Women in the West
In other words, the west was a territory marketed by the nations tourism and transportation offices. The goal was to convince the people in the east that the west was a new Europe. Railroad literature promoted the west as a new Europe that included standard sublime and picturesque vistas dotted with buffalos, Indians, Mormons, and frontier gunmen.
With the west marketed as a thing of beauty, many families made the trip from the big cities of the east to the new frontier. The territory they found much more challenging and dangerous than many expected. Rigorous terrain, disease, and American Indian dealt the traveler grave concern. Yet, many women made the trek to the west in a period where finesse, beauty, and elegance had little need.
At the young age of 19, Horace Tabor headed to work in Maine from his home in Vermont. It was in Maine that he met Augusta Pierce, the daughter of William Pierce a local businessman. Horace did not take the step to marriage immediately and headed to Kansas with the New England Immigrant Aid Society, a group of anti-slave inhabitants. He purchased land in what would become known as Tabor Valley in Riley County. He was so moved by the new land that he traveled back to Maine, where he married Augusta. The two soon headed back to Kansas where they settled on the farm. Augusta was shocked at just how rugged the land was. Along with her husband, the couple spent a two year period trying to farm the land (Old West Legends, 2010). Augusta found life on the farm far different from her comfortable home in Maine. Her home was crude with rattlesnakes both outside, and at times, inside.
With little hope of making the farm a success, Horace, Augusta, and their newborn child, the couple traveled by foot from Kansas to the city of Denver in 1859. During the trip, Augusta was in charge of keeping the camp fire going by using buffalo chips. The land was scarce of wood. Horace hunted to enable the family to survive the trip. Unfortunately, Denver did not provide the family the kind of hope they had imagined. Once again, Horace told Augusta they were heading west. This time, it was to California.
So, by the spring of 1860, Augusta again found herself on the rugged trail. The wagon train traveled over steep mountains, some snow-bound, and dangerous. As the woman, Augusta washed the clothes in the streams that were filled with ice. She fixed meals from slight rations, and at the same time, cared for her young child, Maxcy.
At one point, Augusta almost lost her life while crossing one of the swift rivers. As the river rose from the rapidly rushing stream, Augusta and her child were rushed downstream. Augusta, and her child, stayed alive by grabbing onto a branch from a tree until Horace could get to them and save them.
In her 1860 diary Augusta wrote regarding the trip to California, We started up into the mountains over the new road and for several days we made such slow progress that we could look back to the last nights camp smoke.
When Augusta and her family arrived in a gold camp by the name of California Gulch, miners were shocked. She was the first women to ever travel to the area. The men took a liking to her, and she soon became the cook at the camp, and did the laundry. She soon took on the task as postmistress, as well.
At the end of the first year of work, the family returned to Kansas where they purchased additional land. In the spring of 1861, they again returned to Californian where they became provisioners, traveling from mining camp to mining camp selling supplies. Augusta usually did baking for the men, and the two became well-liked. Augusta saved the family money when possible. Horace, on the other hand, gave much money away. By the late1870s, the family accumulated more than 40,000.
In 1877 the family built a home in the city of Leadville. August would soon be known at the towns First Lady (A View of the Past, 2009). They ran a supply and grocery store. The next year Horace helped out two German prospectors who wanted him to grubstake a claim. Horace provided them a total of 54 in provisions. In return the prospectors agreed to give Horace one-third of any ore they discovered. The two men, August Rische and George Hook discovered silver.
Horace became wealthy in the community. His partnership did not last long with the two miners who sold out their interest in the silver mine. This gave Horace sole ownership in the silver mining community. At the height of success, Horace was bringing in 10,000 a day from the mine. Augusta was not happy with the wealth the family had garnered. She was not used to having the enormous resources that were now available to them. Horace built the family a large home in Denver which cost 40,000. Augusta, however, did not appreciate the 20 rooms, or the fancy master bedroom. Instead she insisted on sleeping in the servants quarters which were located near the homes kitchen. She also kept a cow tied to the homes front door that she milked on a regular basis.
Horace gained much clout in Denver and soon was elected Lieutenant Governor of the new state. He was embarrassed by Augustas behavior and soon began to see other women.
It was at this point in life, that Horace met Elizabeth McCourt Baby Doe. Born in 1854 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Baby Doe was known for her independent spirit and tomboy appeal. In 1864, Baby Doe won a figure skating contest, which at the time was unheard of for a woman. Nevertheless, she won the attention of Harvey Doe. The two married in 1877 although Harveys mother disapproved of the marriage due to her Catholic religion, and her familys lack of money.
