The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West

I would have been a terrible pioneer. I've had this reaction before, but the thought coursed through my mind time and again as I read Dee Brown's characterization of life in the Old West: work, work, work, Indian raids, work, dust storms, work, you get the idea. The list of tasks an average woman was expected to complete was daunting, from making soap and candles, to pureeing fruit and drying it as a paste to ward off scurvy in winter months, a pioneer was never idle. (In truth, this is not so different from other women's lot either, including many southern plantation mistresses.)

But first, before she could begin her life as a pioneer woman, she had to get there. And it is in telling this part of the story that Brown does her best work. The stories of the earliest pioneers are the strongest, particularly the Army brides bustling from primitive fort to primitive fort and the women making their way across the endless prairie - including one who made the crossing as part of the infamous Donner party.

Once the West is a bit more "settled," Brown spends less time on the individual women themselves and their hardships and lives, and more on suffrage (which originated out West), women's roles as entertainers (of both the professional and, uh, private variety), the fight for prohibition, and women as teachers. The difference between the two halves of the book is that, while I was interested in women's broader roles in the west, I was inspired by their personal stories.

Final verdict: I wanted to like this book a bit more than I ultimately did. The first few chapters, in which the pluck and spirit of the women pioneers nearly springs from the pages, is four-star material. The latter few chapters, which read like something out of a women's history book, are probably two-star material. And for those looking for further inspiration from women who had it so much harder than we did, look no further than They Fought Like Demons, which is the story of women who disguised themselves as men and fought in the Civil War. I bet they would have found soap making child's play after that.