1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910783171003321

Autore

Scharff Virginia

Titolo

Twenty thousand roads [[electronic resource] ] : women, movement, and the West / / Virginia Scharff

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2003

ISBN

9786612359668

0-520-93703-1

1-4175-2536-3

1-282-35966-5

1-59734-969-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (253 p.)

Disciplina

978/.02/082

Soggetti

Women pioneers - West (U.S.)

Women - West (U.S.)

Frontier and pioneer life - West (U.S.)

West (U.S.) Biography

West (U.S.) History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-228) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART ONE: BEFORE THE WEST -- PART TWO: IN THE WEST -- PART THREE: BEYOND THE WEST -- NOTES -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

From Sacagawea's travels with Lewis and Clark to rock groupie Pamela Des Barres's California trips, women have moved across the American West with profound consequences for the people and places they encounter. Virginia Scharff revisits a grand theme of United States history-our restless, relentless westward movement--but sets out in new directions, following women's trails from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries. In colorful, spirited stories, she weaves a lyrical reconsideration of the processes that created, gave meaning to, and ultimately shattered the West. Twenty Thousand Roads introduces a cast of women mapping the world on their own terms, often crossing political and cultural boundaries defined by male-dominated



institutions and perceptions. Scharff examines the faint traces left by Sacagawea and revisits Susan Magoffin's famed honeymoon journey down the Santa Fe Trail. We also meet educated women like historian Grace Hebard and government extension agent Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, who mapped the West with different voyages and visions. Scharff introduces women whose lives gave shape to the forces of gender, race, region, and modernity; participants in exploration, war, politics, empire, and struggles for social justice; and movers and shakers of everyday family life. This book powerfully and poetically shows us that to understand the American West, we must examine the lives of women who both built and resisted American expansion. Scharff remaps western history as she reveals how moving women have shaped our past, present, and future.