Westward the Women

by Nancy Wilson Ross

Overview

WESTWARD THE WOMEN is a book about women of every kind and sort, from nuns to prostitutes, who participated in the greatest American adventure—pioneering across the continent. Not only does the material represent half-forgotten history—which the author garnered from attics, libraries, state historical museums, and the reminiscences of Far Western Old-timers—but it is unique in presenting the woman’s side of the story in this major American experience. With dramatic clarity the author of FARTHEST REACH has written the intimate and human stories of certain outstanding personalities among these pioneer women; the Maine blue-stocking pursuing her studies of botany and taxidermy in frontier solitude; the gentle nuns from Belgium teaching needlework and litanies to “children of the forest”; the little ex-milliner who performed the first autopsy by a woman; the suffragette who established a newspaper for Western women and rode plushy river boats and the dusty roads preaching her gospel of Equal Rights; hurdy-gurdy girls from Idaho boomtowns; and many another martyr, heroine, diarist, gun moll, missionary, feminist, and mother in this turbulent era of pioneering.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943328307
Publisher:	Graphic Arts Books
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	192,020
File size:	616 KB

About the Author

Nancy Wilson Ross was a popular writer of both fiction and nonfiction. She was born in Olympia, Washington, in 1901, and she attended the University of Oregon. Her book FARTHEST REACH (1941) profiles Oregon and Washington. She traveled extensively—in England, France, China, Korea, and Japan—and later became known as an expert on Eastern religions. She died on January 18, 1986.

Read an Excerpt

EXCERPT 2:

“ONE DARE NOT be nervous in Oregon,” wrote Sister Mary Loyola in her precise convent-bred hand, trying not to form the letters carelessly in her haste, though time was pressing. She had just learned that an English vessel was sailing from the mouth of the Columbia River and the letter could be carried round the Horn to far-distant Belgium and be delivered, with good sailing luck, to the Mother Superior at Namur not more than seven months hence.

“Especially in the woods,” Loyola added, and, warming to her theme, proceeded to describe just what she meant. The Sisters often met wolves and mountain lions in broad daylight. Snakes lurked everywhere, even in the vegetable garden among the melons and cucumbers they had planted so prayerfully against the enfolding wilderness. Already Sister Aloysia, in her more sprightly style with its touch of wry humor, had written to Namur about the “concerts” they enjoyed at the time of high flood the preceding winter; concerts consisting of the “hissing of serpents, the roaring of the mountain lions, and the howling of wolves.” Yes, Sister Loyola felt that she was justified in boasting just a little to the Mother Superior. In Oregon, said she, the nuns took the killing of snakes and the chasing of wild cattle as calmly as their sheltered Belgian sisters would brush aside a fly. Only that very morning, indeed, they had had to drive away no fewer than eight wild horses.

Table of Contents

1. Aprons to Their Eyes 2. Were Females Wanted? 3. Eight on Her Honeymoon 4. One Dare Not Be Nervous in Oregon 5. Red Women 6. Females Are Sought 7. $1 a Dance 8. The Prophet 9. The Rebel 10. Dear Diary 11. Over the Top of the World

Editorial Reviews

A dramatic and entertaining book.”—NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE

“Poignant stories of women who risked everything for the great Western adventure.”—SATURDAY REVIEW

“I know of no other book devoted to the distaff side of pioneering that is at once so vivid and authentic.”—Bernard de Voto, NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE

“It is a charming and lively book. . . . No work of pure fiction could equal this amazing true record of women’s indomitable passage across the continent.”—CHICAGO SUN BOOK WEEK

From the Publisher