-niners, on Oregon Trail, 129 The Four Seasons of Life, 105 (illustration) France, 120 and fur trade, 51, 53 and Louisiana Purchase, 102–103 Franciscan missionaries and celebration fusion, 80–82 and chastity vows, 79 and Pueblo peoples, 77–78, 79–82 and sexuality, women’s, 80–82

Index in Spanish California, 82–83 See also Missionaries Franklin Academy, 118 Free blacks, 132 Freedom Riders, 299, 301 (photo) Freedom Summer rides for civil rights, 299, 301 (photo) Freeway, and suburbanization, 287 French and Indian War, 51 French immigrant women, 167–168 Friedan, Betty, 288 Friends of the Indian, 187, 189 Frietas, Fray Nicolás de, 79 “Frontier thesis” (Turner), 4 Fugitive Slave Act, 132 Fuller, Jean Wood, 292, 294, 295 Funeral portraits, 21 Fur trade and England, 51, 53 and France, 51, 53 and Native American women, 50–52, 52–58 and Native Americans, 48 in Oregon Country, 122 See also Trade Fur traders, 117 and Native American women, relationship between, 50–52, 52–58, 54 (photo) Gambling in Las Vegas, Nevada, 230–231 and tourism, 227, 230–231 Garceau, Dee, 244 García Diego y Moreno, Francisco, 79, 80 Gates, Charles M., 126 Gathering, 33, 47, 89, 169, 171, 188. See also Hunting and gathering Gender and heterosexuality, 12 and politics, 297–298 and ski industry, 11–12 and western politics, 297–298 and western women’s history, 316–317, 318–319, 320

361

Gender formation, 12 Gender ratios, 53, 130, 267, 319, 320 in mining towns, 160, 163 See also Population; U.S. Census Gender roles, 5 of Anasazi women, 70–71 of ancient women, of the southern borderlands, 67–69 of the Hohokam, 69 and Ku Klux Klan, 238–239, 239–240 and mail-order consumerism, 197 of Mexican immigrant women, 200 of Mormon women, 146–146, 154, 155 of Native American women, 55, 56–57, 101, 182 of Native Americans, 48–49 of New Woman, 209–210 during post-World War II period, 280–281 of Pueblo peoples, 78 of Pueblo women, 73–74, 76–77, 80, 82 and railroad, 196 of southern borderlands women, 87 in Spanish California, 83–84 of white women, 103, 107–108 of white women, elite, 104–105 See also Work Gender scholars and patriarchy, 11, 12 and western women’s history, 11–12 Gender stereotypes, 164 and consumption habits, 322–323 See also Stereotypes Gender studies, 11–12 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 186 Gente de Razón (people of reason), 79, 83, 87 Gentiles, 83, 84, 88 Georgia Pacific Corporation, 302, 303 Germany, 264, 270 Ghost Dance, 190–191, 190 (photo)

362

Women in the American West

GI Bill of Rights. See Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Gila River internment camp, 273 Gillespie, Emily Hawley, 17, 19 Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 203 Glenn, Susan A., 265 Glodowski, Orda, 317 Gold rush, in California, 92, 129, 130–132, 146 Golden Spike Ceremony, 193–194 Gone with the Wind (film), 227, 229 Government documents, as source of western women’s history, 37 Graduate fellowship programs, 299 Grammy Awards, and Dixie Chicks, 315 Grand Canyon, 225 “Grandma’s Pantry” civil defense campaign, 292 Gravier, Father Jacques, 55 Great Basin, 171 Great Britain, 120 during World War II, 268–270 Great Depression, 211, 212, 243–251, 251–254, 254–255, 287, 298 African American women during, 251, 252 African Americans during, 250–251 Asian women during, 252 death and sickness during, 50 discrimination during, 250–251 Eastern European immigrants during, 252 and family, 246 farming during, 245 homeless during, 247–248 in Idaho, 245 immigrant women during, 252 Japanese American women during, 252 Japanese women during, 252 labor organizations, women’s, during, 253–254 Las Vegas casinos during, 254 and mail-order consumerism, 197 Mexican American women during, 252

Mexican immigrants during, 254–255 Mexican migrant workers during, 252 migrant workers during, 252, 254–255 Montana during, 245–246 Native Americans during, 248, 250 New Woman during, 248 New York City during, 245 Pacific Northwest during, 245 single women during, 248, 250 teaching profession during, 247–248 wages during, 247, 253–254, 255 Washington State during, 245 white women during, 252 working women during, 247–251, 251–254 and world’s fair, 231, 233 Great Plains, 101, 187 and Dust Bowl, 246 environmental degradation on, 219 Great Plains tribes, 46–50 Greek immigrant women, 163 Green Run, 291 Greenberg, Amy S., 104 Greenwood, Annie Pike, 244–245 Greenwood, Charley, 244–245 Greenwood, Marie Anderson, 251 Griffith, D. W., 228 GTOs, 302 Hale, Janet Campbell, 304–305 Halle, David, 21 Handcart companies, 150–151, 156 Handcart travel, 150–151 Hanford, Washington nuclear research center at, 290–291 Hardinge, Sarah Ann Lillie, 110–111 Harjo, Suzan Shown, 6 Harper’s Monthly, 184 Harriman, W. Averell, 226 Hattori, Eugene M., 171 Hauser, Ellen, 15, 19–20, 182 Hauser, Samuel, 15 Hawaii, 104 Hawikuh, 75 Healing plants, and Native American women, 56

Index Health, and white women, 222 Health care coverage, 321 Hearst, William Randolph, 211 Heart Mountain internment camp, 273, 274 Hebard, Grace Raymond, 45–46, 235, 236 Hefner, Hugh, 322 Hein, Teri, 291 Helena, Montana, 160, 163–164, 166–167 Hell’s Canyon dam, 297 Hell’s Canyon Recreational Area, 297 Henry, Emilie, 168 “Her story,” 2–5 Heroes, white men as, in American West, 1 Herrington, Fred, 204 Heterosexuality, and gender, 12 Hidatsa, 46, 48, 51, 52 Hide trade, and Native Americans, 49 Hierarchy, and Pueblo peoples, 76 High schools, and student movement, 300 Hill, Anita, 322 Hirabayashi, Gordon, 277–279 Hirabayashi v. United States, 278 “His story,” 1 Hispanic Americans, 300 Hispanic immigrants, 222 Hispanic women and labor organizations, 282 and women’s suffrage, 192 Hispanics in United States, by county, xxiii (map) History structure of, 14 See also Oral history; Western women’s history; Women’s history Hitler, Adolf, 264, 270, 298 Hlaukwima, 74 Hlauuma, 74 Hohokam, 69 and agriculture, 69 and farming, 69 gender roles of, 69

363

and irrigation, 69 and southern borderlands peoples, 69 and trade, 69 Holladay-Cottonwood district, 151 Holley, Mary Austin, 109–110 Hollywood, California and tourism, 227, 228 Hollywood Cemetery, 229 Home kits, 209–210. See also Homes; Houses Homeless, during Great Depression, 247–248 population of, 248 Homes and domesticity, 187–188 as source of western women’s history, 19–20 See also Houses Homestead Act, 180, 187, 244 Homesteaders, 11, 187–189, 201 and mail-order consumerism, 197 Hopi Pueblo, 72, 75 Hopi woman, 34 (photo) Horn, Sarah Ann, 115 Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, 155 Horses, and Native Americans, 48–49, 78, 114–115, 142 Horticulture, and Native Americans, 46 Hoshiyama, Meriko, 278 (photo) Household account registers, as source of western women’s history, 15 Households, and technology, 179 Houses and home kits, 209–210 in mining towns, 164–165 of New Woman, 209–210 as source of western women’s history, 19–20 See also Homes Housing, post-World War II, 284–290 and inner-city neighborhoods, 288, 290 and white women, 287–288 Houston, Sam, 113–114 Hubbard, Philip, 168 Hudson, Lynn M., 132

