Product Description

From a rediscovered collection of priceless autobiographical accounts written by hundreds of pioneer women, Joanna Stratton has made a remarkable and widely celebrated book. Never before has there been such a detailed record of women's courage, such a living portrait of the women who civilized the American frontier. Here are their stories: wilderness mothers, schoolmarms, Indian squaws, immigrants, homesteaders, and circuit riders. Their personal recollections of prairie fires, locust plagues, cowboy shootouts, Indian raids, and blizzards on the plains vividly reveal the drama, danger and excitement of the pioneer experience.

These were women of relentless determination, whose tenacity helped them to conquer loneliness and privation. Their work was the work of survival, it demanded as much from them as from their men -- and at last that partnership has been recognized. "These voices are haunting" (New York Times Book Review), and they reveal the special heroism and industriousness of pioneer women as never before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82338 in Books
• Published on: 1982-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
Cleveland Plain Dealer A striking testimonial to the too often overlooked feminine half of the pioneer experience. -- Review

Review
Peter S. Prescott

Newsweek

Irresistible...uncommonly interesting...a remarkable distillation of invaluable primary sources.

Carolyn See

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Here are the voices of some of the most wonderful women you can imagine calling out from the past, telling about their lives. And no doubt about it, the 'pioneer women' lived eventful lives. All this is wonderful material, wonderful stuff.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

A striking testimonial to the too often overlooked feminine half of the pioneer experience.

About the Author
Joanna L. Stratton was born and raised in Washington, D.C., but considers Kansas and her family there as her second home. She began her work on Pioneer Women while attending Harvard College, from which she graduated with honors in 1976. She is currently pursuing graduate studies at Stanford University.

Customer Reviews

Frontier Kansas
I read somewhere that a statistically large number of prominent Americans were born in 19th century Kansas. That was perhaps a result of the hard, but ultimately rewarding pioneer life that is described in these pages. Kansas and the West a century ago were in the vanguard of social innovation and progressive politics in the U.S.

Author Stratton re-discovered the oral histories of 800 Kansas pioneer women collected by her great-grandmother in the 1920s. She has taken this mountain of material and organized it into 15 themes in 15 chapters, giving background on each theme and quoting the pioneer women. For example, one chapter details the long journey to the frontier of Kansas undertaken by many of the women and their families. Blizzards, fatal disease, fear of Indians and other dangers greeted them. Other chapters describe the social life of the pioneer women, the education of their children, frontier churches, and the famous Kansas crusades for suffrage and temperance.

It would also be interesting to read some of the 800 oral histories. The author doesn't tell us where they are or if they are available to the general public. Certainly they should be made available as they are irreplaceable primary sources

The role of women on the frontier has been a popular subject of women writers for two or three decades now. This is one of the better books on the subject -- and one that can be enjoyed by readers of either sex.

Smallchief

Haunting
I read this book when it was first published, and then recommended it to friends and, ultimately, passed it on and it has never been returned. Year after year the story comes back to me as one of the finest I have every read. J. Stratton wrote this novel after finding a stash of letters in a family attic, and there's nothing like true life for gripping drama. A gem.

Gritty, eye-opening look at lives on the frontier.
I read this book many years ago and still revisit the memories of how women and children lived during those frontier years.I'm ordering another copy to pass on. I have recommended this book to many, including adolescent students in my classrooms. Rather than the romantic, Hollywood views of these times, this book offers raw images of the harshness of life from the actual women who struggled on the frontier. The book is a compilation of letters the author's grandmother requested and received from these women. If you want to validate how fortunate we are to live in these times, read this book!