wild women wednesday

A hush fell over the large crowd at the rodeo arena in Salt Lake City, Utah, in July 1938 as daredevil rider Alice Sisty raced into the arena atop two English jumpers. She was standing on the backs of the animals with one foot on one horse and the other foot on the second mount,...

“Marriage is such an ancient institution and has in all ages excited such universal interest among the human family, that in offering to the public a journal especially devoted to the promotion of marital facility, we feel sure we are only supplying a national want.”   Leslie Fraser Duncan, Editor/Owner Matrimonial News – 1870 The matrimonial...

Business for matrimonial publications between 1870 and 1900, increased substantially whenever stories of successful mail-order connections were made.  Editors for periodicals such as Matrimonial News and the New Plan Company shared happy ever after tales with daily newspapers in hopes they would print the romantic adventures of correspondence couples.   Several such stories appeared in newspapers...

In 1939, a petite singer from Hot Springs, Arkansas, named Patsy Montana, made her screen debut in the Gene Autry Western Colorado Sunset.  Her role in the film was that of a waitress working at a diner near a popular ranch.  When the ranch hands came into the eatery one evening for supper, they asked...

Silent motion-picture actor William S. Hart starred opposite the beautiful and talent actress Jane Novak in a series of Westerns between 1918 and 1923.  He saved her from brazen outlaws and runaway trains in several action-adventure films audiences of all ages flocked to the theaters to see.  Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1896, her...

Nell O’Day, one of the first ladies of B-Westerns, was the spunky, hard riding heroine of thirteen Johnny Mack Brown films in the early 1940s.  She was an exceptional horsewoman and prided herself on doing all her own stunts in the Westerns she made with the famous college football star turned on-screen cowboy.    Mildred Nell...

Between 1914 and 1926, roper, rider, and actress Bessie Barriscale dazzled silent film fans in a series of fast paced Westerns. Movie audiences were fascinated with the versatile and beautiful star’s ability to outsmart and outshoot the outlaws in pictures such as The Bells of Austi and The Gambler’s Pal.  Named Elizabeth Mary Barriscale at...

When news that cowgirl and silent film actress, Victoria Forde, had left her husband Western star, Tom Mix, in August 1928, fans were crushed.  The husband-and-wife team had entertained audiences in several films together between 1914 and 1922. Both were skilled riders who performed their own stunts in the cowboy and outlaw movies made for...