AL Æ
AM
Y
Women stretched the
limits of convention,
changing their costume,
habits and daily activities
to fit the needs of the trail
Æ
Staking a claim The Chrisman sisters pictured by a sod house in Lieban Creek, Nebraska, in 1886. Many women travelled west to claim territory
on the Great Plains; Lizzie Chrisman (second left) bought her land from the government around the time this picture was taken, paying $2.50 per acrearound slavery and secession, that figure had mushroomed to
close to three million square miles.
Involved in this dynamic story of territorial conquest and as-
sociated political, economic, social and environmental transfor-
mation were thousands of women – migrants from across the
world, who made the West their home. In the traditional telling
of the frontier story, female characters were either invisible or
consigned to the role of supporting player and gender stereo-
type: sun-bonneted helpmates, school ma’ams or sassy saloon
girls. A glance at the ‘women’s West’, however, presents a much
more complex story – one of resilience and adaptation, loosened
social conventions, inventive directions in female empowerment
and a ‘hidden history’ of gender unorthodoxy.Although the decision to travel west was typically made by
men, many women, too, greeted the possibilities of overland
migration with excitement and interest. Some were fearful of
the unknown, their fears fed by a contemporary literary digest
rich in tales of damsels in distress taken captive by Native
Americans, and of a savage landscape roamed by hungry wolves
and angry bears. Others, though, relished the adventure and
embraced the ethos of westering possibility.
On the road, women routinely stretched the limits of con-
vention, either by necessity or inclination, changing their cos-
tume, habits and daily activities to fit the needs of the trail. For
some, the casting off of etiquettes and the assumption of new
roles and duties provoked fears about losing feminine identity
in the uncivilised wilds. However, for others, abandoning long
petticoats and gloves in favour of riding astride horses, driving
wagon trains and shooting game was to be relished. One such
woman was Sarah Raymond Herndon, who was 24 or 25 when
she emigrated with her family to Virginia City, Montana, in- In her 1902 memoir Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains
in 1865, she wrote effusively of trailside foraging, fishing, rid-
ing out on her horse and dispensing with her long skirts.
For many migrants, the objective was land, and many wom-
en travelling within family units aimed to claim territory under
the auspices of the Homestead Act (1862). Significantly, one in
10 homestead claims were filed by single women (including wid-
owed and divorced women) who, under the rules of the federal