364

Women in the American West

Hudson’s Bay Company, 51, 57, 58, 117, 118–119, 122 Huerta, Dolores, 282, 283 (photo) Hull, Thomas, 230 Hungry Wolf, Beverly, 41–42, 50 Hunting, 188 and Native Americans, 48–49, 53 and Pueblo peoples, 72, 74 See also Hunting and gathering Hunting and gathering, 35, 189–190. See also Gathering; Hunting Hydraulic order, 9 Idaho, 204–206 during Great Depression, 245 internment camp in, 273, 274 Ku Klux Klan in, 240 mining towns in, 159, 163 sex trade in, 165 timber industry in, 302 Immigrant women and bubonic plague, 223 during Great Depression, 252 in mining towns, 159–169, 204–206 in mining towns, and family, 164 in mining towns, and houses, 164–165 in mining towns, stereotypes of, 164 in mining towns, work of, 163–164, 165 and sex trade, in mining towns, 165–169 Immigrants and anti-immigrant sentiment, 222–224, 238 in California, 129–132 and labor activism, 282 and mail-order consumerism, 197 on Oregon Trail, 129 during World War II, 263 Immigration, 180, 320 reform, 322 Imperialism, 104 Indentured servants, in Texas, 111, 113 Indian attacks, on western trails, 127 Indian Country, 184, 189 Indian question, 182–183, 183–191, 212

Indian reform movement, 183–191, 184, 212 Indian Removal Act, 100, 115 Indian Reorganization Act, 189 Indian reservations, 186, 187, 188–189, 211–212 and southern borderlands peoples, 66 Indian Rights Association, 187 Indian Service, 188, 189, 248 Indian Taco, 66 Indian Tribes of the Northern Rockies (Hungry Wolf ), 42 Indian Wars, 172 Industrial mobilization, during World War II, 284 Infanticide, and southern borderlands women, 88 Influenza, 38, 150, 220–222, 250 in San Francisco, California, 221–222 See also Diseases Information Resources firm, 66 Inheritance rights, and Mormon women, 156, 157 Inner-city neighborhoods and African Americans, 288, 290 and housing, post-World War II, 288, 290 Instant messenger, 25 Intermarriage, 99–100 in Oregon Country, 119, 122 International Defense League, 251 Internet and census records, 37 as source of western women’s history, 23–25 Internet Public Library (IPL), 24–25 Internet sources, 23 and patriarchy, 24 Internment camps, during World War II, 255, 270, 273–279 construction of, 274–275 and educational opportunities, 277–278 and employment opportunities, 276 and family, 279

Index Japanese Americans in, 255, 263, 270, 273–279 Japanese families in, 279 Japanese immigrants in, 255, 263, 270, 273–279 Japanese women in, 277–279 Japanese youth in, 276–277 location of, 273, 274 military style of, 274–275 population in, 274 wartime challenge of, 278–279 Interracial marriage, and Native American women, 52–58 IPL. See Internet Public Library Iraq War, 315 Irish immigrant women, 163, 171 Irrigation, 179, 180, 245 of the Anasazi, 71 of the Hohokam, 69 Issei, 274, 275, 276, 279 Italian immigrant women, 163 Ito, Leslie A., 276 Iverson, Peter, 325 Jackson, Helen Hunt, 184, 185 (photo) Jackson, Sara Oliver, 250 Jackson, William Sharpless, 184 James, Isaac, 148 James, Jane Elizabeth Manning, 147–149, 153 Jameson, Elizabeth, 4, 6, 13, 14, 325 Jamestown colony, 76 Japan, 252, 264, 270 Japanese American women during Great Depression, 252 Japanese Americans in California, 273–274, 279 in internment camps, 255, 263, 270, 273–279 in Oregon, 273–274, 279 and patriarchy, 279 in Washington State, 273–274, 279 Japanese immigrants in internment camps, 255, 263, 270, 273–279

365

Japanese women during Great Depression, 252 in internment camps, during World War II, 277–279 Jefferson, Thomas, 35 and expansionism, 102–103 Jeffrey, Julie Roy, 122 Jensen, Joan, 200 Jesuit missionaries, 55–56, 117, 120. See also Missionaries Jicarilla Apache, 231 Jim Crow laws, 192, 224, 238 Johansen, Dorothy O., 126 Johnson, Susan Lee, 130, 167 Jones, Hazel, 207–209 Journal of Design History, 317 Kaiser shipyards, 264, 265, 267, 272 Kansas and Dust Bowl, 246–247 segregation in, 128 Kataoka, Michiko, 278 (photo) Keith, Toby, 313 Kellogg, Idaho, 159, 204 Kennedy, David M., 268 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 296 Kessell, Velma, 276 Kessler-Harris, Alice, 247 Ketchup, vs. salsa, 66 Kirkland, Caroline, 10, 126–127 KKK. See Ku Klux Klan Kroger stores, 284 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 219, 228, 238–240, 243 and African Americans, 238 and Asian immigrants, 239 and Catholics, 238, 240 and family, 239–240 and gender roles, 238–239, 239–240 in Idaho, 240 and Mexican immigrants, 240 and Native Americans, 238 in Oregon, 239–240 in Pacific Northwest, 239–240 and parochial schools, 240 and public schools, 240

366

Women in the American West

Ku Klux Klan (KKK), continued Rocky Mountain States, 240–241 and white women, 239–240 Kurtis, Bill, 13 Labor activism and family, 282, 284 and farm workers, 282 and immigrant workers, 282 and Latinos, 282 and Mexican American women, 282 and Mexican Americans, 282 and migrant workers, 282 during post-World War II period, 282–284 and World War II, post-, 282–284 Labor organizations, 204–206 and Hispanic women, 282 and Mexican American women, 253–254 Labor organizations, women’s, 253–254 and African American women, 254 during Great Depression, 253–254 “Ladies of the Invisible Empire,” 239 Lakotas, 49 Lalu Nathoy (aka Polly Bemis), 159 Land grants, in Spanish California, 83 Land legislation, 180 Land purchase, in Texas, 111 Landscapes, 5 Lange, Dorothea, 271–272, 271 (photo) Language, of Pueblo peoples, 72 Language, written, 35 Lanham Act, 267 Laramie, Wyoming, 165 Las Vegas, Nevada population in, 230–231 racial segregation in, 238 Las Vegas casinos, 230–231 African American women in, 230–231 during Great Depression, 254 prostitution in, 230 white women in, 230 Last will and testaments, of southern borderlands women, 87

The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States, 157 Latin American immigrants, 129 Latinos, and labor activism, 282 Lawrence, Andrea Mead, 322–323 LDS Women’s Relief Society, 147, 148, 162 Leadville, Colorado, 159, 165, 166 (photo) League of the Iroquois (Morgan), 35 Lears, T. J. Jackson, 211 Leave It to Beaver (TV sitcom), 288 The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (Limerick), 8, 237 Leigh, Vivien, 227, 229 Leisure, 255 and New Woman, 207–209, 212 Letters, as source of western women’s history, 15 Letters of a Woman Homesteader (Stewart), 146 Lewis, Meriwether, 42–45, 46, 51 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, 234 Lewis and Clark Expedition, xxvi (map), 42–46, 51, 117 Liberal movements, in California, 296 Liberal Party, in Utah, 157 Library of Congress, 23 Lichtman, Sarah, 317 Life Magazine, 272 Limerick, Patricia Nelson, 8–9, 237 Lincoln, Abraham, 141 The Line Which Separates: Race, Gender, and the Making of the AlbertaMontana Borderlands (McManus), 13 Listservs, 25 Literary scholars, and western women’s history, 10–11 Lockheed, 264 Lonesome Dove (McMurtry), 9–10

