The Real Women of the Wild West

These four sisters (left-right.), Harriet, Elizabeth, Lucie and Ruth Crisman, photographed in 1886, near Custer County, Nebraska, knew how blessed they were to have each other, as so many other women suffered the loneliness of the frontier.

Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to study democracy. At the end of his two-volume Democracy In America, he wrote, “if one asked me to what do I think one must principally attribute the singular prosperity and growing force of this people, I would answer that it is to the superiority of its women.”

This is one of the only known photos of a Black cowgirl; she’s called Nellie Brown. But there is no Nellie Brown recorded in Western history. She’s just as anonymous as the many Black women labeled only as “unknown.” However, they all knew something important. As one historian said, “More than anywhere else in the United States at the time, the frontier offered African Americans a chance in life.” Image Courtesy True West Archives Unless Otherwise Noted

Cowgirl Joella Irwin
An early cowgirl performer at the turn of the 20th century, Ms. Irwin performed in a variety of events but was most famous for her relay race riding.

 

 

Stagecoach Mary
The Natives called her White Crow because she “acts like a white person but has black skin.” She was only the second woman in the nation to win a contract to carry the U.S. Mail. She was rough and coarse, but beloved, too. “Mary lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw a breath, or a .38.” - Montana native Gary Cooper 

Nellie Bly. The most famous female journalist in the nation was told by one editor that it was impossible to think a woman could go around the world in 80 days, like Jules Verne’s popular novel. “Very well,” she said angrily, “start the man and I’ll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him.” She completed the trip in 72 days and then wrote a successful book about it. She is seen below wearing one of her road outfits. Both Photos Courtesy Library of Congress

Scout Deluxe
This wonderful 1880s era photo allegedly depicts a female scout. Her name is unknown.

Before anyone ever heard the word “cowgirl,” there were women who ventured west. Most traveled with their families on covered wagons, beginning in the 1840s. They moved from crowded eastern cities to settle in western states such as Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Some wagon trains eventually went even farther, to California, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.

After the Civil War, more and more people sought new lives in the West. For nearly thirty years, from the 1840s to the late 1860s, the largest migration in the history of the country took place. The Homestead Act of 1860 mandated that 160 acres could be claimed in the west by men as well as women as long as they were twenty-one and unmarried. Though men by far outnumbered women in the early years, by 1870, there were 172,00 women over the age of twenty out west, compared to 385,00 men. While back east most women lived within society’s traditional rules, pioneer women had to adapt to survive the harsh circumstances of their journey and new surroundings.

 

 

Fox Hastings, a cowgirl and trick rider, being thrown by Undertow, one of the meanest horses at the first annual Los Angeles Rodeo, circa 1920s.

Many began to take on chores formerly done only by men. Wives, widows, mothers, and daughters on farms and ranches were helping to settle the western plains. Some of these women homesteaders learned to master the skills of riding horses, roping cattle and other animals, and shooting a gun when necessary. Pioneer Nannie Alderson, who settled in Montana, believed that “the new country offered greater personal liberty than the old.”

One new freedom for women that grew out of the pioneering way of life involved a change in wardrobe. In those days, women rarely wore pants, and when riding horses, they sat sidesaddle. Their skirts kept them from riding like men, and in any case, it was not considered “ladylike” to do so.

Lucille Mullhall at 101 Ranch, Oklahoma, in 1909.

The origins of the cowboy tradition come from Spain, beginning with the hacienda system of medieval Spain. This style of cattle ranching spread throughout much of the Iberian peninsula and later was imported to the Americas. Both regions possessed a dry climate with sparse grass, thus large herds of cattle required vast amounts of land to obtain sufficient forage. The need to cover distances greater than a person on foot could manage gave rise to the development of the horseback-mounted vaquero.

Bonnie McCarroll thrown from Silver, Pendleton, Oregon, September 1915.

It's impossible not to talk about the woman who was undoubtedly the most incredible woman of this era and who deserves to be in the pantheon of women of the West. Pretty Nose (b. c. 1851), was a French-Arapaho woman who participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 with a combined Cheyenne/Arapaho detachment. She lived to be at least 101 years old and reportedly became a war chief.
Pretty Nose's descendant, Mark Soldier Wolf witnessed his return to the Wind River Indian Reservation in 1952, at the age of 101. At the time he reported her wearing cuffs that he said indicated she was a war chief.