A Crossroads Resource
Unit VII: What, Then, Is This American? ca. 1865 - 1900
Question/Problem 4: What was the West like for miners, cattlemen, and
homesteader?
Homesteaders' Reading #2
I am very enthusiastic about women homesteading. It really requires less
strength and labor to raise plenty to satisfy a large family than it does
to go out to wash, with the added satisfaction of knowing that their job
will not be lost to them if they c are to keep it. Even if improving the
place does go slowly, it is that much done to stay done. Whatever is
raised is the homesteader's own, and there is no house-rent to pay. This
year Jerrine cut and dropped enough potatoes to raise a ton of fine potatoes
toes. She wanted to try, so we let her, and you will remember that she is
but six year old. We had a man to break the ground and cover the potatoes
for her and the man irrigated them once. That was all that was done until
digging time, when they were p ploughed out and Jerrine picked them up.
Any women strong enough to go out by the day could have done every bit of
the work and put in two or three times that much, and it would have been
so much more pleasant than to work so hard in the city and then be on
starvation rations in the winter.
To me, homesteading is the solution of all poverty's problems, but I
realize that temperament has much to do with success in any undertaking,
and persons afraid of coyotes and work and loneliness had better let
ranching alone. At the same time, any woman who can stand her own
company, can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing things, and is
willing to put in as much time at careful labor as she does over the
washtub, will certainly succeed; will have independence, plenty to eat all
the time, and a home of her own in the end.
From Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters of a Woman Homesteader ( Lincoln,
NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1961), pp. 214-215.
Back To Question #4