Index Los Alamos, New Mexico nuclear research center at, 290 Los Angeles, California bubonic plague in, 222–224, 225, 238 drug scene in, 302 tourism in, 222 Los Angeles City Health Department, 223 Los Angeles freeways, 287 Los Angeles Unified School District, 300 Loughlin, Patricia, 236 Louisiana, plantations in, 112 Louisiana Purchase, 102–103 Ludlow, Colorado, 204 Ludlow tent colony massacre, 205–206 Luttig, John C., 45 Lyons, Anna, 167–168 Madison, James, 103 Madsen, Brigham, 143 Madsen, Carol Cornwall, 155 Madsen, Mrs. Norman C., 318 (photo) Magoffin, Samuel, 91 Magoffin, Susan, 91 Mail-order catalogs, 193, 196–198 Mail-order consumerism, 197 and gender roles, 197 and Great Depression, 197 and homesteaders, 197 and immigrants, 197 and Native Americans, 197–198 and railroads, 196–198 and white women, 196–197 Maines, Natalie, 313, 314 (photo), 315–316 Maize, and ancient women, of the southern borderlands, 67, 68–69 Male domination, 9. See also Patriarchy Male frontier, American West as, 2–5 Mandan, 46, 51–52 Manifest Destiny, 99–101, 102–104, 125 and domesticity, 108 and Native Americans, 186 and white women, 99–101, 102–104, 125

367

Manifest domesticity, and white women, 107–113 Manifesto of 1890, 157–158 Manufacturing facilities, during World War II, 264 Manzanar internment camp, 272, 273, 274 (photo) Marginalization of Spanish-Mexican women, 203–204, 212 of women of color, 203–204, 212 of working women, 282 Marinucci, Mimi, 288 Marital infidelity in southern borderlands, 86 See also Adultery Market Revolution, 105–106 Marriage in mining towns, 160 and Mormon women, 144, 146, 154–158, 158–159 and Native American women, 101, 168, 189 and Native Americans, 49–50 during post-World War II period, 286–287 and southern borderlands women, 87 in Spanish California, 83 in Utah, 155 and white women, 106–107 during World War II, 270 Marriage à la façon du pays, 53 Martin Company, 151 Masculine frontier, 4 Masons (fraternal organization), 240 Mass production, during World War II, 264 Material culture and ancient women, of the southern borderlands, 69 and Native American women, 19, 33–34 as source of western women’s history, 16–19, 37

368

Women in the American West

Matías, Tepehuan, 85 Matrilineal culture, and Native Americans, 46–47, 49 Matrilocality and the Anasazi, 70 and Native American women, 55, 189 Matsumoto, Valerie J., 276 Maybeck, Bernard, 210 McAllen, Texas, 39 McDaniel, Hattie, 228–229 McDaniel, Henry, 228 McEntire, Reba, 313 McKinley, William, 185, 186 McLoughlin, John, 57, 119, 122 McLoughlin, Marguerite Waddens, 119, 122 McManus, Sheila, 13 McMurtry, Larry, 9–10 Mealing rooms. See Subterranean mealing rooms Measles, 38, 82, 123–124. See also European diseases Mestiza, 76 Métis, 50 Mexican-American borderland, 67 Mexican-American War, 84, 92, 104, 116–117, 129, 155 and African American women, 116 and Spanish-Mexican women, 116–117 and white women, 116 Mexican American women during Great Depression, 252 and labor activism, 282 and labor organizations, 253–254 during World War II, 265 Mexican Americans and labor activism, 282 and school reform, 300 Mexican cuisine, and southern borderlands peoples, 66 Mexican immigrant women, 182–183, 199–200, 203–204 in California, 182–183 gender roles of, 200

and patriarchy, 200 work of, 199–200, 203–204 Mexican immigrants, 65–66, 129, 198–200, 203–204 in Arizona, 199, 200 and assimilation, 200 and bubonic plague, 222–224 in California, 199–200 during Great Depression, 254–255 and Ku Klux Klan, 240 as migrant workers, 247 in Texas, 200 Mexican independence, 108 Mexican migrant workers during Great Depression, 252 Mexican Revolution, 82, 182–183, 198 Mexican women, 130 in California, 130 as western women, 5 Mexicans (Tejanos), 109 Mexico, 126 slavery in, 113 and Spain, 108 Spanish colonization of, 72–74, 75–82, 92 and Texas, 108–113 and Texas land grants, 108–109 Mexico City (Tenochtítlan), 108 Mexico Tenochtitlan, 76 Middle Atlantic states, 106, 154 Middle ground, 53, 56 Midway Plaisance, at World’s Columbian Exposition, 2 Migrant women, during World War II, 267 Migrant workers in Arizona, 247 in California, 246, 247 and Dust Bowl, 246–247 and family, 247 on farms, 182, 183 during Great Depression, 252, 254–255 and labor activism, 282 Mexican immigrants as, 247

Index in Washington State, 246, 247 during World War II, 263 Migration, of Mormons, 147, 149 Miller, Pamela, 300–302, 305 Minidoka internment camp, 273, 274 Mining camps, 204 Mining enterprises, 179 Mining towns, 207 Asian immigrant women in, 159 Asian immigrants in, 159 brothel owners in, 163 in California, 159, 166, 167, 207 Chinese immigrant women in, 159 Chinese immigrants in, 207 in Colorado, 159, 182 Eastern European immigrant women in, 182 European immigrant women in, 159 and family, 163–164, 164 gender ratios in, 160 and houses, 164–165 in Idaho, 159, 163 immigrant women in, 159–169, 204–206 marriage in, 160 in Montana, 159, 163–164, 166–167 Native American women in, 169–171 in Nevada, 159 in Pacific Northwest, 166 population in, 160, 163–164, 167 prostitution in, 163, 165–167 in Rocky Mountain states, 163 sex trade in, 165–169 during World War II, 264 Mining unions, 180, 204–206 Miscarriage, and southern borderlands women, 88 Mission system, in southern borderlands, 89 Missionaries Catholic, 181–182 Franciscan, 77–78, 79–82, 82–83 Jesuit, 55–56, 117, 120 protestant, 117, 181–182 and Pueblo peoples, 77–78, 79–82

369

Missouri, Mormons in, 147 Mobility, women’s and activism, 298–299 and New Woman, 179–180 and railroads, 193–196 and suburbanization, 287 and technology, 179–180, 193, 212 Moccasins, 56 Moctezuma, Isabel de Tolosa Cortés, 75–76 Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, 76 Monoculture, 47 Montana, 160, 165 African American Women in, 128 during Great Depression, 245–246 mining towns in, 159, 163–164, 166–167 sex trade in, 166–167 Montgomery Ward, 20, 196 Mooney, James, 38 Moral Majority, 305 Morality and Mormon women, 144, 157 and white women, 107–108 and white women, elite, 105 Moreno, Luisa, 254 Morgan, James, 113 Morgan, Julia, 210–211 Morgan, Lewis, H., 35, 36 Mormon Church. See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Mormon crickets, 148 Mormon culture region, 146 Mormon Trail, 150–151 diseases on, 150 Mormon women on, 151 Mormon women, 20, 153–159 and adultery, 157 and divorce, 155–156 and dowry system, 156 and family, 154–155, 158–159, 158 (photo) fertility patterns of, 158–159 gender roles of, 146–146, 154, 155 and inheritance rights, 156, 157

