Early Mining Women

Twenty years after the gold rush, only 25% of the miners had married.  Some returned home for their families and brides, then returned to begin a more lucrative career on the mining frontier, but most were single, transient men.

The arrival of women was believed to be the beginning of civilization.  Augusta Kemp said "do not imagine that I want to come, for all the gold in the mines, but if you do stay I am coming or else I will get  a divorce" Divorce in the mining communities was higher than in the entire United States at the time.  So most men went in search of precious metals, not thinking of long term separation, but to get rich quick and go home.

Then too, women were enticed by the thought of wealth as well.  Sophia Eastman responded for the sheer adventure of it all "I shall be obligated to go into the mill unless I get passage by fall.  I can not submit to it, and I am willing to go with a small fitting out, or none at all, in the capacity of a servant or any way, rather than be disappointed."  For her anyway, to go west was preferable to working in the mill in Lowell, MA.  She read all she could of California, borrowed money to pay for her trip and set off for the West.

Once women arrived in these mining communities, some found jobs by doing respectable work such as cooking, sewing, domestic work.  Luzena Wilson was an early frontier mining women, who said that men were willing to pay her $10 for a homemade biscuit made by a women.

Next time..not all women were respectable.

The New Meaning of Housework

Establishing the new homestead carried a blurred relationship between men and woman's work.  Women helped to dig cellars, build cabins, haul timber...then there was normal household chores like the laundry which even then women just hated. (Which of us, given a nearby creek or a tub and washboard wouldn't have??)

Although life on the homestead was never easy, women  tried to make their crude houses into a home...they papered walls with old newspapers, tacked up cloth to make the house cozy and warm, old rags became rugs, old dresses became curtains.  A keg was a footstool upholstered with an old pair of pants.  Thread became doilies, flowers and trees were planted from seeds carried from home.

Women did all they could to maintain the standards of home which they were accustomed to.  It just took endless hours of hard work.  Frontier women were seldom idle, even when sitting by the fire after a long day - their hands were busy sewing clothes for the family.

Next time...Dealing with Homestead Problem the Woman's Way

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How Tired Can You Be?

I often wonder how could a frontier women not suffer from constant fatigue?  She was exhausted from childcare and never seemed to rest.  Says one pioneer woman "this gypsy life is anything but agreeable.  It is impossible to keep anything clean and it is with difficulty that you do what you have to do."

Even records of journeys to the west tell of woman laboring - supervising the children in cramped wagon quarters, making sure the older children didn't run off while herding the cattle.  A mother's exhaustion was surely psychological as well as physical - there was no down time for her, no place to get away to peace and quiet.

Woman also took on jobs usually done by men when needed - loading and unloading wagons, yoking the oxen, even driving the wagons and riding horseback.  One of the best quotes I have found that expresses a pioneer woman's plight is

"A man doing woman's work was doing the woman a favor
A woman doing man's work was doing what was necessary"

Dirt, dust, monotony, fatigue,,,the life on the journey west.

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Next time...Home Sweet Home

Just a Few Thoughts

There are very few journals written by women on the frontier.  Pioneer women were just too busy "making history to write it" as one Indiana pioneer put it.  Elizabeth Greer wrote "I could have written a great deal more if I had had the opportunity. Sometimes I would not have the chance to write for 2 or 3 days and then would have to rise in the night when my babe and all hands were asleep, light a candle, and write."

Women's diaries focused on family and friends back home.  "Nothing can atone for the loss of society and friends" wrote on pioneer woman.  "Our hearts are torn out at the loss of loved ones".

Keeping journals served as a legitimate release of tension and a place for cataloging grievances.  "All out of humor" one women simply wrote.

A simple poem from a woman's journal gives her hope for better times:
Day by day we wend our way
Through sage and sand
In hope to find
To please our mind
A home in a happy land.

Next time...Only the Lonely

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Over Land

A journey west to the frontier was strenuous work for a woman, from cooking with limited utensils, to caring for the sick, to even carrying wagon baggage across creeks and mountains.  One 1860 Southern lady said, "the trip had been difficult, so difficult that it was still a constant source of wonder to me how we women were able to endure it. And American women well-born and bred are endowed with the courage of her brave pioneer ancestors, no matter what the environment, she can adapt herself to all situations, even to the perilous trip across the western half of this great continent, ever ready to wander over paths which women reared in other countries would fear to follow."

There are several posts in this blog's history about the journey by wagon across the frontier where you can find how women cooked, cared for the children - even gave birth on the way west.  It was not for the period lady raised in gentility and proper etiquette.

Next time some journal entries of women pioneers as they made their way across the west to their new home.

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An Economically Sound Idea

Along with duty, women went west for economic reasons.  The West offered a new chance, a new life, one that promised prosperity and land.

Farming was the main occupation of most frontier families in the Ohio Valley and eastward.  It was hard work and didn't often pay off (as we know from watching the Ingalls struggle in Little House)  Disasters and setbacks were always around the corner and the idea of good open land and new opportunities convinced many families to move further west.  Many first time settlers were tired of factory life in the East, and the crowded cities, so the chance for open country and owning land was too good a temptation to pass up.

The estimated cost for a family of 4 to go west was around $600 ($20,000-25,000 today).  By selling homes, furniture, even livestock before the journey, and then the wagon and cattle at trip's end, a family could recover 1/3 of the cost of the journey or about $200 ($7000 today). It was a sacrifice that families were willing to make for a new start and a new life on the western frontier.

Next time...one more reason to go west, young women.

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.

Women Go West

This summer we will be focusing specifically on women pioneers - their role in pioneer history, how the frontier changed them, and how they changed the frontier.

Who was the typical pioneer woman?
What motivated her to go West?

In the East, life for a woman of the 1800s was predominantly a life of domesticity.  Her lifestyle was one of manners, dances, fashion, and the romanticism of the 1800s.  Women were brought up with the necessary qualities to be a good wife and mother.

One of, if not THE magazine of the period for women was Godey's Book.  Filled with fashions, patterns, stories, styles, and all the latest news for the women of that period.  Its editor, Sarah Hale, brought to life the ideal woman, the norm of society's 19th century woman.  Although many a lady packed her Godey's for the trip west, the reality of what she was to face was not found in its pages.  The ideal woman of Boston, for instance, was not the ideal woman of Oklahoma.


Godey's was soon discarded when women realized what was actually awaiting them on the frontier, but as we'll see next time, it was actually Godey's that helped to entice the women to dream of a new life in the wild open country of the West.

To read more about Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine click here.(Wikipedia)