Welcome. We couldnt be more happy than you joining us here at the center and were happy there is a center for colorado womens history. Now im Michael Eriksson the Education Coordinator here and i love setting things up like this and we couldnt be more happy and honored to have charlotte waysman join us. Many of you know her and her partner here coauthor jill teigen wrote this book, beautiful book, that is worth every penny it is. Shes here and after shell answer all the questions after the presentation and have a table set up here to answer more questions or even sign one of the books if you purchase one here today. Were going to go ahead and get started here. Again, thank you for coming and thank you Charlotte Waisman for being here today. Thank you. Its great to be with all of you and thanks for many of you i know coming its good to have the smiling audience right in front of you. I was asked to talk about women of the west and i was told, you know, to talk 45 minutes and take 15 minutes of questions. I have a timer for myself and4m will start it and i will stick to a script so that i can stick to time because those of you who know me know that i also could just talk forever and i dont want to do that now since you probably have other things to do as well today. We are having this filmed so its very exciting and it will be on cspan 3 i think. Cspan 2, im sorry. Look for it. Have that opportunity as well. Im going to do what i describe as a brief dash through history here. Because its going to focus on there we go. I can see i better be lighter fingered with this its going to focus on women of the western part of the United States, womens roles, how their roles have changed, and the issues that women face both historically and today. I want to note the varied contributions that women have made to our standard of living and our quality of life despite the obstacles that face them then and frankly still today. The women i will be using as examples are from the more than 850 women who are pro filed in my book which mike showed you her story a timeline of the women who changed america. Had a wonderful coauthor jill teigen and the two of us worked together to create this beautiful book. Im also going to share some profiles of other women who for want of a better phrase didnt make the cut. I reviewed over 4,000 women to choose the 850 that are in the book. You can understand why sometimes when people say how about so and so, is she in the book, and im you know my eyes kind of go, maybe we should look in the index or something because i forget who is in and out. First of all i want to thank mike the education director for inviting me to speak to you today and the director jillian, standing in the back there, who in march of this year has helped usher in this house to now be known formally as the center for colorado womens history at the buyers evans house museum. Big mouthful. Maybe you need an acronym for that. Its so important for all of us to continue telling womens stories and it is most exciting to me that the buyers evans house is a very special part of colorado history in this way. History colorado. I would like to start with a brief overview to explain my concept. Its lavishly illustrated. There are color photos, there are brief summaries of the women to highlight their achievements. I begin with virginia dare, who was born on Roanoke Island in 1587, the struggles and milestones of women such as Heller Keller and susan b. Anthony and continues to the present about 2011 when the paperback came out. It was a hard bound earlier. Modern role models such as oprah im proud to tell you provides the forward. Along the way there are names you know and you would expect. Everybody knows betsy ross, amelia earhart, condoleezza rice. How about raising your hand, elieza lucas pinkney. She as a teenager developed the process to cultivate indigo the basis of the colorado of the carolina economy for more than 30 years. Florence siebert. The woman who developed the tu ber cue lin test in 1931 used by the World Health Organization even today. Stephanie controlic. She invented kevlar. A chemist. Kevlar vests protect our police and men and women in the armed services. This is kind of a trick. Lena bryant. She was really lane bryant and her name got misspelled on a loan application. But the important thing is, she started in 1904 to create maternity garments for women so women could go out of their house when they were pregnant. I love that. Dale mesic. She was a female cartoonist who created the strip brenda star reporter. This one you might know. Candy lightner. Organized mothers against drunk driving. When tragically her daughter was killed by a drunk driver. This last one, i didnt know, my coauthor told me about it and it killed me i didnt know about it. Gertrude ilian. A nobel laureate. Yeah. Who created a drug to fight childhood leukemia. Well, my purpose here is not to embarrass you for the women you dont know, but to help you understand we just dont learn about these women in history. To provide additional context and again to very briefly acquaint you with the book, i thought i would answer a few of the most frequently asked questions that i get. The selected women are women who changed our country with their accomplishments most of whom as ive already indicated we havent learned about in school. Frankly, when i was in school, it never occurred to me that they werent teaching me about the women. I mean you know, men did the alamo, right . Men forged across the mountains to discover the northwest passage, lets say. Men found gold. I didnt think about the more than 600,000 women who also moved west. Now the idea for the book grew out of my teaching a yearlong Leadership Development class. When i mentioned some historical women i thought everybody should know, i was flabber fasted because these women did not know the women who came before us who contributed so much to our lives. I went looking for a book. I had been a University Professor and thats what