Women in the Wild West: Land and Literature

by

Hello! Nancy Fraser here! While most equate the wild west with men on horseback, lawmen, outlaws, and rugged, unlivable terrain, few stop to consider how many women actually took part in settling the west.

The ‘land of opportunity’ didn’t only belong to the men brave enough to settle it, but to the women who were there both by their side and, in some cases, came before them. Women were living in the west long before those from the east came to “settle” this untamed territory.

Women owned land and ran their own businesses. They had plenty of opportunities in the west that women in the east were marching to achieve: everything from the right to vote, to equal pay for women, to the right to divorce their husbands.

One of the biggest differences was land ownership. Under what is known as English Common Law, which was still practiced in the east as late as the 1890s, a woman had no right to own property. Once you married, you effectively became a non-person, or a feme covert, and of no legal consequence. If you were a woman living on the Illinois prairie, the only child of a prosperous farmer, and your parents die. You inherit the family homestead. You marry, raise crops, and rear several children. But if your husband chooses to sell the farm and travel west, you cannot stop the sale, and up on the buckboard you go.

However, if you grew up in the west, where such a law had no bearing, your husband could not sell the property you had brought to the marriage, thus giving you significant leverage in household decisions.

Of special interest (at least to me) was the fact that the west gave women special opportunities as authors. Aspiring writers saw literary “material” in the stuff of their daily lives in frontier, rural, and urban western spaces. They shaped that material into letters, journals, sketches, essays, and stories for eastern magazines and presses—and received popular acclaim.

For readers outside the west, the settings these women described were enticing and romantic. From the California gold camps and desert outposts, northwestern logging and mining communities, to the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains homesteads, women who were stifled back in the east saw adventure they could only dream about.

One such author was Elinore Pruitt Stewart, who wrote for the Atlantic Monthly, recounting her homesteading experience. She also share the letters of thanks she received from appreciative readers. One elderly woman claimed Elinore’s articles “satisfied her every wish. She said she had only to shut her eyes to see it all, to smell the pines and the sage.” Based on what little they actually knew about the west, an ordinary woman’s life on a ranch in Wyoming seemed to mean more—and to reveal more—than one on a farm in Wisconsin or Connecticut.

In my latest sweet, historical western, Corrine (Rescue Me Mail-Order Brides), my heroine is a Boston socialite who, following her mother’s death, inherits vast wealth. Fortunately, she’s of age, and not married, so she’s safe from having a man assume control of her property. Or, at least, so she thinks.

AMAZON

Giveaway!

I’d love to hear from readers about what the consider some of the biggest differences between the east and west in the mid-to-late 19th century.

For those who comment, I’ll be giving away an e-book copy of both Corrine, and my previous western historical, Audrey (Christmas Quilt Brides) to two lucky winners.

Bonus Freebie!

As a bonus, I’m also running a special on Amazon for one of my backlist titles. Click here to grab a free digital copy of Seth’s Secretive Bride.

Best wishes to all,
Nancy

Nancy’s Sweet Reads 

 Amazon Author Page 

 Newsletter SignUp 

 Facebook


+ posts

22 thoughts on “Women in the Wild West: Land and Literature”

  1. East was more concerned with manners, propriety, fancy clothes, etc… In the West, things were more functional with clothing, rules for women in certain circumstances were relaxed, more freedom, choices, etc… Big divide.

  2. I agree with Denise. There were less restrictions in the West. You could be you and not who society dictated.
    Thanks for the free book.

    • Rhonda, thank you for stopping by. I agree, if you weren’t somebody in the east, you were nobody. No middle ground, so to speak.

  4. Post Cival War, there was a shortage of men and in the South Reconstruction cmlimited opportunities levels for most southerners.

  5. Hi, Nancy. Good to see you here. Social codes and etiquette were considered more important in the East.

    • Karijean, thank you for stopping by. Yes, many women in the west were excellent shots. They had to be to protect what they’d worked so hard to get.

  7. Thank you so much for allowing me to visit and bring some discussion with me. I’ll be checking in throughout the day (in between editing). Wishing everyone a blessed day.

  8. I think the east was more modern with conveniences like indoor plumbing, fancier carriages, and gas lights. The west was a longer time in catching up. The east was more concerned about proper dressing than the west. The west had to dress for more physical hard work in harsh heat and cold. They needed more comfortable clothing.

  9. My Grandmother was born in 1905 and she never wore a pair of pants until the early 70’s! I remember as a girl going to school, we too could not wear pants unless it was below freezing and then when we got to school we had to take them off!! Knee socks did little to provide warmth!

  10. After reading many westerns, I believe it was an extremely difficult task for a woman to survive in the west, unless she was very strong and able to handle herself and her belongings. Even the men fought constantly with each other, Imagine a woman having any sway over her destiny without being able to handle a gun to protect herself and her property. Women were thought useful for only one thing along with the idea most women had no intelligence. So, hence the very difficult road for a woman to travel and come out unscathed.

  11. The women in the west did what they had to to survive whereas the eastern ladies were limited by conventional thinking.

  12. First, thank you for the copy of Seth’s Secretive Bride. It sounds like a good story, as do both the others you are offering to give away.
    I think the biggest difference between East and West was the degree of autonomy women had. In the West having the ability to own property and have a say in what was happening in the community freed them to a degree from total control by male family members. It would give them a more equal footing in a marriage. Although, as today, there would still be abusive, controlling husbands making it hard for some to break free. The suppression and control women experienced in the East may have been one reason women became mail-order brides hoping for more freedom in the West.
    Thank you for the interesting post.

  14. welcome today and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think that back then, the east is where a lot of the rich congregated along with those trying to eak out a living. High etiquette and manners were abounding. Women were starting to get some more freedoms by then, I think. In the west, women worked hard and felt good about it. They were troopers and passed that work ethic onto their children. they were not so concerned about womens roles and mens roles. If it could be done, they did it. My husband and I have been watching “When comes the Heart” and Elizabeth wrote a novel and it got published because the man she was seeing had a mother who was a publisher. from England. interesting. I think there is a lot about both the east and the west that we do not really know. quilting dash lady at comcast dot net

  16. It is interesting how some of the Western states gave voting rights long before the rest of the country; of course, the ladies of one Kansas made a strategic mistake when they told Texas Cattlemen to stay out of their town because of the associated businesses that supported the cowboys. The upper crust ladies found out that the town could no longer afford to keep the other businesses as the economy no longer had that source of income.

Comments are closed.