The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West
4/5
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About this audiobook
At first, female pioneers were indeed rare-when the town of Denver was founded in 1859, there were only five women among a population of almost a thousand. But the adventurers arrived, slowly but surely. There was Frances Grummond, a sheltered Southern girl who married a Yankee and traveled with him out west, only to lose him in a massacre. Esther Morris, a dignified middle-aged lady, held a tea party in South Pass City, Wyoming, that would play a role in the long, slow battle for women's suffrage. And young Virginia Reed, only thirteen, set out for California as part of a group that would become known as the Donner Party.
With tales of notables such as Elizabeth Custer, Carry Nation, and Lola Montez, this social history touches upon many familiar topics-from the early Mormons to the gold rush to the dawn of the railroads-with a new perspective. This enlightening and entertaining book goes beyond characters like Calamity Jane to reveal the true diversity of the great western migration of the nineteenth century.
Dee Brown
Dorris Alexander “Dee” Brown (1908–2002) was a celebrated author of both fiction and nonfiction, whose classic study Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is widely credited with exposing the systematic destruction of American Indian tribes to a world audience. Brown was born in Louisiana and grew up in Arkansas. He worked as a reporter and a printer before enrolling at Arkansas State Teachers College, where he met his future wife, Sally Stroud. He later earned two degrees in library science, and worked as a librarian while beginning his career as a writer. He went on to research and write more than thirty books, often centered on frontier history or overlooked moments of the Civil War. Brown continued writing until his death in 2002.
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Reviews for The Gentle Tamers
32 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Superb. Perfectly balanced account. Great stories, very well narrated.
Fills huge gaps in the usual histories of the American West. BTW I am male if it matters ? - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Originally written in 1958 (this is a 1982 reprint), the book holds up well and is remarkably free of sexism. The author obviously admires all the women in the book, though he draws from all aspects of society, including some characters that it's hard to find much about to admire except for their ability to survive. This characteristic is the one thing all his women, whether he talks about them individually or as a group, have in common and it is fascinating that he can find both diversity and commonality in his cast. This book moves swiftly, is never boring or pedantic -- in fact in several places it is both comedic and touching, but still is realistic enough not to sugarcoat how hard it was to survive and enjoy life. Basically an overview, it leaves you wanting to know a lot more about many of the characters he presents.I don't know enough about the history to know for sure how accurate he is, but given both its publisher (University of Nebraska) and his other books, including Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I have confidence in his writing.