you do, right . You find the book, assign the book and then people know. Well, it didnt turn outta way. I reviewed and purchased more than 200 books, but nobody had done a timeline format such as i thought we should do. Then i met jill and we together started thinking we need actual criteria for who is going to be in the book and whos not going to be in the book and thats how we reviewed over 4,000 women. Remember there was no google when we started. Even if we had typed into the computer a wellknown name like clara barton nothing would have come up. There was no wikipedia. There was no way to find people, especially women, of course, online. So we did it the hard way with help from reference librarians, scholars, articles, books, oh, many, many books. There was one book at that time women of the west done in 1984 and had about 12 women in it. And we just kept looking, kept looking. Of course there are more books now on women and theyre sliced and diced different ways. Just yesterday i got pushed a notice from amazon, five new books on american women. There are lots you can look. Nobody has done that timeline format that i thought of. I chose also not to compare the accomplishments of one woman with another. After all, susan b. Anthony worked for all her life to get the right to vote for women. Can you imagine getting together, you know, yeah, we should do this and it takes 72 years . Not one woman from that original group was alive to vote by 1920. Speed skater bonnie blair, she won medals, gold medalses in three olympics, the First American women to win five gold medals in the history of the olympics and its true, she worked many years to hone her craft but she did not have to convince people of her cause, right. She didnt have to raise money for her cause. She certainly didnt have to be arrested for her cause. I fully believe its impossible to weigh one womans accomplishment against any other. Ultimately i came to understand that its the very diversity of achievement that is critically important to identifying the breath and depth of womens contributions to u. S. History. Now the book i wrote does not describe the Indigenous Peoples of what was later to become the u. S. Sadly, there are very few written records of what life was like for women in their times. My journey from my book starts with the women and men who mostly colonized our country around 1600. They left wherever they came from seeking better lives here, religious freedom, freedom of opportunity that wasnt bounded by your class, your ethnicity and for some theyiov came for. Now some examples of women in the colonies, very varied from mistresses of enlarged plantations, wives of wealthy merchants, women on the western frontier. 600,000 of them. Or women in slavery. Nevertheless, there was one thing that all women had in common at that time, all women were legally the word is chattel. Property. Thus they were subordinate to men and without any civil rights. The laws and customs in the u. S. Even before we were a country came from england and thats how he got those laws based on common english law. So women particularly married women were trapped in a condition later called civil death. They had no control over their own property or wages and no legal rights separate from their husbands. Now i was asked to speak on women of the west. I was trying to figure out what are the Western States. I was first stymied by this because i have to tell you that not even the scholars are in agreement as to what the Western States are. I chose this 1840 depiction to show you some of the issues present at that time so because when i talk about western women, its rather challenging to show their roots. Even today. States or seven Western States or even 11 Western States or all states that have Rocky Mountains in them. People slice it and dice it in many different ways. I havent set up a definitive way for myself. I just thought i would have fun and share some women with you who come from what was either really a Western State or may be a Western State or whatever. I would alert you to some of our western sisters. Today its not very difficult to Research Women of the west. Their stories are very well documented. In the colorado womens hall of fame the wyoming house for historic women which is pictured here, it honors louisa swain. I had not heard of her. Along with 12 other wyoming women whose lives were impacted. Theres also the Montana Historical society, to name just a few places one can google or research. Other Western States such as arizona, new mexico, might we call new mexico a southWestern State . You see where i have some problems here. You can find out about the women if those states. Louisa swain, whose picture is there, i didnt know her before i began my research on western women. Think about this, in september of 1870 became the first woman to cast a ballot because,hhm wyg gave women the right to vote well before, you know, 1920 happened for the rest of the country. Again, scholars tease about that and say well, wyoming wanted to become a state and there arent enough people so they included women. I mean i dont know, but i think its kind of wonderful she was able to have the vote at that time. There were just hundreds of women who stand out in the west due to their strong character, their contributions to society, or just their plain old interesting personalities. Think about the many women who were the hearty pioneers. They crossed the vast prairie, mountains heading westward. Sherry and i were talking about it and said we didnt think if we were on those wagon trains we could have survived their lives. Their lot was in raising children, running a household that included, think about it, they made all the food processing, all the soap, all the candles, they made all the clothing by hand, if they had chickens and pigs and ducks and milked cows, it goes on and on all they did. They cooked, they sewed, they nurtured, they nursed illnesses in their own families, in their neighbors, they