So Much to Be Done

Praise for the first edition: "Another fine addition to the history of women in the Wild West. Strong and keen, these women responded to the frontier with imagination, pleasure, courage, humor and pride. They will inspire the same in readers of this volume". ("Booklist"). "This is history at its bestoon and between the lines. Buy it and read it". ("Listener"). "To the editors' great credit, they have given us writings that retain each author's idiosyncrasies, prejudices, wit, petulance, anger, confusion, and resilience". ("Gateway Heritage"). "This is the best collection of its kind I know". (Lillian Schlissel, author of "Women's Diaries of the Overland Trails"). In this new and enlarged edition the editors have built on an already strong collection with four new accounts. Colorado pioneer Augusta Tabor gives a sense of the heady days as Leadville became a major mining center. Abigail Duniway describes the challenges of life for women in the Pacific Northwest. Effie Wiltbank's short selection is a reminiscence of her grandmother's "receet" for washing clothes, a chore that epitomizes the practical skill, determination, and common sense required of so many Western women. Apolinaria Lorenzana offers a rare glimpse of the operations of the mission system while illuminating the perils of living with the acquisitive Americans. Ruth B. Moynihan is an independent historian and writer. She is the editor of "Second to None: A Documentary History of American Women". Susan Armitage is a professor of history at Washington State University and series editor for the University of Nebraska Press' "Women in the West" series. Christiane Fischer Dichamp, an independent scholar, is editor of "Let Them Speak for Themselves: Women in the American West, 1849-1900".