370

Women in the American West

Mormon women, continued and marriage, 144, 146, 154–158, 158–159 and morality, 144, 157 on Mormon Trail, 151 and polygamy, 144, 146, 154–158 and pregnancy, 155 and property rights, 156, 157, 158 and prostitution, 157 and voting rights, 157 and women’s suffrage, 191, 192 Mormons, 92 as abolitionists, 147 and Bear River Massacre, 141–147, 172–173 migration of, 147, 149 in Missouri, 147 and Mormon culture region, 146 and the Mormon Trail, 150–151 in northern Mexico, 150 and patriarchy, 152–153 and slavery, 147, 151–153 in Utah Territory, 151–153 Motion picture industry, 227, 228 and African American women, 228 Mount Hood, Oregon, 227 Mountain fever, 128 Movie studios, 227, 228 Multicultural studies, 12–14 and patriarchy, 13 and western women’s history, 12–14 and women of color, 12–13 Munitions factories, during World War II, 264 Murray, Patty, 322 Natatorium movement, 182 Nathoy, Lalu (aka Polly Bemis), 131–132 The Nation, 184 National Archives and Records Administration, 23, 165, 275 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 229, 298 National Defense Education Act, 299 National Defense Student Loan Program, 299

National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), 282 National Federation of Republican Women, 296 National Housing Act, 284 National Industrial Recovery Act, 248 National Japanese Student Relocation Council (NJASRC), 277 National Park Service, 143 National parks, 182, 207 and tourism, 227 National politics, women’s influence in, 321–322 National Women’s Advisory Committee on Civil Defense, 294, 295 National Women’s History Museum Web Site, 25 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 36 Native American women, 6, 33–58, 99, 101, 170 (photo), 181–182 and accommodation, 101 and activism, 182 and African American women, mixed, 99–100 and agriculture, 53, 182 and allotment, 189–190 and Americanization, 188 and armed resistance, 101 and assimilation, 101, 182, 189 and authority, 182, 188 in British Columbia, Canada, 168 in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 3 and custom of the country, 52–58 and divorce, 189 education of, 182 and European colonizers, 67 and farming, 182 and fur trade, 50–52, 52–58 and fur traders, relationship between, 50–52, 52–58, 54 (photo) gender roles of, 55, 56–57, 101, 182 during Great Depression, 252 of the Great Plains, 46–50 and healing plants, 56

Index and interracial marriage, 52–58 and marriage, 101, 168, 189 and material culture, 19, 33–34 and matrilocality, 55, 189 in mining towns, 169–171 and oral history, 19, 40–42 and patriarchy, 53, 55 photos of, 21, 23 and polygamy, 189 and property rights, 188 and sex trade, 168 sexual assault against, 144, 152 and social services, 40 and tepees, 20 in Texas, 114–116 and tourism, 224 and U.S. census, 39–40 as western women, 5 work of, 33–34, 35–36, 46–50, 58, 169, 171, 188, 190, 211–212 Native Americans and agriculture, 46–47, 58, 68 and alcohol, 122 and allotment, 187 and anthropology, 35–36 and assimilation, 186 and authority, 36 and berdache, 11 and the buffalo, 49 in California, 129 and Catholic missionaries, 181–182 and Christian conversion, 123, 124 and craft organizations, 49 and dogs, 48 and European diseases, 37–38, 115–116, 123–124, 125 and family, 84 and firearms, 48, 122 and fur trade, 48 gender roles of, 48–49 during Great Depression, 248, 250 and hide trade, 49 history of, problem with, 35–36 and horses, 48–49, 78, 114–115, 142 and horticulture, 46 and hunting, 48–49, 53

371

and Indian question, 182–183, 183–191, 212 and Ku Klux Klan, 238 and mail-order consumerism, 197–198 and Manifest Destiny, 186 and marriage, 49–50 and matrilineal culture, 46–47, 49 and oral history, 16 in Oregon Country, 122–126 and patriarchy, 35, 49, 191 and patrilineal culture, 46 and patrilocality, 49 photos of, 21, 23 and place names, 36 during post-World War II, 304 and power, 36 and protestant missionaries, 181–182 and religion, 190–191 and slavery, 78. See also Slavery and smallpox, 181 and Spanish women, mixed, 99 and statistical genocide, 38–39 and technology, 180 in Texas, 109 and U.S. census, 37–40 and women’s suffrage, 192 and world’s fair, 231–232 See also individual tribes Nature’s Metropolis (Cronon), 9 Nauvoo, Illinois Mormons in, 147, 149 Navajo, 78, 231 Navajo Taco, 66 Nebraska, 201 Needlework, as source of western women’s history, 16, 17, 19 Neófitas, 83, 87, 88 Nevada, 169, 321 mining towns in, 159 New Deal, 248, 251, 271–272, 284 New England, 106, 113, 154 slavery in, 147, 148 New France, 53 population in, 53 A New Home, Who’ll Follow? (Kirkland), 10, 126–127

372

Women in the American West

New Left, 298 New Mexico, 180 Mexican immigrants in, 200 New Northwest, 192 New Spain, 65, 75–76, 77, 108 New West, 8–10 New Western History, 8–10, 12 New Woman, 182, 207–210, 212 and auto camping, 207–209 and bungalow lifestyle, 209–210 gender roles of, 209–210 during Great Depression, 248 and houses, 209–210 and leisure, 207–209, 212 and mobility, women’s, 179–180 and tourism, 207, 212 and working women, 182, 212 New York City, during Great Depression, 245 New York Evening Post, 184 New York Times, 234 New York Times Magazine, 10 Nez Perce, 120, 122 NFWA. See National Farm Workers Association Nineteenth Amendment, 180, 298 Nisei, 273, 276–277, 279 Nixon, Richard, 296, 305 “The Nixons’ Recipes for Nixons’ Neighbors” (National Federation of Republican Women), 296 NJASRC. See National Japanese Student Relocation Council No Place of Grace (Lears), 211 Noda, Mrs. Kumiko, 276 Noda, Newell Kazuo, 276 Nomads, 48, 49–50, 58, 73, 78, 82, 114–115 North Star Foundation, 210 North Star House, 210 North West Company, 51 Northern Mexico, Mormons in, 150 Northern Paiute women, 169, 171 Northwest Company, 117 “Not Ready to Make Nice” (Dixie Chicks), 315

Nuclear arms race, 290–294 Nuclear family, 106–107, 154, 187. See also Family Nuclear research centers, 290–291 O Pioneers! (Cather), 201 Oakley, Annie, 3 Office of Indian Affairs, 185 Office of War Information, 272, 280–281 Ojibwas, 48 Okies, 246, 247 Oklahoma, 99 and Dust Bowl, 246–247 Oklahoma State Historical Society, 235 Old Jules (Sandoz), 201, 203 Old West, 8, 10 images of, 25 Old West mythology, 6, 9–10, 26 and country girls, 313, 315 and western women’s history, 316–317 “Old Western” history, 316 Omaha tribe, 46 Oñate, Juan de, 75–76 Oñate y Cortes Moctezuma, Cristobal de, 76 Oñate y Cortes Moctezuma, Maria de, 76 Open-source movement, 23 Oral history accuracy of, 41 and Native American women, 19, 40–42 and Native Americans, 16 as source of western women’s history, 16 Oral History Association, 42 Oregon, 247 Japanese Americans in, 273–274, 279 Ku Klux Klan in, 239–240 sex trade in, 165 timber industry in, 302 Oregon Country, 57 and fur trade, 122 intermarriage in, 119, 122 Native Americans in, 122–126 patriarchy in, 120 population in, 123

