The Cowboy Girl: The Life of Caroline Lockhart

by John Clayton

Overview

In 1901, Philadelphia's celebrity female journalist stepped off a train in Blackfoot, Montana, and into a world of living legends. The miners and frontiersmen, Indians and trappers that Caroline Lockhart met there inspired this beautiful, single, strong-willed woman to live a life she had only dreamed about in what remained of the Wild West.

This is the true story of a woman whose work and life teetered between realism and romanticism and who wrote novels "like a man" yet ran her businesses and love affairs like a liberated feminist. Prep-school educated (she attended the Moravian Seminary for girls) and well-traveled (her assignments took her throughout Europe), she chose to live out her passions in a time when to bare one's ankle could ruin a woman for life.

As a newspaper publisher in Cody, Wyoming, she founded the town's still-thriving Stampede Rodeo, received critical praise from the demanding H. L. Mencken, and saw three of her seven novels turned into films. Yet she also infuriated neighbors and admirers with her cantankerous crusades (she referred to novelist Zane Grey, for instance, as "that tooth-pulling ass!") and indomitable will. In this all-encompassing portrait the Cowboy Girl, Caroline Lockhart, emerges as a woman who remade the fantasy of the West in life and in words, and who keeps us spellbound to this day.

John Clayton, a freelance journalist and essayist based in Montana, is the author of Small Town Bound. For more information about Caroline Lockhart visit http://www.johnclaytonbooks.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803259904
Publisher:	Bison Original
Publication date:	05/01/2007
Series:	Women in the West
Pages:	338
Sales rank:	1,080,075
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

John Clayton, a freelance journalist and essayist based in Montana, is the author of Small Town Bound. For more information about Caroline Lockhart visit http://www.thecowboygirl.net/.

Editorial Reviews

“[Clayton] provides a compelling account of an American journalist who sought to tell the stories of the West at a time when it still promised a romantic, adventurous life to those who sought rural, unvarnished America.”—Carolyn Bronstein, Journalism History
 

Journalism History - Carolyn Bronstein

“This lively biography of Caroline Lockhart reveals an intrepid, trailblazing woman who, as one of the first female journalists, traveled solo everywhere pursuing stories. . . . [A]n absorbing story of a talented but difficult woman always torn by her conflicting ambitions of fame, power, domestic bliss and a country life.”—Joan Hinkemeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Rocky Mountain News

“In The Cowboy Girl, author and essayist John Clayton presents a warm portrait of a woman whose strong spirit and independent vision perfectly embodied the American West. As part of the University of Nebraska’s Women in the West series, Clayton’s biography provides a voice to the little-known legend.”—Bloomsbury Review

Bloomsbury Review

“This larger-than-life Western woman deserved a good biography, and John Clayton has written one.”—Bill Croke, The Washington Times

Washington Times

“What sets The Cowboy Girl apart from standard works of western Americana, aside from the inherently sensational life of its subject, is the way it weaves together details of both Lockhart’s public and private life with insights about the historical, social, and cultural developments of which Lockhart was a part. The result is a fascinating read and an enlightening look at the ironies of early twentieth-century frontier mythmaking in its historical context. . . . Clayton skillfully interweaves these personal details together with a lively account of relevant local and national history. The resulting biography is a rare revelation of frontier mythology as lived experience, in all of its contradiction and complexity.”—Western American Literature
 

Western American Literature

So you want to know more of the real Old West? Caroline Lockhart sure lived it. She had talent, guts, grit, and independence—yet she was so damned ornery that when I was growing up I knew a lot of folks who walked the other side of the street when they saw her comin’!  John Clayton fully captures this complex and colorful gal in this lively, well-researched, thought-provoking, wonderful book. I heartily recommend it.”—Al Simpson, ­former Wyoming senator

Al Simpson

A very interesting, well-written, and well-documented look at an early Western woman writer who has not previously received the recognition she deserves. Caroline Lockhart is such a complex figure—talented, beautiful, energetic, and often headstrong, but also conniving, insecure, and mean spirited—that she will be of interest to readers who have never heard of her work. I stayed up late to finish it because I couldn't put it down!”—Sue Hart, Montana State University–Billings

