![]() Life was also far from comfortable much of the time: work could be back-breaking, terrains hostile and dreams of wealth and prosperity crushed extremely fast when crops failed or prospecting proved fruitless. There were plenty more men than women out west, and many of them paid handsomely for female company. Life was hard, and if things went wrong, women could easily find themselves sucked into the murky world of sex work in order to make a living. However, many more women found themselves sorely disappointed. Whilst Westerns became big business in Hollywood this fact was largely been ignored by major film studios. Many of these frontiersmen became cowboys with up to 25 per cent of cowboys were in fact black. Skills were in demand, meaning those who were adept were highly valued, regardless of their gender.Īt the end of the American Civil War, thousands of African Americans ventured west to the frontier in a bid to achieve freedom and escape the prejudice they faced. Some even pursued careers, rather than simply performing more traditional domestic tasks. Women found themselves able to own property, they could carve out new identities, and found themselves engaged in a variety of work. This lawlessness also meant people were no longer bound by day-to-day conventions of life in established towns and cities. The frontier lands weren’t bound by the laws and conventions of the eastern parts of the United States: past the Continental Divide, people were expected to dispense their own justice within communities. Here is a brief history of some of the most remarkable pioneer women, and the ways in which women participated in life in the Old American West. There was a chance to carve out a new role within family and wider societal structures: it was by no means a utopia, but it was different. Women in particular found themselves able to live with far fewer constraints than society bound them to back home. ![]() However, much as it could be difficult, the frontier was also a land of opportunity. It took real grit, determination and a certain degree of foolhardiness to succeed, and many of the jobs involved in creating settlements out west required backbreaking work. ![]() The American frontier era – or the ‘Wild West’ as it is more commonly known – is traditionally associated with men. ![]()
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