acted as midwives and in the meantime they started schools, started churches, occasionally they warded off indian attacks. Now there were, of course, other western women who took roles outside of the home and they formally began being recognized too. There were nurses. There were stage coach drivers and even a few physicians. A few women who dressed as men to participate as soldiers in some of our countrys wars. For those less fortunate women, many forced by circumstance, need, or sometimes just for the adventure of it, in the early west youll find female outlaw, female gamblers, powerful brothel madams, sometimes called homewreckers, black jack dealers and quite a number of women who were very euphemistically called soiled doves. Some wild west legendary women are noted in books such as ten notorious female outlaws from the wild west. In the days when the west was ruled by the gun, especially if a woman was on her own, it took a woman of great character and great resolve, strong resolve, to survive. Really, ive not chosen the best stories to tell or the mo poignant stories to tell or heartwarming. I just want you to enjoy the women i bring to your attention as i briefly tell their stories. Atoting wild west concept of legend that perhaps if you pardon the pun shoots down the view that life as a female pioneer was about cooking, sewing, cleaning, caring for children, et cetera. Of course i would be remiss if i didnt mention briefly anne evans since were presenting in the buyers evans house. The daughter of our second territorial governor john evans. I was reminded before the speech i went to Northwestern University which was founded by john evans and four of his friends in evanston, illinois. Anne was a very active supporter of the early art scene in colorado. I live in evergreen and a longtime dear friend of mine until she passed away was Barbara Sternberg and she wrote a fabulous book called anne evans a pioneer in colorado cultural history, the things that last when gold is gone. I believe that her coauthor spoke here about the book and evans. So she was described as an american arts patron. She devoted her life to the founding and support of some of colorados largest cultural institutions including the denver art museum, the central city opera and the Denver Public library. A western woman of some refinement i would say. I mean after all, she was born in england after all. Lets compare her to annie oakley. Now when talking about western women, you have to include her, right. Her birth name was phoebe moses. She was born in ohio in 1860. By the time she was 9 years old she was helping her family to survive. She had eight siblings. She helped them by shooting, hunting, and selling game and wild animals. Though she learned to use a rifle for practical reasons, she eventually became a skilled sharp shooter and joined the buffalo bill wild west show in 1885 and she toured with the show for 16 years. The show or celebration of the old west included skits of stage robberies, gun fights, military exhibitions, though most of the heros of that show show were me bills wild west show really celebrated her skills and she became one of the most famous women of the west. Some people say that annie oakley is our first female superstar. And she was given a nickname by chief sitting bull who was amazed at her skills. He called her little sure shot. I want to stop for a moment and review another serious issue for women of those earlier times. Now, remember they had no legal rights so limited in their legal rights, accepting the customs of Society Women mostly honored their husbands demands. And western women like women across the u. S. Spent their time you could say it with me, right, the mantra, cooking, cleaning, attending their children, the horses, milking the cows, the chickens, taken care of their endless, endless household chores. What women were doing in the u. S. Across the 1800s and i use that date because of the data point i found, at this time women were very busy having babies. In 1800 the per capita birthrate in the u. S. Per woman was 7. 04 per woman. At this time i know people are like i get it. At that time this was the highest birthrate in the world. Not china, not india, not any undeveloped country, africa. No, here in the u. S. , 7. 04. So there wasnt a lot of time for women to have other endeavors, right . Furthermore their Life Expectancy was a great deal shorter than ours. Remember i just noted annie oakley one of nine children, and ill bring those kinds of things to your attention as i go on. Think about it. Did women really have the time to be poets and painters, artists, activists, writers, wanderers . Women of the west, where did they find the time, the energy, the money . I mean, its true that some women did work outside the home. We know that, but oh, my goodness 7. 04. Did you ever hear of washtub pneumonia . I hadnt until i started this research. On the early life of Martha Canary who is now called Calamity Jane. When Calamity Jane was 13 her mother died of what is called washtub pneumonia. The phrase was used to describe respiratory ailments contracted by people who were laundresses in the cold camps and the gold camps, you know, the Western Mining camps. Because the cause they think was probably that the coal dust mixed with the detergents and with lye that was used at the time, so thats why her mother died of washtub pneumonia. Calamity jane, well there are many tales about how she got her name. No one really knows for sure. She was a tough cookie. She liked to dress like a man, dress in buckskins. When she was 16 years old her father diedmism remember she lost her mother at 13. Her father died at 16 and she was the eldest of six children, so she took on the role of being the head of the household. She moved her family to fort bridger, wyoming, and then onto piedmont. By the time she was 18 she had been a waitress, a cook, an ox team driver. She did everything she could to support her sisters. She the model of a west