Women and Men on the Overland Trail

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John Mack Faragher; With a new preface by the author

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Description Reviews Awards

A lively and penetrating analysis of what the overland journey was really like for midwestern farm families in the mid-1800s

"Not only illuminates the daily life of rural Americans but . . . also begins to compensate for the male orientation of so much of western history.” —Journal of Social History

Through the subtle use of contemporary diaries, memoirs, and even folk songs, John Mack Faragher dispels the common stereotypes of male and female roles and reveals the dynamic of pioneer family relationships. This edition includes a new preface in which Faragher looks back on the social context in which he formulated his original thesis and provides a new supplemental bibliography.

Praise for the earlier edition:

“Faragher has made excellent use of the Overland Trail materials, using them to illuminate the society the emigrants left as well as the one they constructed en route. His study should be important to a wide range of readers, especially those interested in family history, migration and western history, and women’s history.” —Kathryn Kish Sklar

“An enlightening study.” —American West

John Mack Faragher is the Arthur Unobskey Professor of American History at Yale University. He is the author of Women and Men on the Overland Trail and Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie, both published by Yale University Press.

“The portrait of daily life on the overland trail would have sufficed to make this book a classic, but Faragher’s historical method made this work uniquely valuable, by showing the wide gap between women’s and men’s perceptions and records of the same scene. This book is of lasting importance not only to frontier studies but to all sorts of inquiries, because of its eye-opening use of gender analysis.”—Nancy Cott, author of The Bonds of Womanhood and The Grounding of Modern Feminism

“In this breakthrough book, John Faragher put women on the Western Map as they had never been before. The West has never been the same since.”—Virginia Scharff, Professor of History, University of New Mexico

“A welcome new edition of a scholarly classic. Women and Men on the Overland Trail set the standard for the history of gender in the American West.”—Mari Jo Buhle, American Civilization & History, Brown University

“This benchmark study continues to stimulate spirited discussions among attentive readers. Faragher analyzes incisively the gendered worlds and shared lives of rural families moving to the Far West. His emphatic ideas and lively writing helped mark the trail for other provocative western histories.”—Clyde A. Milner II, Executive Editor, Western Historical Quarterly

“Faragher has made excellent use of the Overland Trail materials, using them to illuminate the society the emigrants left as well as the one they constructed en route. His study should be important to a wide range of readers, especially those interested in family history, migration and western history, and women’s history.”—Kathryn Kish Sklar (Praise for the earlier edition)

“An enlightening study.”—American West (Praise for the earlier edition)

“A helpful study which not only illuminates the daily life of rural Americans but which also begins to compensate for the male orientation of so much of western history.”—Journal of Social History (Praise for the earlier edition)

"Faragher . . . has written a careful description of life on the trail. He used diaries, memoirs and even folk songs to examine the adventure. His well-documented book will be a source of great pleasure to the Western History scholar or buff, and students of family history and women's history will be absorbed by the presentation."—The Pacific Historian

"A well-researched study of familial relationships on the Overland Trail between 1843 and 1870. We have a much better view of one of the great migrations of modern times. Recommended for all libraries, from high school on up."—Choice

"Faragher has written a valuable and interesting study which is a welcome . . . addition to the history of the family and western migration."—Julie Roy Jeffrey, Journal of Social History

"Those interested in women's and family history and the history of migration over the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails in the mid-1800s will find the book interesting and enlightening readings."—Paulette J. Weiser, Annals of Wyoming

"This worthwhile book should be of interest to anyone concerned with more than the drama and romance of the westward movement."—Robert L. Munkres, Great Plains Quarterly

"Women and Men on the Overland Trail is recommended reading. In it John Mack Faragher combines lively style with an interesting perspective. This is a useful and important book because it attempts to make a scientific study of overland trail narratives written by men and women on the Oregon/California Trail."—Barbara Burgess, Overland Journal

"Faragher's analysis of Midwestern family life and his provocative use of new social science techniques raise exciting possibilities for further research. Faragher has borrowed liberally from social psychology, sociology, folklore, and demography . . . [and] new approaches to the study of regional history. This book will excite a good deal of comment, and it should generate a number of useful new studies."—American Historical Review

"Women and Men on the Overland Trail is both a contribution to western history and the new family and social history. It is highly interpretive and challenging. Faragher has drawn upon his sources imaginatively and has used the folklore sayings and songs of the period as evidence most ingeniously."—Allan G. Bogue, Reviews in American History

"Faragher's work provides important new directions not only for the history of the western expansion but also for the history of women and of nineteenth-century agricultural society. . . . Balanced on the dynamic relationship between women and men, his work is a much-needed attempt to achieve a more judicious perspective on the question of women's historical role."—Arizona and the West

"Through painstaking research, Faragher has drawn from one of the very rich sources of social history for the period to clarify the nature of relationships within marriage on the farm and enroute to Oregon and California."—Robert N. Peters, Pacific Historical Review

"The subject is interesting, and the book will prove accessible to a deservedly wide audience."—Library Journal

ISBN: 9780300089240
Publication Date: March 11, 2001

320 pages, 5 x 7.75

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