ere is a myth-shattering look at the women who helped to settle the West, told through their own words and illustrated with 150 period photographs. Through diaries, memoirs, letters, and journals, "Women of the West" introduces 11 real frontier women whose words combine to recreate a place and time when resourcefulness and courage were demanded of everyone. 146 photos.

"The lure of adventure and riches brought men west. Some had dreams of a quick gold strike and a life of ease. Some were lone explorers drawn to this vast and unknown land. Still others were homesteaders eager to put down new roots with their families. Although some returned back east, worn out by hardship, many more forged places for themselves on America's new frontier as cowboys and farmers, bachelors and fathers, outlaws and lawmen." "Cathy Luchetti,...

The story of American women in medicine is multi-fold, from their ascendency as healers and midwives in colonial years to their gradual decline as they were eclipsed by men, whose entrance into the medical ranks brought new standards of exclusionary professionalism. All-male medical schools and boards pushed "healing" women into the subcategory of midwife or nurse. Nineteenth-century women formed their own colleges and eventually forced themselves...