American West History Women

The American West was never just a man’s world. In The Forgotten Frontier, bestselling author Richard Fleischman uncovers the extraordinary lives of women who braved the harsh realities of the 19th-century American frontier. Through vivid, deeply researched storytelling, this powerful volume gives voice to the women who crossed mountains, deserts, and boundaries—both physical and social. From midwives who delivered babies on dirt floors to widows who defended their homes with rifles in hand, these women lived at the intersection of grit, grief, resilience, and resolve. Some followed ...

The American frontier was built on courage, sacrifice, and unbelievable resilience—and women were at the center of it all. Women on the Prairie uncovers the powerful, often overlooked stories of the women who crossed plains, survived captivity, forged alliances, buried children, tended soldiers, negotiated with Native nations, and endured hardships that reshaped the American West. Their lives reveal a frontier far more complex—and far more human—than the one found in traditional histories. From pioneer diarists to Native interpreters, from survivors of tragedy to quiet builders of ...

A riveting history of the American West told for the first time through the pioneering women who used the challenges of migration and settlement as opportunities to advocate for their rights, and transformed the country in the process Between 1840 and 1910, hundreds of thousands of men and women...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetness of Water comes a gripping story about a brother and sister, emancipated from slavery but still searching for true freedom, and their odyssey across the deserts of Mexico to escape a former master still intent on their bondage. New...

Shrill is an uproarious memoir, a feminist rallying cry in a world that thinks gender politics are tedious and that women, especially feminists, can't be funny. Coming of age in a culture that demands women be as small, quiet, and compliant as possible -- like a porcelain dove that will also...

A tale of Gilded Age corruption and greed from the frontier of Alaska to America's capital. In the feverish, money-making age of railroad barons, political machines, and gold rushes, corruption was the rule, not the exception. Yet the Republican mogul "Big Alex" McKenzie defied even the era's...

WANTED WOMEN: True Stories of Outlaw Women of the Wild West They were accused, arrested, and erased—yet they never stopped riding. In this gripping volume of historical nonfiction, Richard Fleischman uncovers the true stories of women who defied law and convention to become fugitives, rebels, and outlaws on the American frontier. From saloon shootouts to stagecoach heists, from the gallows to the open plains, these women lived outside the lines—and paid the price. They carried revolvers under corsets. They stole horses, smuggled whiskey, ran brothels, and broke jail. Some were hardened ...

Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers traveling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys, some of them so poor they walked the entire route; African-American women in search of freedom from slavery; Chinese sex-workers sold openly on the docks of San Francisco; Native American women brutally displaced by the unstoppable tide of white settlers–these were the women who settled the American West, whose stories until now have remained mostly untold.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A “dazzling, cinematic, intimate, lyrical” (Roxane Gay) epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina “Sometimes you just...

In this novel authorized by the Little House estate, Sarah Miller vividly recreates the beauty, hardship, and joys of the frontier in a dazzling work of historical fiction, a captivating story that illuminates one courageous, resilient, and loving pioneer woman as never before—Caroline Ingalls...

Mothers, Sisters, Soldiers, Spies examines the long, continuous history of women’s participation in American wars—not as rare exceptions, but as an essential part of how war has actually been fought, sustained, and endured. From the Revolutionary War through the War on Terror, women fed and followed armies, gathered intelligence, organized logistics, nursed the wounded, labored in war industries, and, at times, fought directly. Their work was indispensable in wartime and routinely minimized, restricted, or erased in peacetime. Rather than focusing only on famous individuals, this book ...

Mary Doria Russell, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Sparrow, returns with Epitaph. An American Iliad, this richly detailed and meticulously researched historical novel continues the story she began in Doc, following Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday to Tombstone, Arizona, and to the...

"[Narrator Laura Hicks] captures the compelling emotions of these desperate women as they escape their former lives of hardship and dare to dream of a freedom they haven't yet known." — Booklist, starred review The stunning sequel to Jim Fergus' award-winning One Thousand White Women. 9 March...

Ladies of the Canyons is the true story of remarkable women who left the security and comforts of genteel Victorian society and journeyed to the American Southwest in search of a wider view of themselves and their world....

This new biography—featuring over 150 archival images and full-color photographs printed throughout—introduces Julia Morgan as both a pioneering architect and a captivating individual. Julia Morgan was a lifelong trailblazer. She was the first woman admitted to study architecture at the...

Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Henry Louis Gates Jr. Spanning more than 35 years of work, the first comprehensive collection of essays, criticism, and articles by the legendary author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, showcasing the evolution of her distinctive...

“With impeccable research and flawless prose, Chevalier perfectly conjures the grandeur of the pristine Wild West . . . and the everyday adventurers—male and female—who were bold enough or foolish enough to be drawn to the unknown. She crafts for us an excellent experience.” —USA Today...

Strongheart is the final installment to the One Thousand White Women trilogy, a novel about fierce women who are full of heart and the power to survive. In 1873, a Cheyenne chief offers President Grant the opportunity to exchange one thousand horses for one thousand white women, in order to...

In her final novel, Dorothy West offers an intimate glimpse into African American middle class. Set on bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, The Wedding tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie...

A wayward journey. A war-torn frontier. Can she protect her family through tragedy to claim their paradise? New York, 1855. Jane Bennett misses her husband terribly. But as war encroaches on land and cholera wreaks havoc on the next ship out of port, she fears that she may never see Thomas again. Caught between two evils, Jane fears the decision she makes could seal her family’s fate. With her husband forced to protect their future home against raids, Jane must lead her children on a grueling voyage to lawless San Francisco. As their money runs low and the dangers of roving kidnappers ...