The couple soon headed to California to strike it rich. After arrival, Baby Doe, otherwise known as Lizzy, won the favor of the men who lived in the mining community. When Harvey could not make enough money for the family to live on, Lizzy dressed in miners apparel, and worked in the mines next to Harvey. This brought about a lot of talk and gossip, nevertheless, men still enjoyed Lizzys company.
With the couple still unable to make a living, they moved to Blackhawk. Harvey worked nights and left Lizzy home all day. Suffering from boredom, Lizzy went to town to window shop. It was there she met Jacob Sandelowsky who owned a store in Central City. Jacob, who Americanized his name to Jake Sands, would visit a local dance hall called the Shoo Fly Saloon with Lizzy .
In 1879 Lizzy gave birth to a still born son. Harvey traveled in order to earn a living, and again, Lizzy was left at home for long periods of time. Jake was opening a new store in Leadville and suggested Lizzy join him. She left Harvey and sued for divorce. The grounds for divorce were nonsupport.
Lizzy moved into a boarding house in Leadville. Jake proposed marriage to her, but she turned him down. Soon, she met Horace Tabor, and fell in love with him. She moved to the Clarendon Hotel, which was located next to the Tabor Opera House in the city of Leadville. Soon, however, Horace suggested she move to Denver where she lived at the Windsor Hotel. During this time, Horace grew farther and farther apart from Augusta. Soon, the public became aware of Horaces relationship with Lizzy, and controversy brewed. He soon left Augusta on what he called a permanent basis.
Augusta refused to grant Horace a divorce, and the issue became a public battle. Soon, Augusta agreed to take 100,000 a month in income, and the home in Denver. She later moved to the city of Pasadena where she died in 1895.
Soon, Horace and Lizzy were married. He bought her a 7,000 wedding dress and necklace valued at 75,000. Many of the towns most influential women refused to attend the wedding ceremony due to the immorality, as they saw it, of the couples premarital relationship. The couple bought a mansion in Denver. It features 100 peacocks on the grounds, and several statues. The statues also brought about controversy as they were naked. Therefore, Lizzy had dresses made for the statues.
The couple became one of the richest and most influential in the country. Lizzy took the name of the Silver Queen of the West. However, Horace lost his fortune in the depression of the 1890s as the nation moved to a gold standard.
Many people were hurt in the depression and the government took steps to try to improve life in the rural west. In 1902 the government passed the Federal Reclamation Act to create and improve the family farm in the west. With the financing of the federal government, irrigation programs brought water into the desert area of the west, lending itself to more settlement by families.
On the family farms, women were to take care of the children, and manage the home. They also were entrusted to promoting personal attributes of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity, and meet their husbands needs. Men, on the other hand, were responsible for work, and affairs of a public nature. They were not to be worried about moral issues because they were inferior to women when it came to such ideas.
But there were always those women who bucked the system, and proved independent of the social mores. Such was the case with Evelyn Cameron. She was a Victorian Englishwoman who moved to Montana as a 21-year-old bride. She and her husband traveled to Montana on a hunting expedition, but fell in love with the area and made it their residence.
In 1894 Evelyn purchased a camera and began photographing the beauty of her surroundings, and the qualities of frontier living. Donna Lucey would recover the work of Cameron and publish it in Photographing Montana.
Cameron was an independent woman who recorded in her diary a hunting story. It said she and her husband stayed in a hunting camp where it was 20 degrees below zero in her tent. She also detailed a 26 mile trip on horseback carrying a tripod, camera, a photo album, 18 mounted prints and 12 plates. All of this was to spend time at a sheep-shearing facility.
Another such woman was Susan Anderson. Anderson was graduated from the University of Michigan with a medical degree. Her father was a mining executive in Cripple Creek, Colorado and thought the area was not acceptable for a cultured and educated woman. He suggested she move to Denver, rather than on of the mining communities. She spent three years in Denver with her practice, and established a new practice in Greeley. In Greeley she put in long hours, and soon became ill. She returned to Denver, and worked until she could work no longer. She diagnosed herself as having tuberculosis.
In 1907 she moved to Fraser, Colorado. She said it was a good place to die. Doc Susie as she became known, did not immediately begin seeing patients. In fact, she had to prove to the local miners her worth by doctoring a horse. Doc Susie became a reputable doctor in the community for 50 years and was the only doctor in town for many years. Ironically, with her success in Fraser, her health improved and she lived a successful life.
Anderson always had her gun with her when she returned to her home at night after doctoring the sick in mining camps. She taught people in the community the importance of sanitation, and the importance of getting vaccinations against diseases. She became Colorados first woman coroner.
In 1863 Frances Jacobs and her husband, took off in a covered wagon from Cincinnati, Ohio, and arrived in the Colorado mining town of Central City, 30 miles west of the city of Denver. In 1870 the couple moved to Denver, where Frances and her husband, Abraham, engaged in business and politics. As Abrahams role in the community increased, so did the role that Frances had. She soon became known as the Mother of Charities for her work in the community.
