Twenty thousand roads : women, movement, and the West / Virginia Scharff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scharff, Virginia.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women pioneers--West (U.S.)--Biography.

Women pioneers.

Women--West (U.S.)--Biography.

Women.

Frontier and pioneer life--West (U.S.).

Frontier and pioneer life.

West (U.S.)--Biography.

West (U.S.).

West (U.S.)--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (253 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

From Sacagawea's travels with Lewis and Clark to rock groupie Pamela Des Barres's California trips, women have moved across the American West with profound consequences for the people and places they encounter. Virginia Scharff revisits a grand theme of United States history-our restless, relentless westward movement--but sets out in new directions, following women's trails from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. In colorful, spirited stories, she weaves a lyrical reconsideration of the processes that created, gave meaning to, and ultimately shattered the West. Twenty Thousand Roads introduces a cast of women mapping the world on their own terms, often crossing political and cultural boundaries defined by male-dominated institutions and perceptions. Scharff examines the faint traces left by Sacagawea and revisits Susan Magoffin's famed honeymoon journey down the Santa Fe Trail. We also meet educated women like historian Grace Hebard and government extension agent Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, who mapped the West with different voyages and visions. Scharff introduces women whose lives gave shape to the forces of gender, race, region, and modernity; participants in exploration, war, politics, empire, and struggles for social justice; and movers and shakers of everyday family life. This book powerfully and poetically shows us that to understand the American West, we must examine the lives of women who both built and resisted American expansion. Scharff remaps western history as she reveals how moving women have shaped our past, present, and future.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: BEFORE THE WEST

PART TWO: IN THE WEST

PART THREE: BEYOND THE WEST

NOTES

ILLUSTRATIONS

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-228) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612359668

9780520937031

0520937031

9781417525362

1417525363

9781282359666

1282359665

9781597349697

1597349690

OCLC:

475928590