by Katie Hickman tells the stories of the West from an often-overlooked female perspective. The intensely researched book looks at more than 800 diaries, letters, and personal writings from 1836, when two missionaries became the first white women to attempt the overland passage west, to 1880, when the frontier melded officially into the settled territory of the West. Hickman pays particular attention to stories that have otherwise been marginalized, sharing perspectives of Native American women, Chinese immigrants, and formerly enslaved people whose stories are indissoluble from the fabric of American history. (Non-Fiction)