In 1887, the Jacobs, Reverend Myron Reed, and Father William ORyan put together a group of Denver charities. The group was precursor to the Community Chest, which eventually became the United Way. Frances was also responsible for the establishment of the National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives in Denver established in 1899.
As the new west opened up to settlement, many from Europe looked to the area as an opportunity for freedom. Many Jewish women found themselves in the west and assisted in making their families successful.
Both Hanchen Meyer Hirschfelder and Fanny Brooks were of the Jewish faith. They were born in central Europe during a time when the Jews faced considerable discrimination. They were limited in who they could marry and where they could live. They looked at the American west as a place of promise and social opportunity.
More than 250,000 Jews, who spoke German, participated in a wave of migration in the later half of the 19th century. Most had some education, and commerce skills, and were willing to work hard.
Fanny and her husband, Julius Brooks heard the grand stories of gold and made the decision to come to America. They arrived at New York City and headed to Galena, Illinois, and from there, Florence, Nebraska. They then joined a large wagon train headed west. The wagon train was filled with food, all kinds of supplies, and each person over age eight was able to carry 100 pounds of luggage with them. The cost per individual was 65.
Each wagon had ten people assigned to it. Yet, men and women walked beside the wagon traveling about 13 miles per day. The women, of course, were in charge of the cooking, cleaning, and washing. Fanny, however, was particularly good with the mule team and found herself driving the wagon.
It was a tough trip. They crossed many deep rivers, and streams. At the river they would wash clothes, and get another supply of water. But as the weather got colder, food became hard to find, and illnesses set in. In fact, Fanny and Julius had an infant who died on the way to California.
The couple arrived in 1855 and Julius opened a store in Marysville. It was there that the couple lost their second child indicating the severity of the mortality rate in early California.
The couple did not earn much money, and by 1859 they were in a mining camp called Timbuctoo. It was there that their daughter, Eveline, was born. The couple continued moving from San Francisco, to Portland, Oregon, and on to Salt Lake City, Utah. While in Salt Lake City, Fanny helped make income by offering rooms to boarders. She also cooked, and sold meals to people traveling to the west.
In 1868 an edict of the Mormon Church forbid any Mormon from doing business with anyone not of the Mormon faith. Fanny took the step to visit with Brigham Young and was able to convince him to resume commerce with Gentiles and Jews.
Hanchen and her husband Emanuel Hirschfelder had considerable money and they took the steamship to the United States. In fact, she wrote her mother a letter explaining how they had to settle for the lower level on the ship. The cost of the trip was 200 per person. On board they were served by waiters, and traveled approximately 280 miles per day. In 1856 the family arrived in San Francisco.
Emanuel opened a store in Downieville, California. He was moderately successful. Hanchen gave birth to three children before her untimely death at only age 32. Hanchen was important because she helped to keep the Jewish traditions alive in the west. She observed traditional Jewish holidays, such as Yom Kippur. When she died she was buried in a Jewish Cemetery.
Meanwhile, on the ranches of the west, came the cowgirl. A cowgirl is defined as a woman whose life is influenced by horses, cattle, or the men who deal with them. This era saw women such as Susan B. Anthony wearing hoped skirts and fighting for the rights of women. On the ranches of the west, however, Sally Skull, of west Texas was riding horses, driving cattle, and then branding the cattle with her Circle S brand. Sally rode into Mexico many times unchaperoned as a horse trader. She could be seen galloping into the west wearing her rawhide bloomer.
Meanwhile, in the new state of Colorado, a woman by the name of Cassie Redwine got her own band of cowboys together to ambush a team of desperados. Susan Haughian fought a battle with the federal government over grazing rights in Montana. She won the battle. Arizonas Annette Taylor, a rancher, found cures for diseases of her livestock by experimenting with the use of new grasses. When these brave cattlewomen left the east, they faced many hard months on the trail west just as others did. Again, the difficult weather, including drought, and primitive living conditions proved to make these women strong. The women travelers were from all kinds of backgrounds. Some had money and others did not. But there was something about the west that leveled the playing field for all of them. According to historian Dixon Wecter, stated that during the Civil War, many women stepped up into jobs that were traditionally for men. After the war, when the men were off on hunting trips, or mining, the women took charge of the ranches. Even when the men were home, the women found themselves in the position of being a helpmate for the husband.
One story tells of a Montana woman who had ten children and a sick husband. She managed her ranch, while at the same time being chief driver of the local stage coach. Mrs. H.J. Ficke added 150 cattle in six years to the herd by taking on the project of caring for orphaned calves.
