Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

And her introductory chapter, “Women Envision the West, 1890-1945,” in Independent Spirits: Women Painters of The American West, 1890-1945. Catalog of an exhibition at the Autry Museum with additional historical essays. Los Angeles, CA: Autry Museum of Western Heritage in association with the University of California Press, 1995.

For recent wide-ranging studies of the women of the American West, consult:

Butler, Anne M., and Ona Siporin, eds. Uncommon Common Women: Ordinary Lives Of The West. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996.

Irwin, Mary Ann, and James F. Brooks, eds. Women And Gender In The American West. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004.

Jameson, Elizabeth, and Susan Armitage, eds. Writing The Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women's West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.

Jameson, Elizabeth, and Susan Armitage. The Women's West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987.

Jeffrey, Julie Roy. Frontier Women: "Civilizing" The West? 1840-1880. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.

More specialized studies dealing with American Indian women and their encounters with early European trappers and explorers are:

O'Meara, Walter. Daughters of the Country: The Women of the Fur Traders and Mountain Men. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968.

Bataille, Gretchen M., and Laurie Lisa, eds. Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Comer, Douglas C. Ritual Ground: Bent's Old Fort, World Formation, And The Annexation Of The Southwest. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Klein, Laura F., and Lillian A. Ackerman, eds. Women And Power In Native North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. Essays examining the status of women in a variety of nations, primarily those of the modern United States and Canada.

Lavender, David Sievert. Bent's Fort. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1954.

For the Homestead Act and its significance, see:

Gates, Paul Wallace. The Jeffersonian Dream: Studies In The History Of American Land Policy And Development. Collection of essays one of the greatest historians of American land policies. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

Richardson, Heather Cox. The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies During the Civil War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

It’s no surprise that outlaw women and dance hall girls have received a disproportionate amount of attention. Here are some of the more scholarly studies:

Seagraves, Anne. Soiled Doves: Prostitution In The Early West. Hayden, Idaho: Wesanne Publications, 1994.

Butler, Anne M. Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.

McLaird, James D. Calamity Jane: The Woman And The Legend. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.

African American women in the West are finally beginning to receive their due. Start with these studies:

Demaratus, DeEtta. The Force of a Feather: The Search for a Lost Story of Slavery and Freedom. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2002.

Holdredge, Helen O'Donnell. Mammy Pleasant. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1953.

Hudson, Lynn M. The Making Of "Mammy Pleasant”: A Black Entrepreneur In Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Taylor, Quintard, and Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, eds. African American Women Confront the West: 1600-2000. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.

You’ll want to look at our Woman Suffrage issue http://www.historynow.org/03_2006/index.html for some useful articles and resources. These books focus specifically on women’s political and civil rights in the West:

Beeton, Beverly. Women Vote In The West: The Woman Suffrage Movement, 1869-1896. New York: Garland Publications, 1986.

Mead, Rebecca J. How The Vote Was Won: Woman Suffrage in the Western United States, 1868-1914. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

Here are some biographies of Western women office holders mentioned in the article:

Haarsager, Sandra. Bertha Knight Landes of Seattle, Big-City Mayor. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.

Lopach, James J. Jeannette Rankin: A Political Woman. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2005.

Scheer, Teva J. Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Tayloe Ross. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005.

Internet Resources:

Bent’s Fort is now a historic site maintained by National Park Service. The agency provides a “travelling trunk” that can be sent out on loan to classrooms for hands-on study, for 4th-6th grade classes in the Santa Fe Trail region:

http://www.nps.gov/beol/forteachers/travellingtrunks.htm

PBS offers good brief sketch of Bent:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/bent.htm

Britney Nelson’s sketch of Owl Woman appears as one of the good “Kid’s Page” offerings of the Colorado Historical Society:

http://www.history.state.co.us/kids/owlwoman.pdf#search=%22

http://www.nps.gov/archive/home/homestead_act.html

And don’t miss their “educational activities” link for lesson plans and other suggestions. You’ll also be interested in the sections on the first and last men to file under the Homestead Act – the first, Daniel Freeman, was the brother of a Civil War soldier; the last, Kenneth Deardorff was a veteran of the Vietnam War. The Homestead National Monument is located on the site of Freeman’s claim in Nebraska.

Library of Congress’s excellent “Collection Guides and Bibliography” has a segment on Homestead Act:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Homestead.html

The “Resources” section for the website for PBS “Frontier House” has really fine articles on frontier life in general:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/index.html

and, one of special interest, on western schoolmarms and frontier schools in general:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/essay10_2.html

“Women of the American West” segment of the commercial site “Legends of America” has some terrific material (along with a lot of popup ads) on saloon girls, female gunslingers like Calamity Jane, and women’s position in general:

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-Women.html

The Wyoming State Historical Society provides this piece on Esther Hobart Morris, a driving force behind woman suffrage in Wyoming:

http://wyshs.org/morris.htm

Wikipedia entry on Calamity Jane is very good, with exceptionally good links to other sketches and online versions of her “memoirs”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamity_Jane

For well-known African American women in the 19th century West, our old friends at the Lakewood Public Library in Ohio have good page on Biddy Mason:

http://lkwdpl.org/wihohio/maso-bid.htm

And there’s a Mary Ellen Pleasants’ website:

http://www.mepleasant.com/