• DOI:10.1017/S0021875800020855
• Corpus ID: 146693259

Women's Place on the American Frontier

@article{Walsh1995WomensPO,
  title={Women's Place on the American Frontier},
  author={Margaret A. Walsh},
  journal={Journal of American Studies},
  year={1995},
  volume={29},
  pages={241 - 255}
}

• M. Walsh
• Published 1 August 1995
• History
• Journal of American Studies

Women's traditional place on the American frontier has been as invisible helpmate or at best as some shadowy figure who appeared occasionally when describing pioneer homes and lifestyles. Until recently, historians followed the individualistic and linear progression of Frederick Jackson Turner westward across the continent and found no need to discuss the activities of both sexes. Euro-American men were fully capable of explaining the frontier, both as authors and as subjects. But the American frontier is no longer one-dimensional. Increasing numbers of female historians have insisted on not only placing women in the midst of established pioneering ventures, but have widened western horizons to discuss different pioneers and new economic and social roles for women of all ethnic and racial groups. Women's place on the frontier has now become so central that it is impossible to make any sense of new settlement patterns without examining the experiences of both men and women and their relationships to each other.