No Shrinking Violets!

The women on the frontier took up the causes of the Victorian age like temperance and feminism with actual success.  Females were in short supply on the frontier, so when a man sought a wife he had to agree to such things as abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, bad language and gambling.  There was a popular ditty among pioneer women:
    
The man who drinks the red, red wine,
Will never be a beau of mine.
The man who is a whiskey sop,
Will never hear my corset pop!

The temperance movement grew on the frontier in the 1870s and 1880s as the female population grew.  The temperance crusade had its roots on the western frontier as Kansas' Carry Nation became world renown for her hatchet wielding visits to the salons on the Plains.

Women's rights were recognized on the frontier - women could own and control their own property and engage in trade without their husband's consent.  Wyoming lead the way in women's right starting in 1869, and was the first state to grant women the right to vote fifty years before it was added to the US Constitution.  When it was finally adopted in 1920, all but four of the western states had already allowed women's suffrage, while only two of the eastern states had recognized the right of women to vote.

Next time.  The Story of Sarah Sim
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On September 13, 1814,  Francis Scott Key pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America’s national anthem.   The poem, originally titled “The Defence of Fort McHenry,” was written after Key witnessed the fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812. Key was inspired by the sight of a lone U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry at daybreak, as reflected in the now-famous words of the “Star-Spangled Banner”: “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there."