wild women

In the 1850s, outfits for women and men were topped off with a hat. Most children and all adults wore some kind of head covering in public. The bonnet was the most common hat worn by women. Made from a wide range of material from calico and straw to velvet and silk taffeta, the brim...

A magnificent palomino carried its rider past a regiment of soldiers marching toward their quarters at Fort Phil Kearny, a rugged Wyoming outpost. The soldier’s heads turned to watch as the curious rider sauntered up the dusty thoroughfare to the post mercantile. The figure in the saddle pushed back a wolf fur hat and squinted...

Pioneer award winning rodeo performer. Such a title conjures up images of courage, stamina, and old-fashion grit. But Fannie Sperry was not only a plucky horsewoman. She was a forthright, attractive, and gentle lady, whose life revolved around her love of horses and remarkable skill with them. On a Montana ranch in 1819, a little girl toddled...

The discovery of gold in California in 1849 sparked a raging fever in thousands of Argonauts hoping to strike it rich. Among the flood of fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands that ventured west were mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives. Although they were few in number, women shoveled and picked through tons of gravel working shoulder...

The faces around the poker table in “Poker Alice’s” gambling house in Deadwood, South Dakota, were nonchalant but their nonchalance only veiled excitement. Only the face of “Poker Alice” showed absolutely no flicker of tautness. She shifted her cigar to the other corner of her mouth and narrowly watched the face of the man holding...

A hush fell over the large crowd at the rodeo arena in Salt Lake City, Utah, in July 1938 as daredevil rider Alice Sisty raced into the arena atop two English jumpers. She was standing on the backs of the animals with one foot on one horse and the other foot on the second mount,...

“Marriage is such an ancient institution and has in all ages excited such universal interest among the human family, that in offering to the public a journal especially devoted to the promotion of marital facility, we feel sure we are only supplying a national want.”   Leslie Fraser Duncan, Editor/Owner Matrimonial News – 1870 The matrimonial...

Business for matrimonial publications between 1870 and 1900, increased substantially whenever stories of successful mail-order connections were made.  Editors for periodicals such as Matrimonial News and the New Plan Company shared happy ever after tales with daily newspapers in hopes they would print the romantic adventures of correspondence couples.   Several such stories appeared in newspapers...