Marianne Monson

Discover the stories of twelve women who heard the call to settle the west and who came from all points of the globe to begin their journey. As a slave, Clara watched helpless as her husband and children were sold, only to be reunited with her youngest daughter, as a free woman, six decades later. As a young girl, Charlotte hid her gender to escape a life of poverty and became the greatest stagecoach driver that ever lived. As a Native American, Gertrude fought to give her people a voice and to educate leaders about the ways and importance of America s native people. These are gripping miniature dramas of good-hearted women, selfless providers, courageous immigrants and migrants, and women with skills too innumerable to list. Many were crusaders for social justice and women s rights. All endured hardships, overcame obstacles, broke barriers, and changed the world. The author ties the stories of these pioneer women to the experiences of women today with the hope that they will be inspired to live boldly and bravely and to fill their own lives with vision, faith, and fortitude. To live with grit. "

The Unlikely True Stories of Daring Pioneer Women

Frontier Grit

Opera Sisters

Hidden amongst the photographs, uniforms, revolvers, and war medals of the Civil War are the remarkable stories of some of the most unlikely heroes--women. North, South, black, white, Native American, immigrant--the women in these micro-drama biographies are wives, mothers, sisters, and friends whose purposes ranged from supporting husbands and sons during wartime to counseling President Lincoln on strategy, from tending to the wounded on the battlefield to spiriting away slaves through the Underground Railroad, from donning a uniform and fighting unrecognized alongside the men to working as spies for either side. This book brings to light the incredible stories of women from the Civil War that remain relevant to our nation today. Each woman's experience helps us see a truer, fuller, richer version of what really happened in this country during this time period.

True Stories of Mothers, Medics, Soldiers, and Spies of the Civil War

Women of the Blue and Gray

An historically rich novel that brings to life the fascinating story of America's first female state senator, Martha Hughes Cannon, who was also a doctor, suffragist, and champion of public health in the frontier territory of Utah in the late 19th century. As a young girl traveling to Utah by wagon in 1861, Martha, or Mattie as she was called, was deeply influenced by the early struggles her family endured as frontier pioneers, including the premature deaths of her baby sister and father. From those early experiences, she found her calling. Alleviating physical suffering and healing became her goals, and Mattie worked with astounding dedication and resolve to achieve those goals. She began teaching school at age fourteen and worked as a typesetter for the influential Women's Exponent newspaper to pay for college where she graduated with a degree in chemistry. In 1880, Mattie stepped into the lecture hall of the University of Michigan medical school, the only woman in the class and one of a handful of women to attend the school in its history. The room erupted at her entrance--laughter, scoffing, voices calling out, and more than one person muttering about the "hen medic." Many male professors, thinking it indelicate, refused to discuss anatomy if women students were in the room, and they were often forced to observe from an annex area outside the regular classroom. Resolved and single-minded, Mattie graduated from medical school at the age twenty-three, the only female in her class. As a doctor, she returned to frontier Utah, set up a medical practice, and established classes for midwives where she lectured on obstetrics. As a suffragette, she was outspoken at the Columbia Exposition of Chicago, where she delivered a rousing speech on behalf of women's rights. She married in secrecy at age twenty-seen, and later lived in exile for two years because her husband practiced plural marriage, which was illegal, and she didn't want to testify against him. She returned to Utah in 1888 and took an active part in politics and women's suffrage. She ran for office as a Democrat against the Republican candidate, who was her husband and won, becoming the first woman ever elected as a state senator in the US. This is the first historical fiction novel based on the real life of Martha Hughes Cannon, a woman whose extraordinary life as a pioneer woman paralleled the life of the nation, struggling to grow and expand westward, wrestling with the rights and freedoms guaranteed to all its citizens, including women, and overcoming tremendous odds and roadblocks by forging the uniquely American spirit of the west: independence, innovation, dedication, and stick-to-itiveness which defined her generation and this chapter in American history.

Marianne Monson

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