The Lives of Working Women

Paper Summary:

The four books, "Letters of a Woman Homesteader" by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, "Emily: Diary of a Hard-Worked Woman" by Emily French, "Prairie Voices" by Joanna Stratton, and "Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey" by Lillian Schlissel, are reviewed and summarized by this paper. The depiction in these books of the hardships and sufferings of American women in the 19th century is the focus of the paper. The story of each of the heroines presented in the books and the myriad difficulties they had to endure are examined, and the hardiness of character, both physical and emotional, needed to survive the time period is described.

From the Paper:

"Elinore Pruitt Stewart was a writer whose life transcended the common expectations of what a 19th century woman was capable of achieving. Although a woman, and alone, and a mother, Pruitt became a thriving part of the roughness of homesteading life in the American West. Part of this was due to necessity. Pruitt often said she found herself doing work that most women did not do, because, in her own words, she did not have enough money to hire a man. Often she found herself traveling to places that "ladies" were not supposed to go to, out of pure need or the needs of her children. Yet Stewart also admits that her own stubbornness and fortitude drove her into many of her "adventures." Stewart states in her own prose that her project of homesteading was designed to prove something about female endurance and ability, rather than simply to sustain herself and her family."

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