The West Old & New Vol. III Issue II February 2014 | Page 3

This edition of the magazine is dedicated to the memory and honoring of Montana women. Some
of them have passed on leaving a legacy to the women of this state and beyond, while the contemporary women of the state move it forward through politics and art. This is only a few of the many
women in our state who have or are contributing to who the women of the world are becoming.
When women came west following husbands, parents or grandparents as they sought a new life,
they found a resiliency that possibly assisted in the equalization of women.
When Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton came west in the 1870s, they found new kind
of American woman. In the book, 'A History of Women in America', by Carol Hymowitz and Michaele
Weissman, Chapter 11 - The Maverick West they state: Women drove wagons, fought prairie fires,
forded streams in icy water, and walked day after day across the country in burning heat, in rain
storms, and in early freezes. They did "women's work" as well, tending campsites and preparing three
meals a day. They faced births and deaths and illness along the route. Sometimes the men died, leaving
women and children to continue on alone."
The hardships were not over when the journey ended but begun again in earnest. Women settling in
the west listened to coyotes howling all night long. They lived in tents, milked cows, broke horses,
raised chickens and carved garden spaces out of virgin ground. Gladys Spies told how on the Flathead
Indian Reservation during the homesteading days, "The clay was baked so hard that my mother had to
dig out the white carrots with a crowbar.” The Spies carried domestic water from a spring a quarter of
a mile away, and discovered that hawks and coyotes also liked chicken for dinner. Mrs. Spies killed a
big rattlesnake on the east side of the house with nine rattles and two buttons by running a clothes line
pole down its mouth.
Isolation, never ending work and freedom from the customary cultural role of women in society,
honed a new kind of woman, and created the legend of the rough-and-ready frontier female. According
to Agnes Moreley Cleaveland who grew up on a ranch in New Mexico, "There was no double standard
on the ranch."
In their book the authors stated, "The west had women bronco busters, women sheriffs, women
gamblers, women who drank and smoked, and women outlaws. While it was quite common for
women to do men's work, occasionally the role reversal went the other way." Nannie Alderson learned
to cook from the cowboys who worked on her Montana ranch.
Like their male counterparts women on the new western landscape discovered no one was interested in your past, your name or who you wanted to be. Over time the west became settled but this indelible spirit has persisted. Read on about just a few of the women who made the west old and new.
Watercolor detail by S.F. Roberts
The West Old & New Page 3