Index trade in, 122 white women in, 117–126 Oregon Short Line Railroad, 194, 244 Oregon Trail, 117, 123, 126–130, 150, 193 immigrants on, 129 white women on, 119, 124, 126–130 Oregon Treaty, 117, 119 O’Sullivan, John L., 102 Overseas Wives Club of Kalispell and Whitefish, Montana, 269–270 Pacific Coast states, 130 Pacific Northwest during Great Depression, 245 Ku Klux Klan in, 239–240 mining towns in, 166 sex trade in, 166 timber industry in, 302–303 Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, 209 Pacific Ten Conference, 323 Painted Desert world’s fair exhibit, 231–232 Paiute women, 169, 171 Palmer, Clarissa quilt by, 18 (photo) Panama-California Exposition, 231–232, 232 (photo) Papago women, 90 (photo) Parochial schools, and Ku Klux Klan, 240 Patriarchy, 9 and gender scholars, 11, 12 and Internet sources, 24 and Japanese Americans, 279 and Mexican immigrant women, 200 and Mormons, 152–153 and multicultural studies, 13 and Native American women, 53, 55 and Native Americans, 35, 49, 191 in Oregon Country, 120 and San Diego world’s fair, 233 in southern borderlands, 79–80 and southern borderlands women, 84–87 in Spanish California, 83 and white women, 103

373

Patrilineal culture, and Native Americans, 46 Patrilocality, and Native Americans, 49 Patriotism, politics of, 315 Paul, Alice, 298 Pawnee, 46 Pearl Harbor, Japanese attack on, 252, 264, 270 Pelosi, Nancy, 322 Pemmican, 47, 56 People magazine, 10 Perkins Loan Program, 299 Perpetual Emigration Fund, 156 Pestles, as material culture, 19 Petrik, Paula, 164, 166–167 Peyote, 85 Pfost, Gracie, 296–298 Philippines, 104 Phillippe, Michel, 56 Photographs, as source of western women’s history, 20–23 Photography, 271 Physical abuse, and southern borderlands women, 88 Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 240 Pillowcases, embroidered, as source of western women’s history, 16 Pine Ridge Reservation, 248, 250 Pioneering spirit, 220 Pittman, Tarea, 250–251 Pittman, William, 250–251 Pjost, Walter (Jack), 296, 297 Place names, and Native Americans, 36 Plains Indian women, 42, 50 (photo) Plantations, 152–153, 187 in Louisiana, 112 in Texas, 109, 110, 111–113 See also Agriculture Pleasant, John, 132 Pleasant, Mary Ellen, 128, 132 Pocatello, Idaho, 172, 194 Political “precincting,” 295 and California Republican Party, 295 Politics and gender, 297–298

374

Women in the American West

Politics, continued of patriotism, 315 women’s influence in, 321–322 Polygamy and Mormon women, 144, 146, 154–158 and Native American women, 189 and Republican Party, 144, 146 in Utah, 155–158 Popular culture, 1 and American West, 1 Population of the Anasazi, 70–71 of ancient women, of the southern borderlands, 67, 68 in California, 129–130, 294 and flu epidemic, 220 of Hispanics xxiii (map) of homeless, during Great Depression, 248 in internment camps, 274 in Las Vegas, 230–231 in mining towns, 160, 163–164, 167 in New France, 53 in Oregon Country, 123 of Pueblo peoples, 72, 82 in southern borderlands, 89 in Spanish California, 88, 89 in Texas, 109, 112–113, 116 See also Gender ratios; U.S. Census Populism, 191 Portland, Oregon, sex trade in, 165–167 Portland East Side Christian Church, 239 Portland Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, 234 Poston internment camp, 273 Potlatch timber company, 302 Poverty rates, 321 Power and Native Americans, 36 and water rights, 220 Pregnancy and Mormon women, 155 and white women, 107 Prentiss, Clarissa, 118 Prentiss, Stephen, 118

Presbyterian missions, 118 Property rights and Mormon women, 156, 157, 158 and Native American women, 188 and southern borderlands women, 84 and white women, 103 Prostitution in Las Vegas casinos, 230 in mining towns, 163, 165–167 and Mormon women, 157 and red light districts, 168–169 in Salt Lake City, 142, 144 and tourism, 169 See also Sex trade Protest movements, 322 Protestant missionaries, 117 and Native Americans, 181–182 See also Missionaries Protests, and white women, 300 Public domesticity, and railroad cars, 194, 196 Public power, and white women, 108 Public schools, and Ku Klux Klan, 240 Pueblo Bonito, 70 Pueblo peoples, 74–82, 231 and acculturation, 75 and agriculture, 72, 73, 78 and celebrations, 80, 82 and Christian conversion, 77, 78 dwellings of, 73, 74 and European diseases, 75, 77, 82 and firearms, 78 and Franciscan missionaries, 77–78, 79–82 gender roles of, 78 and hierarchy, 76 and hunting, 72, 74 language of, 72 population of, 72, 82 and rituals, 80, 82 and southern borderlands peoples, 72–74, 74–82 and Spanish colonizers, 72–74, 75–82 and trade, 72, 77, 78 work of, 78–79 Pueblo Revolt of 1680, 82, 85, 86

Index Pueblo women gender roles of, 73–74, 76–77, 80, 82 Pueblos and southern borderlands women, 72–74, 74–82 Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, 265 Pullman sleeping car, 194 Quakers, 277 Quijada, Vicente, 86–87 Quilts, 16, 17, 18 (photo) Racial discrimination, during Great Depression, 250–251 Racial segregation, 238 in Las Vegas, Nevada, 238 Racism, 238–240, 243 Radioactive waste, in Columbia River, 291 Railroad cars, 195 (photo) and public domesticity, 194, 196 and white women, 194, 196 Railroads and Chinese immigrants, 194 and gender roles, 196 and mail-order consumerism, 196, 198 and mobility, women’s, 193–196 and tourism, 225 Ramona (E. Jackson), 184 Rancheros, in Spanish California, 83–84, 92 Rape. See Sexual assault Rattlesnake Ruin, 72 Reagan, Ronald, 294 Recipe cards, as source of western women’s history, 16, 37 Reclamation Act, 241 Reclamation Service, 220 Reconstruction South, 194 Red Cross, 221–222, 221 (photo), 268, 269 Red light districts, 168–169. See also Prostitution Red Scare, 219 Reel, Estelle, 184–186

375

Reform movements, 180, 255 and white women, 255 and white women, elite, 183, 186 Reform organizations, and white women, 108 Regionalism, and western women’s history, 316, 317–319, 320 Relief programs, and African American women, 251 Religion, and Native Americans, 190–191 Religious conversion. See Christian conversion Religious heresy, in southern borderlands, 85 Republican land policy, 11 Republican Party, 294, 305 and polygamy, 144, 146 Republican Party clubs, 295 Resource depletion, and the Anasazi, 71–72 Resources, access to, 212 Richter, Amy, 194 Right, Western, 295–296 Riley, Glena, 201 Rio Grande Pueblos, 75 The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic (A. Debo), 237 Rituals, and Pueblo peoples, 80, 82 Rivers of Empire (Worster), 9 Robbins, William G., 303 Robinson, Forrest, 10 Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson, 318 Rock movement, 301–302 Rockefeller, John D., 204 Rocky Mountain spotted fever, 128 Rocky Mountain states, 130 and Ku Klux Klan, 240–241 mining towns in, 163 white women in, 130 Rocky Mountain West, 101 Rodríguez, María, 252 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 243, 248, 250, 273 Rosas, Luís de, 78 Rose, Margaret, 282 Rosie the Riveter, 264, 268

