For a long time, the American West was mainly identified with white masculinity, but as more women鈥檚 narratives of westward expansion came to light, scholars revised purely patriarchal interpretations. Writing the Trail continues in this vein by providing a comparative literary analysis of five frontier narratives鈥擲usan Magoffin's Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico, Sarah Royce鈥檚 A Frontier Lady, Louise Clappe鈥檚 The Shirley Letters, Eliza Farnham鈥檚 California, In-doors and Out, and Lydia Spencer Lane鈥檚 I Married a Soldier鈥攖o explore the ways in which women鈥檚 responses to the western environment differed from men鈥檚.
Throughout their very different journeys鈥攆rom an eighteen-year-old bride and self-styled 鈥渨andering princess鈥 on the Santa Fe Trail, to the mining camps of northern California, to garrison life in the Southwest鈥攖hese women moved out of their traditional positions as objects of masculine culture. Initially disoriented, they soon began the complex process of assimilating to a new environment, changing views of power and authority, and making homes in wilderness conditions.
Because critics tend to consider nineteenth-century women鈥檚 writings as confirmations of home and stability, they overlook aspects of women鈥檚 textualizations of themselves that are dynamic and contingent on movement through space. As the narratives in Writing the Trail illustrate, women鈥檚 frontier writings depict geographical, spiritual, and psychological movement. By tracing the journeys of Magoffin, Royce, Clappe, Farnham, and Lane, readers are exposed to the subversive strength of travel writing and come to a new understanding of gender roles on the nineteenth-century frontier.
鈥泪苍 Writing the Trail, Deborah Lawrence鈥檚 thoughtfully rendered portraits of five westering women poignantly depict the dynamic interplay between traveler and frontier lands. In a clear, accessible style, Lawrence casts these compelling, memorable narratives and shows us the West from a decidedly woman鈥檚 perspective.鈥濃擲usan Imbarrato, author, Traveling Women: Narrative Visions of Early America
鈥淒eborah Lawrence effectively translates scholarship into lucid prose that interconnects history, biography, analysis, and scholarship. She breaks new ground with her selection of writers and gives us fresh insight into the cultural dynamics of an age as well as the evolution of modern, industrial, and postindustrial American life. Writing the Trail is a significant contribution to women鈥檚 studies, American literature, American western literature, and memoir/life-writing studies.鈥濃擲usan Naramore Maher, professor and chair, University of Nebraska at Omaha
