Women Storytellers of the American West
Shaping Stories with Changing Media, 1860-1975
Women Storytellers of the American West
Shaping Stories with Changing Media, 1860-1975
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Description
Examining American history through female storytelling about and within the American West in literature, film, radio, theater, and television.
It spotlights how women across various communities developed archetype female characters from history, solidified female intellectual traditions, and chronicled shifts in society from San Francisco to Hollywood, and from the Midwest to Western boomtowns. Some women created novels, short stories, and dramas delineating or challenging gender roles, while others told stories to cut through male-dominating cowboy narratives.
Also covered here are some of the naturalist/environmentalist writers who redefined women as equal partners to men in the Western landscape. Their collective works speak of a need for respect, reforms, and economic equity within marriage, self-determination, and full citizenship for themselves and their daughters. Written with the 21st century reader in mind, entries are organized chronologically and can be read as standalone accounts or together for a more comprehensive view. Sidebars provide a nuanced look at similarities and differences within Western female writing about environment, race, colonialism, and gender.
Table of Contents
Chronology
Introduction: Storytelling and American "Effective Settlement"
Part I: The West Before the New Media
1. The Decline of the Primordial Storytellers (Pre-history to the Gold Rush)
2. The Seeds for Archetype Characters in Boomtown San Francisco (1848-1859)
3. Women Writers Establishing Counterpoints to the “Golden Era” (1859-1870)
4. San Francisco's Professional Women and the New Resistance (1869-1879)
5. Allegory as Speculative and Science Fiction (1867-1910)
6. The Evolution of the Stylistic Newspaper Woman (1890-1900)
7. The Naturalists and Cultural Synthesizers (1890-1919)
Part 2: Creating New Memory for New Media
8. “Les Jeunes” (The Youth) and San Francisco's Bohemian Aesthetic (1880-1915)
9. The Great Shake Up: The Earthquake and Marketing Media (1906-1915)
10. Native Americans and the Breakup of Historic Memory (1870-1923)
11. Characterizing Chinese in California, 1848-1919
12. Women and the Emergence of Young Adult Literature (1901-1915)
13. The Propagandists: Ensemble Narratives and New Media (1907-1924)
14. Storytelling about the Wyoming Cattle Wars (1902)
Part 3: The Citizen Female Storyteller Educating from the West with Changing Media
15. Pulp Fiction Redefining Gender Roles (1906-1923)
16. Young Women Drive the Hollywood Boom as Extra-Girls (1918-1929)
17. Radio Land, Pulp Fiction, and the Decline of Real Cowboys (1920-1939)
18. Pulp Fiction Re-imagining Idealized Gender Roles in Family Movies (1930-1945)
19. Women Repurposing of Pulp Fiction with Changing Media (1939-1959)
20. Tokenism in Media Storytelling from World War II to the Vietnam War (1940-1975)
21. Reinventing the American Western for Changing Media Consumers (1957-1979)
Part 4: Primary Sources
Condensed Version of the Constitutional Debates
Miscellaneous Newspaper Advertisements
Poetry of the Pacific: Selections and Original Poems from Poets of the Pacific, edited by May Wentworth. San Francisco: Pacific Publishing Company, 1867.
Adeline Knapp Outlook
Josephine Clifford McCrackin: “A Lady in a Forest Fire”
B. M. Bower Illustrates the Female Maverick
Mary Austin Songs and Juveniles Shaping Memory
Anna Verona Dorris on Audio-Visual Instruction
Dorothy M. Johnson on Expression in Business Letter-Writing
Script Extra Gunsmoke, “The Summons” Not Used
Glossary of American Western Terms and Tropes
Bibliography
About the Author
Product details
| Published | Nov 12 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 368 |
| ISBN | 9798216390367 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 30 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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