376

Women in the American West

Ross, Nellie Tayloe, 240, 241–243, 242 (photo) Ross, William B., 241 Royal Pragmatic on Marriage, 80 Ruiz, Vicki, 199, 253–254 Rupert, Idaho, 65–66, 67 Russia, and nuclear arms race, 290 Sacagawea, 42–46, 44 (photo), 234, 235, 319 Sacajawea (Hebard), 45, 235 Sacajawea Statue Association, 234 Sacred Heart Mission, 120–121 Sager family, 123 Sagwitch, 142, 172 Saloons, and white women, 108 Salsa, 66 Salt Lake City, Utah, 160, 165 prostitution in, 142, 144 sex trade in, 167 Salt Lake City magazine, 285 Salt Lake Valley, Mormons in, 151 Samarano, Luciana, 223 San Diego mission, 89 San Diego world fairs, 231–233 and patriarchy, 233 See also World fairs San Francisco, California flu epidemic of 1918 in, 221–222 segregation in, 128, 132 sex trade in, 165 San Francisco Bay area, 267 San Francisco streetcar company, 128, 132 San Gabriel Mission, 88 San Geronimo Mission, 81 (photo) San Simeon, 211 Sand Creek Massacre, 143 Sandoz, Jules Ami, 203 Sandoz, Mari, 10, 201, 203 Santa Anna, 113–114 Santa Clara Pueblo, 22 (photo) Sante Fe Railway, 231 Saturday Evening Post, 270 Savio, Mario, 299–300 Sawyer, Marcia R., 12 Sawyer, Rev. Reuben H., 239

Scandinavia, 150 Scharff, Virginia, 42, 298, 317–318, 319 Schitsu’umsh people, 120 School reform, 300 and Hispanic Americans, 300 and Mexican Americans, 300 Scribner’s Magazine, 179 Sears Roebuck, 20, 196–197 and home kits, 209–210 Second Great Awakening, 118, 147 Segregation, 128, 132 in California, 128 in Colorado, 128 in Kansas, 128 in San Francisco, California, 128, 132 Seltice, Andrew, 120, 121 Sentimental domesticity, 104–107 and white women, 104–107 and working women, 104–105 Sentimental family, 107 Sentimental love, and white women, 106 Separate spheres, 104–105, 108 Sepúlveda, Casilda, 79–80 Sepúlveda, Enrique, 80 Service industry, women in, 281 Service organizations, for women, 268 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights), 284 Sewing, as source of western women’s history, 17 Sex ratios. See Gender ratios Sex trade in British Columbia, Canada, 168 in California, 165, 166, 167 and Chinese immigrant women, 165, 167 in Helena, Montana, 166–167 in Idaho, 165 in mining towns, 165–169 and Native American women, 168 in Oregon, 165 in Pacific Northwest, 166 in Portland, Oregon, 165–167 and red light districts, 168–169 in Salt Lake City, Utah, 167 in San Francisco, California, 165

Index in Washington State, 165 See also Prostitution Sexual assault against Native American women, 144 against Shoshone women, 143, 144, 172 against southern borderlands women, 86, 88 Sexuality, women’s and Franciscan missionaries, 80–82 and southern borderlands women, 88–89 in Spanish California, 83 and white women, 107 Sexually transmitted disease, 82, 88, 92 Shadows of the Buffalo (Hungry Wolf ), 42 Shane (film), 1 Shaw, Marian, 2 Shipbuilding industry, during World War II, 264, 265, 267 Shoshone, 48, 114–115 and Bear River Massacre, 141–147, 172–173 Shoshone-Bannock, 36 The Shoshone Frontier and the Bear River Massacre (Madsen), 143 Shoshone women, sexual assault against, 143, 144, 172 Show Boat, 229 Shred betty, 323 Sickness during Great Depression, 50 See also European diseases Siegel, Bugsy, 230 Silko, Leslie Marmon, 11 Simpson, Frances Geddes, 57–58 Simpson, George, 57–58 Simpson, George, Jr., 58 Single women, during Great Depression, 248, 250 Sioux, 48, 172 Siuwheemtuk, Louise, 120–121 Ski bum, 323 Ski bunny, 322–323 Ski industry, 322–323 and gender, 11–12

377

Ski resorts, 226–227 Skilled labor, during World War II, 264 Slavery, 101, 128 in California, 128, 132 in Mexico, 113 and Mormons, 147, 151–153 and Native Americans, 78 in New England, 147 in southern borderlands, 86 in Texas, 111–113 in Utah, 128 See also African Americans, and slavery Smallpox, 38, 80, 82, 83, 92, 116, 123, 181–182 and southern borderlands women, 88–89 See also European diseases Smiley, Albert K., 186–187 Smith, Emma, 148 Smith, Hannah, 151 Smith, Joseph, 147, 148, 149, 154, 156, 161–162 Smith, Sherry L., 305 Smith Lake, 251 Smithsonian Institution, 171 Snake River’s Magic Valley, 65 Snow, Eliza R., 160, 161–162 Snow bunny, 322–323 Social class, 99 in Spanish California, 83–84 Social services, and Native American women, 40 Socialism, 219 Soil depletion, of the Anasazi, 71 Soroptomists and Business and Professional Women, 296 Sororate, and Native American women, 189 Sources, of western women’s history, 14–25, 37 Southern borderlands and blasphemy, 85, 86 diet in, 89 ecosystems in, 89 and food culture, 66, 91 marital infidelity in, 86

378

Women in the American West

Southern borderlands, continued mission system in, 89 patriarchy in, 79–80 population in, 89 religious heresy in, 85 slavery in, 86 Southern borderlands peoples, 65–66 and the Anasazi, 70–72 diet of, 66 and the Hohokam, 69 and Indian reservations, 66 and Mexican cuisine, 66 and Pueblo peoples, 72–74, 74–82 Southern borderlands women and adultery, 87 and court access, 84, 86 and divorce, 86 and European diseases, 88–89 gender roles of, 87 and infanticide, 88 and marriage, 87 and miscarriage, 88 and patriarchy, 84–87 and physical abuse, 88 and property rights, 84 and the Pueblos, 72–74, 74–82 sexual assault against, 86, 88 and sexuality, women’s, 88–89 and smallpox, 88–89 in Spanish California, 82–84 in Spanish New Mexico, 74–82 and venereal disease, 88 violence against, 87 and witchcraft, 85, 88 Southern borderlands women, ancient. See Ancient women, of the southern borderlands Southern California anti-black sentiment in, 290 politics of domesticity in, 295–296 women’s organizations in, 294 women’s political conservatism in, 294–296 women’s Republican Party clubs in, 295 Spain, and Mexico, 108

Spalding, Eliza, 118–119, 120 Spalding, Henry, 118–119, 120, 122 Spanish-American War, 4 Spanish California Christian conversion in, 82–83 economy in, 83–84 Franciscan missionaries in, 82–83 gender roles in, 83–84 land grants in, 83 marriage in, 83 and patriarchy, 83 population in, 88, 89 rancheros in, 83–84, 92 and sexuality, women’s, 83 social class in, 83–84 southern borderlands women in, 82–84 Spanish colonization of Mexico, 72–74, 75–82, 92 and Pueblo peoples, 72–74, 74–82 and southern borderlands women, 88, 92 Spanish Inquisition, 79, 85 Spanish-Mexican women, 99, 116–117 marginalization of, 203–204, 212 and Mexican-American War, 116–117 as western women, 5 work of, 84 Spanish-Mexicans in California, 129 in Texas, 108, 109, 114–115, 116 Spanish missions of California, xxv (map) Spanish New Mexico southern borderlands women in, 74–82 Spanish women and Native American women, mixed, 99 SPARS, 268 Spears, Britney, 315 Spence, Mary Lee, 207 Spokane, Washington, 39 Sport, and women, 323 “Squaw,” 36

Index St. Joseph, Missouri, 39 Standing Bear, 184 Statistical genocide, and Native Americans, 38–39 Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 227 Stearns, Abel, 79–80 Stegner, Wallace, 10 Stephenson, David C., 243 Stereotypes gender, 164, 322–323 of immigrant women, in mining towns, 164 of the West, 225 of western towns, 220 Stewart, Elinore Pruitt, 146 Storey County, Nevada, 163 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 187–188 A Streetcar Named Desire (film), 227 Student free speech movement, 299–300 Student movement, 299–300 and African Americans, 300 and Asian Americans, 300 and baby boom generation, 299 in high schools, 300 Students, women and student movement, 300 Studio portraits, 21 Subterranean mealing rooms, of the Anasazi, 70 Suburban women, and civil defense, 292, 294 Suburbanization and the automobile, 287 and the freeway, 287 and mobility, women’s, 287 post-World War II, 285–286, 287–290 and transit systems, 287 and urban isolation, 287 Suffrage. See Women’s suffrage Sun Valley, Idaho, 226–227 Sun Valley Lodge, 226–227 Sunset Magazine, 285 Sutter’s Mill, 129 Sweetwater County, Wyoming, 244 Syphilis, 82, 88

