by Pam North

Past decades of movies and television have created an imaginary American West that has placed little emphasis on the presence of women in the settling of the frontier.  Hollywood has routinely served up a
standard handful of predictable female stereotypes:  the dance hall girl, prostitute or madam with a heart of gold; the quiet, dutiful wife; the spinster schoolteacher.  Occasionally, entertainment offerings (perhaps in answer to rising feminist sentiments) break the mold with a Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, a Cat Ballou or a
portrayal of Calamity Jane, suggesting that the real West had a little more variety and depth.

Thousands of women, some by learning in apprenticeship and others by studying at medical schools, worked
as nurses and doctors throughout the West.  Some women disguised themselves by dressing and living as men in order to assume jobs normally held by males, such as cowhands, stagecoach drivers, fieldhands and miners.  Women entered many male-dominated professions as journalists, ministers, morticians, attorneys, photographers, blackjack and monte dealers, telegraph operators, and clerks, as well as seeking outside employment in the more predictable venues as seamstresses, cooks, laundresses, milliners, boardinghouse keepers and household servants.

Women also became active in reform and community activities, forming  a variety of women's clubs by the beginning of the twentieth century.  These groups focused on interests such as sanitation, temperance, religion, health, appreciation of literature and art, and conservation of the environment.  They held charity auctions and fairs to raise money for the building of schools and churches, and to buy and dedicate land for parks.  They did much to civilize and temper the West.

Not all women left their household realm to seek outside employment; domesticity did not have to be abandoned for a woman to exert her influence.  In that domain she produced food, clothing and other goods
(candles, soap, knitted socks, braided straw hats, quilts, preserves), some extra of which could be used to generate "bread-and-butter" money to help sustain her family and their farm or other enterprises.

As technology developed and expanded, women's lives and workloads were impacted, ironically not always lessening the effort of chore completion, but often just changing the manner in which work was done.  The collection of tallow and subsequent making of candles was replaced by the routine of trimming wicks and cleaning kerosene lamps.  Treadle-powered sewing machines inevitably led to more complicated clothing construction and styles.  Washing machines, invented in an era when electricity and indoor plumbing were still absent from many Western homes, could be used, but their agitators had to be turned by hand, clean water carried to them, and dirty water emptied.  The workload of the Western woman was formidable, and her efforts at efficiently managing her household profoundly influenced the level of comfort and stability of her family.

Another omission in the media has been the varied races and ethnicities of women in the West.  Anglo women were only part of the tapestry of color and background; female American Indians, Hispanics, Asians
and African Americans also were vital in the development of the  region.  Women of color had additional burdens of racial prejudice and discriminatory policies to bear and overcome, and they made contributions to Western society in spite of these handicaps.

While John Wayne and Gary Cooper, Gunsmoke and Bonanza, Miss Kitty and Etta Place have become firmly rooted in our conception of the American West, the real-life (rather than the reel-life) story had infinitely more dimension, and women, unfortunately, were too often the unsung heroes.
 
 

Resource:  By Grit and Grace, edited by Glenda Riley and Richard W. Etulain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Photo to accompany article is at either of the following websites:

http://herstory.freehomepage.com/pages/docsusie.html
http://ellensplace.net/hcg_fac3.html

Caption:  Susan Anderson, known as Doc Susie, was an estern womanwho pursued a medical career.