GETTY^ IMAGES/ALAMYPloughing a lonely furrow
A family farm in Custer County,
Nebraska, c1885. Between 1862, when
the Homestead Act was passed, and
1900, the government allocated cheap
land to an estimated 400,000 familiesFishing for chips
A woman collects bison ‘chips’ (dung) in
Kansas, c1893. In the tree-sparse Great
Plains, dung was an important fuel – and
the job of collecting it often fell to womenA wolf in
men’s clothing
Canadian stagecoach
robber Pearl Hart
(c1871–c1955),
wearing male attire.
Some women in the West
found that wearing men’s
clothes enabled them to
pull off criminal heists
Women of the American West