379

Tablecloths, as source of western women’s history, 16 Tables of Ethnicity, 75, 76 Taking the Long Way (Dixie Chicks), 315 Taos Pueblo, 74 Taylor, Paul, 272 Tchon-su-mons-ka, 52 Teaching profession, during Great Depression, 247–248 Technology, 193–198 and households, 179 and mobility, women’s, 179–180, 193, 212 and Native Americans, 180 and white women, elite, 193 Telegrams, as source of western women’s history, 15 Tenochtítlan, 108 Tepees, 20 Texas, 107–113, 114–116 African American women in, 116 African Americans in, 109, 111–113, 114 annexation of, 116 and Dust Bowl, 246–247 indentured servants in, 111, 113 independence, 113, 116 land purchase in, 111 manifest domesticity in, 107–113 Mexican immigrants in, 200 Native American women in, 114–116 Native Americans in, 109 plantations in, 111–113 population in, 109, 112–113, 116 Spanish-Mexicans in, 108, 109, 114–115, 116 white women in, 109–111, 115, 116 Texas: Observations. Historical, Geographical and Descriptive in a Series of Letters Written during a Visit to Austin’s Colony, with a to a Permanent Settlement in That Country in the Autumn of 1831 (Holley), 110

380

Women in the American West

Textual records accuracy of, 41 as source of western women’s history, 15, 37 “the Yellow Rose of Texas,” 113 Theatrical Owners Booking Association, 229 “Thinking Like Mount Rushmore” (Boag), 12 Thomas, Clarence, and U.S. Supreme Court nomination, 322 Thompson, Florence Owens, 249 (photo) Thwaites, Reuben Gold, 234 Tikas, Louis, 205 Tiloukaikt, 125 Timber industry in Idaho, 302 in Oregon, 302 in Pacific Northwest, 302–303 in Washington State, 302 Title IX, 323 Tohono O’odham women, 90 (photo) Tomahas, 125 Topaz internment camp, 273 Toppenish Museum, 186 Tourism, 224–227, 230–233 and African American women, 224 and the automobile, 225 and family, 225–227 and gambling, 227, 230–231 and Hollywood, California, 227, 228 and Los Angeles, California, 222 and national parks, 227 and Native American women, 224 and New Woman, 207, 212 and prostitution, 169 and railroads, 225 and white women, 222 and white women, elite, 182 and winter sports, 226–227 and world fairs, 232–233 and World War II, 225 Tourism movement, 222 Tourist attractions, 220 Trade of the Anasazi, 71

of the Hohokam, 69 in Oregon Country, 122 and Pueblo peoples, 72, 77, 78 See also Fur trade Traders, independent, 117 Transit systems, and suburbanization, 287 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 57, 92, 116, 117 Trujillo, Matilde, 80 Trust for Public Land, 152 Tule Lake internment camp, 273 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 3–4, 6, 8, 9, 13, 316, 323 Turnerian model, 6, 8, 12, 316, 317, 318, 323 Tuss, Evelyn “Chub,” 269 Tuss, Frank, 269 Twenty-first Amendment, 103 UCAPAWA. See United Cannery, Agriculture, Packing and Allied Workers of America UFW. See United Farm Workers of America Unilinear cultural evolution theory, 35 Union Pacific Railroad, 193, 194, 226 United Cannery, Agriculture, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA), 253–254 United Farm Workers of America (UFW), 282 United mine workers camp, 206 (photo) United Mineworkers of America, 205 University of California-Berkeley, 289–290, 304 University of Michigan, School of Information, 24 University of Minnesota, Department of English, 24 University of Northern Colorado, 251 Unruh, John D., Jr., 127 Urban isolation, 287 and suburbanization, 287 Urbanization, 154

Index U.S. census and Native American women, 39–40 and Native Americans, 37–40 See also Gender ratios; Population U.S. Civil War, 103–104, 180, 187 U.S. Conference of Mayors, 39 U.S. Department of Defense, 264 U.S. House of Representatives, 322 U.S. Postal Service, 229 U.S. Senate, 322 U.S. Service Organizations (USO), 268 U.S. Supreme Court and Thomas, Clarence, 322 USO. See U.S. Service Organizations Utah, 160 common law marriage in, 155 internment camp in, 273 liberal party in, 157 marriage in, 155 polygamy in, 155–158 slavery in, 128 voting rights in, 157 Utah Territory, 141 Mormons in, 151–153 Ute, 78 Valdez, Juanita, 284 Valdez, Merced, 284 Valverde, Mariana, 12 Van Kirk, Sylvia, 55 Variola virus, 89. See also Smallpox Venereal disease, 82, 88, 92 Veterans Administration, 284 VG/Voices from the Gaps, 24 Victory garden, 268 Violence of the Anasazi, 72 against southern borderlands women, 87 Virginia City, Montana, 159, 160, 165 Virginia City, Nevada, 141, 159, 160, 161 (photo), 163, 164, 165, 169, 171 Voting rights and Mormon women, 157 in Utah, 157

381

and white women, 103 See also Women’s suffrage WACs. See Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps Wages during Great Depression, 247, 253–254, 255 during World War II, 265 Wagon train travel, 150 Waiilatpu (“Place of the Rye Grass”), 123 Waitresses, women as, 207 Wales, 150 Wall Street Journal, 66 Walla Walla, 120 War brides, World War II, 268–270 War Relocation Authority (WRA), 272, 273, 275, 276, 277 Warner, Elizabeth Stewart, 127 Warren, Louis, 2 Washakie, Utah, 172 Washington State during Great Depression, 245 Japanese Americans in, 273–274, 279 migrant workers in, 246, 247 sex trade in, 165 timber industry in, 302 WASPS. See Women Auxiliary Service Pilots Water, in the American West, 9, 212 Water allocation, and ancient women, of the southern borderlands, 67 Water rights, 220 and power, 220 Watson, Ellen L., 7 (photo) Watts, Los Angeles, California, 289 (photo), 290 WAVES. See Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services The Ways of My Grandmothers (Hungry Wolf ), 41–42 We Sagebrush Folks (A. Greenwood), 245 The Wealth of Nature (Worster), 9 Web sites, 23