Sue Hart

What a great service John Clayton has done us in rescuing Caroline Lockhart from oblivion in this insightful and highly readable biography. I was fascinated from beginning to end with this story of a woman who not only wrote stories of the West, but lived and loved it.”—Mary Clearman Blew, author of All but the Waltz

Mary Clearman Blew

Expertly researched and wonderfully written, this biography of Lockhart expands the genre to a meditation on frontier, feminism, and the vagaries of literary hubris. Clayton has rendered a riveting portrait of a woman both troubled and brave; a character caught up in the fiction of her own life.”—Mark Spragg, author of An Unfinished Life

Mark Spragg

A fresh and highly original portrait of that quirky, irascible writer of the range, Caroline Lockhart. Like the author herself, Clayton’s work winds through a landscape both factual and fantastic; in the end he manages to shine light not merely on one unforgettable woman, but on the appetites and yearnings that have driven many of our most cherished notions of the American West.”—Gary Ferguson, author of The Great Divide

Gary Ferguson

As biographies go, this is no doubt the best I have read in years.”—Linda Wommack, True West

True West - Linda Wommack

"Good reading about a remarkable personality."—Elizabeth M. Esterchild, Annals of Wyoming

Annals of Wyoming - Elizabeth M. Esterchild

John Clayton had his work cut out for him when he took on the challenge of writing a biography of a colorful and almost forgotten writer and cattle queen. The result is a thoroughly entertaining portrait.” —Lorna Thackeray, Billings Gazette

Billings Gazette - Lorna Thackeray

"John Clayton's thoroughly researched book . . . explores the life of one of the West's greatest proponents, journalists, novelists and storytellers."—Big Sky Journal

Big Sky Journal

"The Wyoming legend, Caroline Lockhart, is immortalized in the new biography by Clayton."—Holly Strother, The Casper Journal

The Casper Journal (WY)

John Clayton’s lively account of Caroline Lockhart is a welcome biography that will be of interest to western historians, women’s historians, literary scholars, and general readers. . . . [The Cowboy Girl ] offers an enjoyable and readable window into the world of a woman we should all know better.”—Laura Woodworth-Ney, Oregon Historical Quarterly

Oregon Historial Quarterly - Laura Woodworth-Ney

"Mr. Clayton's grasp of his subject and her environment is masterful, and that is no mean feat. . . . [His] portrait of The Cowboy Girl is intimate, but doesn't neglect Ms. Lockhart's impact on the mythology of the American West.”—Jim Larson, The Billings Outpost

The Billings Outpost (MT)

"Good reading about a remarkable personality."

— Elizabeth M. Esterchild, Annals of Wyoming

Annals of Wyoming

"John Clayton had his work cut out for him when he took on the challenge of writing a biography of a colorful and almost forgotten writer and cattle queen. The result is a thoroughly entertaining portrait."

— Lorna Thackeray, Billings Gazette

Billings Gazette

"[Clayton] provides a compelling account of an American journalist who sought to tell the stories of the West at a time when it still promised a romantic, adventurous life to those who sought rural, unvarnished America."

— Carolyn Bronstein, Journalism History

Journalism History

"John Clayton's lively account of Caroline Lockhart is a welcome biography that will be of interest to western historians, women's historians, literary scholars, and general readers. . . . [The Cowboy Girl ] offers an enjoyable and readable window into the world of a woman we should all know better."

— Laura Woodworth-Ney, Oregon Historical Quarterly

Oregon Historial Quarterly

"John Clayton had his work cut out for him when he took on the challenge of writing a biography of a colorful and almost forgotten writer and cattle queen. The result is a thoroughly entertaining portrait."

— Lorna Thackeray, The Billings Gazette

The Billings Gazette

"As biographies go, this is no doubt the best I have read in years."

— Linda Wommack, True West

True West