No Place For Sissies

The Old West was a rough place to settle for a man, much less for a single woman. When we think of women in the Old West, we think of families, schoolmarms (often daughters of families), the soiled dove, the rancher’s daughter, Indian guides, of a wild west gun show type, but rarely, if ever do we think of a female homesteader…out in the west…on her own place!! Nevertheless, they most certainly did exist, and some of them were very successful!! These were gutsy women who might have been seen as prim and proper back east, but in the West, they held their own and stood their ground!!

The subject of women on the homestead has been a subject of interest to many historians, who say that about 12 percent of the homesteaders in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and Utah were single women. When I think about these women living out on a homestead all alone, I cringe!! Some of these women either felt like life and love had passed them by, and others just wanted a new adventure. The homestead Act afforded them an avenue to realize their dreams. The Homestead Act of 1862, which let any 21-year-old head of a household claim federal land, gave these independent women the opportunity to travel across the country and to become landowners. By the early 1900s, a woman could pack her belongings, hop on a train, and make in days a trip that once took months. Upon arrival, a land-locator would take her by wagon or Model T to find her claim. To “sweeten the pot,” changes to the Homestead Act in 1909 and 1912 cut the time required to “prove up” and doubled the amount of land available to claim.

That was all the incentive Florence Blake Smith, a bookkeeper from Chicago, needed, after she learned about homesteading from a friend just before he left for Wyoming. She thought, “If he can do it, so can I.” Working winters back in Chicago to save enough for the required seven months on her claim, she persevered until the land was officially hers. Her story was far from unique. As it turns out, research shows women homesteaders were just as likely to succeed as men. Still, these women homesteaders would have to have “grit” for sure. The West was no place for sissies. There was no law, as often as not, and women were often in more danger than they knew. Still, women like Florence Smith, Nellie Burgess, Helen Coburn, Alice Newbury, Geraldine Lucas, and Elinore Pruitt Stewart…perhaps the best known, because the letters she wrote to her former employer in Denver were published in the Atlantic Monthly and then in a book, Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Her story most likely added validity and notoriety to the subject of women homesteaders. Well known or not, these women were a vital part of the American West, and an amazing group of women for sure.