What was life like for women in the American West? Â

What was life like for women in the American West?  

answers 0:If you have any information or know any good websites please share! I can't seem to find anything.answers 1:In 'America's Women' Gail Collins writes:'Once they reached the West, the early female pioneers enjoyed all the advantages that come with being scarce. "Even I have had men come forty miles just to look at me, and I never was called a handsome woman, in my best days,. even by my most ardent admirers." said Luzena Wilson. Irwin, Colorado, had only one respectable unmarried woman in a town that was filled with ambitiou young men. A mining engineer noted in his diary that foty men were paying court to the eligible female, the sister of Mrs Reed, the camp doctor's wife. The Reeds set up a system, limiting the parlor to six callers at a time and the callers to a maximum of "4 minute! s on sofa with girl".Despite the rough manners of the early western men, a woman with any claim to respectability could expect to be treated with great deference, even awe. (When Elizabeth Gunn went to church with her children in Sonora, the men sitting along the streeet stood up and saluted as she passed by.) But the women missed female friendships, and having so many single men in one place inevitably led to the sort of behaviour that they found unpleasant. They complained in their letters about widespread drinking, gambling, swearing and violence. "In the short space of 24 days" wrote Louise Clappe, the wife of a mining camp doctor to her sister "We have had murders, fearful accidents, bloody deaths, a mob, whippings, a hanging, an attempted suicide and a fatal duel."Before they went west, most pioneer women had lived in houses that had heat, soft beds, and other comforts. But in the crowded citis and gold mining camps of California, they slept in leaky tents, sat on c! rates, and cooked over campfires. They slogged through mud an! d dust to get to Sunday services and gave birth to their children alone. Nevertheless, a lot of them seemed to enjoy themselves. "I like this wild and barbarous life" wrote Louise Clappe who on another occasion had told her sister "everybody ought to go to the mines, just to see how little it takes to make people comfortable in the world."For women, the gold in the California hills came from biscuits and flapjacks. A woman wrote from Califronia to a Boston newspaper, reporting that in less than a year she had made $11,000 baking bread and cakes "in one little iron skillet." Black women, who had a reputation for being good cooks, went west with the same dreams. One pioneer recalled seeing a crowd of people crossing the desert on foot and noted that one of them was "a black woman ... .carrying a cast-iron bake oven on her head, with her provisions and blankets piled on top - all she possessed in the world - bravely pushing on for California."With only a few dollars grubs! take, a woman could open a makeshift boardinghouse and earn a comfortable income. It didn't make sense to invest much in the houses, since the miners moved on at the first news of a gold strike somewhere else. Martha Gray Masterson, who followed her husband through gold rush territory, moved twenty times in twenty years, opening hotels, boardinghouses, grocery stores, and dry goods shops along the way. And though the men's standards were far from demanding, the boardinghouse owner's work wasw difficult, and full of unusual challenges. One woman was troubled by animals, which took advantage of the shortage of doors "Sometimes I am up all night scaring the Hogs and mules out of the House." she said.The labor shortage in the early West wiped out the normal rules about what jobs were appropriate for women. They worked as barbers and advertised their services as doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents. Nellie Poole Chapman took over her husband's dental practice in Nevada ! City, California. Although a very small woman, MrsChaman was apparentl! y skilled in the era's dental arts, which leaned heaily in the direction of extraction. "A smart woman can do very well in this country" wrote one young woman to a friend back east. "It is the only country I was ever in where women received anything like a just compensation for work."...