During the last half of the nineteenth century, thousands of men went west in search of gold, land, or adventure-leaving their wives to handle family, farm, and business affairs on their own. The experiences of these westering men have long been a part of the lore of the American frontier, but the stories of their wives have rarely been told. Ten years of research into public and private documents-including letters of couples separated during the westward movement-has enabled Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith to tell the forgotten stories of "women in waiting."
Though these wives were left more or less in limbo by the departure of their adventuring husbands, they were hardly women in waiting in any other sense. Children had to be fed, clothed, housed, and educated; farms and businesses had to be managed; creditors had to be paid or pacified and, in some cases, hard-earned butter-and-egg money had to be sent west in response to letters from broke and disillusioned husbands.
This raises some unsettling questions: How does the idea of an "allowance" from home square with our long-standing image of the frontiersman as rugged individualist? To what extent was the westward movement supported by the paid and unpaid labor of women back east? And how do we measure the heroics of husbands out west against the heroics of wives back home?
| Foreword | ||
| Preface | ||
| I | Families in Flux: The Dynamics of Separation in the Westward Movement | 3 |
| II | Abiah Warren Hiller: "I Suppose It Is Just in the Edge of the Evening Where You Are" | 43 |
| III | Almira Fay Stearns: "The Thought of Another Six or Eight Months Absence Makes Me Sad" | 89 |
| IV | Sarah Burgert Yesler: "I Will Endeavour to Look upon the Bright Side" | 132 |
| V | Harriet Burr Godfrey: "Gold or No Gold, Come Home, We Cannot Spare You Longer" | 179 |
| VI | Emma Stratton Christie: "If We Only Had a Place of Ourn and You Was with Us" | 211 |
| VII | Augusta Perham Shipman: "Do Have Your Visit or Exploration or Whatever You Call It and Come Back" | 237 |
| Notes | 283 | |
| Index | 365 |
Overview
During the last half of the nineteenth century, thousands of men went west in search of gold, land, or adventure-leaving their wives to handle family, farm, and business affairs on their own. The experiences of these westering men have long been a part of the lore of the American frontier, but the stories of their wives have rarely been told. Ten years of research into public and private documents-including letters of couples separated during the westward movement-has enabled Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith to tell ...