Women Of The West – Bickerstaff Booksellers

Amazing Women in the Old West

Kim — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 18:16:44 +0000

It wasn’t the men that settled the west. It was the women! The Old West was a forbidding territory. Deciding to pack up all your earthly belongings and head into the unknown was not an easy decision to make. It was a harder decision to make for the women than it was for the men. But once they were committed to it, most of the credit for settling the west must go to the women. It was the women who dug in and tended the sick, planted fruits and vegetables, cooked and cleaned and fed the gold miners. It was the women who decided to put their roots in the west.

Roses of the West

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:46 +0000

Today’s women enjoy such opportunities for success and prestige in all facets of life, that one tends to forget the sisters of the past who made it possible. A century ago, women were subjected to ridicule, prejudice, bigotry and persecution when they tried to better themselves.

The Story of Mary MacLane

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:46 +0000

The Story of Mary MacLane shocked the literary world when it was published in April 1902. It sold 100,000 copies in its first month, an astonishing number then and now. Within a few years it had been translated into 36 languages, and writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Hart Crane, and Gertrude Stein lauded it as an important influence in their quests for a new American style. The author was a 19-year-old girl from the raw, masculine mining town of Butte, Montana. With the publication of this book, Mary MacLane became an overnight sensation. She was called the “Wild Woman of Butte, a Bohemian, a radical, a feminist, a rebel.” Although MacLane went on to write other books, none had the impact of this one, which remains a tour de force about life, love, and longing. Fresh, frank, and funny, ‘The Story of Mary MacLane’ is as powerful today as it was provocative when first published.

Winter Wheat

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:46 +0000

“Describes a young woman’s emotional and spiritual awakening as she confronts the disappointments and marvels of love. . .. Walker’s heroine recognizes that love, like winter wheat, requires faith and deep roots to survive the many hardships that threaten its endurance”-Belles Lettres. Introduction by James Welch.

Ladies of the Lamplight

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:45 +0000

Respectable society of nineteenth century Colorado gave women little leeway when it came to supporting themselves. Women who strayed from the accepted norm of the day soon found themselves outcasts, doomed to find their way to the bars and brothels of the West. Many of these fallen women became dance-hall girls, prostitutes, and madams – and a few adopted the lifestyles of gamblers, robbers, and rustlers. Ladies of the Lamplight tells the stories of some of these infamous women – Silver Heels, Poker Alice, Cattle Kate, Etta Place, Mattie Silks and Mollie May, to name just a few. This revised edition has been expanded to include more women whose stories continue to captivate us and hold our attention into the wee hours of the night. The West. Ladies of the Lamplight tells the stories of some of these infamous women — Silver Heels, Poker Alice, Cattle Kate, Etta Place, Mattie Silks and Mollie May, to name just a few. This revised edition has been expanded to include more women whose stories continue to captivate us and hold our attention into the wee hours of the night.

Montana Women

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:45 +0000

In chronicling the lives of two sisters over a span of 16 years, this promising first novel illuminates the shifting patterns in lives and families. At the end of WW II, Pearl and Etta of Great Falls, Mont., are living in their deceased parents’ house, working at tedious jobs and occasionally venturing out for an uneventful dinner. Change comes when Pearl meets Gordon Buckman. She’s soon married, a mother and living on Buck’s ranch 80 miles from town. Pearl loves the land and is a good farm wife, but she isn’t genuinely happy. Buck is too restless to settle down and spends most of his time drinking. Etta, living an unruffled and tranquil existence in town, cultivates her spiritual leanings and struggles with the memories of their cruel father. The sisters’ degrees of self-knowledge develop through the years; eventually Pearl and her daughter move in with Etta. In a voice of spare, poetic energy, Volk offers some refreshing characterizations, but her narrative fails to overcome the dullness of Pearl and Etta’s everyday problems or, alternately, to captivate the reader with a strong sense of time and place.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Buck Up

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:44 +0000

Buck Up is the story of a young boy who finds himself alone in a busy mining town, abandoned by his father and separated from his mother. He meets Nick, a carpenter, who takes him under his wing. Suddenly, everything Jodie knows or thinks he knows is turned upside down. Lies and deceit follow as Jodie struggles to fit in.

Daughters of the West

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:44 +0000

Free-wheeling ladies on high-stepping horses, daring cowgirls, Wells Fargo women and adventurous schoolmarms brighten these pages.

The Many Loves of Buffalo Bill

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:43 +0000

“What we want to do is give our women even more liberty than they have. Let them do any kind of work that they see fit, and if they do it as well as men, give them the same pay.”-William F. Cody, 1899With rough-riding cowboys, sure shots, and fantastic reenactments of battles and train robberies, Buffalo Bill Cody brought the myth of the Old West to life for audiences all over the world-and some of the most popular cowboys in his Wild West Show were young ladies. Cody surrounded himself with strong, intelligent, talented, beautiful women-and this revealing portrait tells the stories of his life and of his relationships with many of the trick riders, sharpshooters, and other women associated with the show for which he was famous.

Upstairs Girls

Kim — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:27:43 +0000

Prostitutes make up one of the most engaging chapters in the story of the American West. Upstairs Girls opens a window on the lives of these women for hire–why they turned to prostitution, who they worked for, and what their lives were like. Author and historian Michael Rutter offers a thorough history of prostitution in the West, with chapters on notorious madams, the hierarchy of prostitution, from parlor girls to streetwalkers, and occupational hazards such as disease and addiction. Rutter also unveils the brutal Chinese sex trade, which was little more than slavery, with women being shipped across the Pacific and bought and sold like material goods. The engaging and carefully researched background history leads up to the often heart-breaking and sometimes humorous profiles of the individual madams and prostitutes, from the famous Calamity Jane to the less-known Rosa May, from ruthless madam Ah Toy to mother of civil rights Mary Ellen Pleasant. Great photographs and illustrations!