Promise of Duty

Although Godey's got women dreaming about the adventure of "going west", it was the practical reasons that turned those dreams into reality.  Women began to realize that only a self-sufficient woman would survive the lifestyle so many other wrote about.  The West had no use for delicacy and refinement.

Probably the main reason that a woman went west was out of duty to her husband.  It was considered too risky for men to go west alone unless to prepare a homestead for his family, and many did, but the cost was an obstacle that put many woman on the trail west alongside her husband. As one 1852 bride wrote, "with good courage and not one sign of regret, I mounted my pony to begin."

Daniel Boone, not the aristocrat that dime novels portrayed him to be, was a family man as well as a man of action and wilderness hero.  He brought his wife, Rebeca, and their children into the wilderness with him where she learned to love the wild country and domesticate it right alongside her husband.

A poem, published in Godey's told of one woman's desire for duty:


What, fly to the prairie?
I could not live there,
With Indian, panther, bison and bear, 

To one, whose abode's in so savage a land-
But for love - let's tarry no longer"

Next time...a major reason to hit the trail.