382

Women in the American West

Weddings during World War II, 270 See also Marriage the West definitions of, xvi–xvii, 5 stereotypes of, 225 West, Emily D. (aka Emily Morgan), 113–114 Western conservatism, 294–296 and white women, 294–296 Western European immigrant women, 159, 163 Western Federation of Miners, 204–205 Western Historical Association, 325 Western Historical Quarterly, 317 Western history and blocks of conquest, 323, 325 eastern-American bias in, 5 and western women’s history, 323–325 and women’s history, 6 Western History Association, 13 Western politics and gender, 297–298 See also Politics Western Right, 295–296 Western towns, stereotypes of, 220 Western trails, 126–130 African American women on, 128 childbirth on, 127 death on, 127–128 diseases on, 127–128 Indian attacks on, 127 white women on, 126–130 Western United States, definition of, 4–5 Western women, definitions of, 5, 316 Western Women: Their Land, Their Lives conference (Phoenix conference), 6 Western women’s history, 25–26 and academic scholars, 6–10 and biography, 319 and demographic shifts, 319–321 and gender, 316–317, 318–319, 320 and gender scholars, 11–12 and literary scholars, 10–11 and multicultural studies, 12–14 new directions in, 321–325

non-document-producing activities of, 14–15 and Old West mythology, 316–317 and regionalism, 316, 317–319, 320 sources of, 14–25 and western history, 323–325 Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, 100 (photo) Weyerhauser timber company, 302 White, Claytee D., 254 White, Richard, 9 White City, at World’s Columbian Exposition, 2 White men, as heroes in American West, 1 White women as abolitionists, 108 as activists, 255 and alcohol, 108 and American West, in popular culture, 1 and the automobile, 182 in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, 3 and civic power, 108 and domesticating the frontier, 126–127 and expansionism, 108 exploitive photos of, 21–23 and family, 103, 105–107, 107–108 and family rituals, 107 gender roles of, 103, 107–108 during Great Depression, 252 and health, 222 and housing, post-World War II, 287–288 and Indian question, 182–183 and Indian reform movement, 183–191, 212 and Ku Klux Klan, 239–240 in Las Vegas casinos, 230 and mail-order consumerism, 196–197 and Manifest Destiny, 99–101, 102–104, 125 and manifest domesticity, 107–113 and marriage, 106–107 and Mexican-American War, 116 and morality, 107–108

Index in Oregon Country, 117–126 on Oregon Trail, 119, 124, 126–130 in Pacific Coast states, 130 and patriarchy, 103 during post-World War II period, 281 and pregnancy, 107 and property rights, 103 and protests, 300 and public power, 108 and railroad cars, 194, 196 and reform movements, 255 and reform organizations, 108 in Rocky Mountain states, 130 and saloons, 108 and sentimental domesticity, 104–107 and sentimental love, 106 and sexuality, women’s, 107 in Texas, 109–111, 115, 116 and tourism, 222 and voting rights, 103 vs. women of color, 12 and western conservatism, 294–296 on western trails, 126–130 work of, 105–106 as writers, 10–11, 233–237 White women, elite, 104–105, 106, 182 gender roles of, 104–105 and morality, 105 and reform movements, 183, 186 and technology, 193 and tourism, 182 and women of color, marginalization of, 203–204, 212 Whitman, Alice Clarissa, 124 Whitman, Marcus, 118–119, 120, 122–123, 125 Whitman, Narcissa Prentiss, 117–119, 120, 122–126 Whitman Massacre, 125 Whitman Mission, 123 (photo) Wiggins, Candice, 324 (photo) Wikipedia, 23–24 Wildshoe family, 226 (photo) Willie Company, 151

383

Winnemucca, Sarah, 144, 145 (photo) Winter Quarters, Iowa, 150 Winter sports, and tourism, 226–227 Winthrop, John, 102 Witchcraft, and southern borderlands women, 85, 88 WKKK. See Women of the KKK WNIA. See Women’s National Indian Association Woman’s pastoral, 201 Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services (WAVES), 268 Women Auxiliary Service Pilots (WASPS), 268 Women of color and American West, in popular culture, 1 marginalization of, and white women, elite, 203–204, 212 and multicultural studies, 12–13 vs. white women, 12 and white history, 25–26 and women’s history, 25–26 Women of the KKK, 239, 249 (photo) Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, 268 Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WACs), 268 Women’s club movement, 234, 255 Women’s historians, 12 and patriarchy, 11 Women’s history, 316 courses in, 25 and western history, 6 and women of color, 25–26 Women’s history movement, 13, 26 Women’s Land Army, 268 Women’s movement, 298 Women’s National Indian Association (WNIA), 186–187, 189 Women’s organizations, in southern California, 294 Women’s political conservatism, in southern California, 294–296 Women’s Republican Party clubs, in southern California, 295 Women’s studies programs, 25

384

Women in the American West

Women’s suffrage, xxiv (map), 25, 180–181, 181 (photo), 212, 255, 298 and African American women, 193 and African Americans, 192 and Hispanic women, 192 and Mormon women, 191, 192 and Native Americans, 192 reasons for passage of, 191–193 See also Voting rights Women’s Suffrage Association of Texas, 192 The Women’s West (Armitage and Jameson), 6 Women’s West Conference (Sun Valley), 6 Woodruff, Wilford, 157 Woodworth, Imogene, 317 Work of Asian immigrant women, 203–204, 212 of immigrant women, in mining towns, 163–164, 165 of Mexican immigrant women, 199–200, 203–204 of Native American women, 33–34, 35–36, 46–50, 58, 169, 171, 188, 190, 211–212 of Pueblo peoples, 78–79 of Spanish-Mexican women, 84 of white women, 105–106 See also Gender roles Workforce, discrimination in, 282 Working women, 255 and conservatism, 295 during Great Depression, 247–251, 251–254 marginalization of, 282 and New Woman, 182, 212 during post-World War II period, 279, 280–282 and sentimental domesticity, 104–105 during World War II, 264–268 World fairs, 2–3, 232–233 and Great Depression, 231, 233 and Native Americans, 231–232

and tourism, 232–233 World War I, 207, 219, 220, 222, 243–244 World War II, 211, 212, 220, 255, 284, 298 African American women during, 267 African Americans during, 264 aircraft industry during, 264 anti-Asian sentiment during, 270, 273 day care centers during, 267 defense industries during, 255, 264–265, 267, 281 immigrant workers during, 263 industrial mobilization during, 284 internment camps during, 255, 263–264, 270, 273–279 mail-order consumerism during, 197 manufacturing facilities during, 264 marriage during, 270 mass production during, 264 Mexican American women during, 265 migrant women during, 267 migrant workers during, 263 mining towns during, 264 munitions factories during, 264 shipbuilding industry during, 264, 265, 267 skilled labor during, 264 travel during, 225 wages during, 265 war brides during, 268–270 working women during, 264–268 World War II, post-, 280–282, 282–284, 284–290 birthrates during, 286–287 college enrollment during, 284 day care centers during, 280, 281 gender roles during, 280–281 housing during, 284–290 labor activism during, 282–284 marriage during, 286–287 Native Americans during, 304

Index suburbanization during, 285–286, 287–290 white women during, 281 working women during, 279, 280–282 World’s Columbian Exposition, 2–3, 2–3. See also World fairs Worster, Donald, 9 Wounded Knee, 143 WRA. See War Relocation Authority Wright, Muriel, 235–236 Writers, women, 10–11, 233–237, 255 Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture (Armitage and Jameson), 13 Written fiction, as source of western women’s history, 10–11, 37 Written language, 35 Wyeth, Nathaniel, 51 Wyoming, 151 internment camp in, 273, 274

385

Yakima Reservation, 198 “The Year of the Woman,” 322 Yellowstone County Hospital, 276 Yellowstone National Park, 207, 208 (photo), 225, 226, 227 Yosemite National Park, 225 Young, Brigham, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 156, 161, 162 Salt Lake City compound of, 152 (photo) Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 211, 269 YWCA. See Young Women’s Christian Association Zappa, Frank, 302 Zorro’s Garden world’s fair exhibit, 232–233 Zuni women, 232 (photo)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Laura Woodworth-Ney is chair and associate professor of history at Idaho State University in Pocatello, where she teaches American western, women’s, and Native American history. A past director of women’s studies at Idaho State, she is the author of Mapping Identity: The Creation of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, 1805–1902 (University Press of Colorado, 2004), coauthor of The Enduring Vision: A History of Idaho (Idaho State Historical Society, 2006), and author of the forthcoming book Reclaiming Culture: Women, Ideology, and the Settlement of the Irrigated West, 1870–1924. She is also the editor-in-chief of Idaho Yesterdays, the state history journal of Idaho, and the editor of a book series at the University of Arizona Press, Women’s Western Voices. Born in Oregon, raised in Idaho by parents who were both third-generation Idahoans, and educated in Washington, Woodworth-Ney considers herself a western woman.

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