New Women in the Old West: From Settlers to Suffragists, an Untold American Story

Product Description A riveting and previously untold history of the American West, as seen by the pioneering women who advocated for their rights amidst challenges of migration and settlement, and transformed the country in the processBetween 1840 and 1910, hundreds of thousands of men and women traveled deep into the underdeveloped American West, lured by adventure, opportunity, and the spirit of Manifest Destiny. These settlers soon realized that survival in a new society required women to compromise eastern sensibilities and take on some of their husbands’ responsibilities. At a time when women had very few legal or economic--much less political--rights, these women soon proved just as essential as men to westward expansion. During the mid-nineteenth century, the traditional domestic model of womanhood shifted to include public service, with the women of the West becoming town mothers who established schools, churches, and philanthropies, while also coproviding for their families. They claimed their own homesteads and graduated from new, free coeducational colleges that provided career alternatives to marriage. In 1869, the men of the Wyoming Territory gave women the right to vote--partly to persuade more of them to move west--but with this victory in hand, western suffragists fought relentlessly until the rest of the region followed suit. By 1914 western women became the first American women to vote--a right still denied to women in every eastern state. In New Women in the Old West, Winifred Gallagher brings to life the riveting history of the little-known women--the White, Black, and Asian settlers, and the Native Americans and Hispanics they displaced--who played monumental roles in one of America's most transformative periods. Drawing on an extraordinary collection of research, Gallagher weaves together the striking legacy of the persistent individuals who not only created homes on weather-wracked prairies, but also played a vital, unrecognized role in the women's rights movement and forever redefined the "American woman." Review “New Women in the Old West is really two books deftly stitched together. It is a brisk history of the galvanizing role played by Western women in the national struggle for suffrage. It is also a kind of group portrait of the independent, resourceful women who managed to forge places for themselves in a man’s world . . . A testament to the depth of Ms. Gallagher’s research is the range of her cast of characters. It includes Native American, black and Hispanic women as well as Asians and other immigrants . . . [She] has an eye for the telling detail . . . Both informative and enjoyable to read. Its roster of the accomplished, often heroic, women of the West is inspiring.” —Wall Street Journal “Winifred Gallagher’s comprehensive New Women in the Old West: From Settlers to Suffragists, an Untold American Story unearths this story through the lives of dozens of forgotten trailblazers. . . Gallagher’s rediscoveries are inspirational.” —BookPage “A buoyant women’s history of the American West…Gallagher brings a fresh lens to the suffrage movement, and rescues many of her pioneering subjects from obscurity. Feminists will be heartened by this rich and satisfying history.” —Publishers Weekly“Winifred Gallagher weaves her multi-racial and multi-ethnic cast of characters into a fascinating story of resilience, ambition, and tragedy that ranges widely across the nineteenth century West. The extraordinary women at the heart of her narrative are brave, determined, and often flawed, and she makes it clear why it is impossible to understand the West without them.” —Richard White, author of California Exposures “Welcome to the Women's West—a fascinating mix of newcomers and old timers, adventurous souls all, equally dedicated to the region they called home and winning rights for their sex. Their inspirational stories speak powerfully to western women's roles in the ongoing struggle for eq