Women modified their clothing to fit the needs of the ranch. They wore divided skirts that looked similar to the culottes. Knee boots came next with a shortened version of the culottes. Finally, most women on the range ended up in mens pants underneath their skirts.
Historians often comment that the emancipation of women came with the horse, rather than the vote. Although farmer wives plowed, and looked over the back of the horse or mule, the cowgirl rode high up on the horses back, and dreamed of the big world that was in front of them.
The cowgirls had tremendous influence on the world around them. For instance, the territory of Wyoming refused to become a state until it was agreed that women would retain the right to vote. According to historian T.A. Larsen, the Wyoming legislature voted for womens suffrage for publicity, and to embarrass the governor who was against the right of women to cast ballots. Ironically, women had been voting in the territory for 21 years. The legislature just affirmed that it would continue. Jeannette Rankin, of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress.
With women unafraid of the west, many women participated in the traditional cattle drives. An English woman by the name of Isabella Bird traveled through the rough Colorado terrain wearing her long pantaloons. During the trip she was pierced by thorn trees, thrown up against rocks, and chased by a grizzly bear. Another such traveled was Harriet Cluck who in 1871 got her three children and husband, George, together to drive 1,000 cattle from Texas along the Chisholm Trail. The family belongings were tucked away in the covered wagon, but Harriet did not let loose of the gun. The trip took a turn for the worse at the Red River. It was there that Harriet placed her children in the hands of other cowboys, and she climbed on the back of her husbands horse. They made the crossing of the river safely. Harriet always tried to look out for trouble on the trip. Once she saw a band of rustlers up ahead. She told the young cowboys that were with them that if any of you boys are afraid to fight, come here and drive the hack and give me your gun and horse. She and her husband managed to threaten the rustlers by explaining they had 16 good riders behind them that were excellent shots. The rustlers left without trouble.
The west was not just a home for hardworking and honest women. There were those who had a more notorious history. Belle Starr is one of those women. Myra Maybell Shirley was born in Carthage, Missouri, to wealthy parents, John and Elizabeth Shirley. The family owned slaves and during the Civil War, Belles brother John joined forces to caused commotion on the border between Missouri and Kansas. John was killed during one of the skirmishes, and Carthage was nearly burned to the ground. Therefore, the family moved to Scyene, Texas.
It was there that the family offered refuge to the Younger gang and Jesse James. They were a group of Missouri outlaws that rode with William Quantrill during the war. During this time, rumors developed suggesting that Belle had a baby by Cole Younger. Younger denied the rumors. However, Rosa Lee was often called Rosa Younger. Belle turned her attention to Jim Reed who she married in 1866. Belle and Reed lived in the Indian Territory with Tom Starr. Soon, Reed was charged with murder, and the couple escaped to Los Angeles. It was there that the couple had a son, Ed, in 1871. When the family returned to Texas, Reed took up with the Younger gang that robbed throughout Arkansas, Texas and the Indian Territory.
Scholars debate as to Belles involvement in any of the escapades. There are some who believe she ran a livery stable in Dallas where she sold horses that Reed managed to steal. Other scholars say she disapproved of Reeds activities. She was named, however, as an accessory to the robbing of the Austin to San Antonio Stage in 1874.
After Jim Reeds death in 1874, she married Sam Starr. The two of them were charged with the federal offense of horse stealing, and served two six month terms in the House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. She earned the name The Bandit Queen after her acquittal on an additional charge of horse stealing in 1886. Belle was murdered in 1889 while in the Choctaw Nation near the Canadian River.
The cowgirl tradition in the west was kept alive thanks to the Wild West shows that swept the nation. One of the most famous of the cowgirls was Calamity Jane who appeared with Buffalo Bills Wild West Show.
Martha Jane Cannary Burke was born in Missouri in 1853. She traveled to Deadwood, Dakota to try to strike it rich during the Black Hills Gold Rush. After Wild Bill Hickok was murdered in 1876 she left the area. She claimed she was married to Wild Bill and gave up the couples baby for adoption. Jane was unique in this day as she wore means clothing. This was true even during the time when she assisted those with smallpox during the 1878 epidemic. Because of her eccentric behavior, she was never bothered by the Sioux Indians who were prevalent in the area.
Due to her extremely good riding and shooting talents, Jane participated in Buffalo Bills Wild West Show. She was fired, however, in 1901 due her drunken behavior, arguments, bawdy language and use of chewing tobacco. She retired back to Deadwood where a few years later she died of pneumonia. She was buried next to the grave of Wild Bill Hickok.
In conclusion, the west was made up of a variety of different types of women. There were the controversial, those that achieved prominence for their abilities, and those that were immigrants, those that rode the trial, the evil, and the showstoppers. These were the women who made the west what it has become today. It is a melting pot of all different types, shapes, skin colors, and talents. Such were the women of the west.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment