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Thirteen-year-old Josie Reed hurried past the brush and trees lining a crude trail leading the way to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside of Tres Piedras, New Mexico. She moved with the ease of one who had a long acquaintance of the terrain, dodging boulders and logs that at times blocked the narrow footpath. A...

The impact of women on the American frontier in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries should not be underestimated.  To a large degree women were responsible for taming the wilderness.  Under their influence churches were formed, schools, and libraries were established, and the importance of home and hearth was rediscovered.  The result was nothing short...

On June 15, 1853, a vivacious, petite woman stepped cheerfully off a stagecoach in Nevada City, California, dressed with all the style of Princess Eugenia of Sweden and Norway.  As she strolled into the National Hotel with her dainty steps and her bustle looping back and forth, she made a decision to changer her name...

A thin, unshaven prospector took a long drag off the butt of a cigarette before flopping into an oversized chair in the plush lobby of the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada. The six-story building featured all the conveniences possessed by establishments like it in New York. The rooms and foyer were primarily occupied by stylishly...

A steady stream of miners, ranchers and cowhands filtered in and out of the Number 10 Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota.  An inexperienced musician playing an out of tune accordion squeezed out a familiar melody ushering the pleasure seekers inside.  Burlap curtains were pulled over the dusty windows and fans that hung down from the...

Mollie Walsh raced out of her house on Pike Street in Seattle, crying.  A look of panic filled her face. It was October 27, 1902. It was raining.  Mollie was petrified and sick with the flu. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see her husband, Michael Bartlett, burst through the front door...

Born in Massachusetts in 1818 and educated at Oberlin College, Lucy Stone lectured widely against slavery and, on behalf of women’s suffrage, helped organize the first national women’s rights convention and the American Woman Suffrage Association and published the influential Woman’s Journal. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1847, Stone became a lecturer for the Massachusetts...

“In good weather you’d see Jenny Murphy bicycling around town on her calls with her little satchel over her shoulder.  In bad weather she’d take her horse and buggy.” Argus Leader – 1951 Dr. Jenny Murphy flipped the collar up on the thick, gray coat she was wearing and tightened the grip she had on...

She cut. The bullet that slammed into the injured cowboy’s chest had come to rest next to his lungs and had to be removed.  Dr. French widely opened the wound to extract the slug.  Her hand was steady and eyes sharp.  She was no stranger to performing complicated medical procedures under pressure.  A woman in...

Sarah Louisa Dutcher was the first woman to make her way to the top of Half Dome. Historians believe the intrepid young woman accomplished the feat in 1875.