Experiences of Men and Women in Texas

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3 (A), Dresden Technical University (Anglistics/American Studies), course: Seminar: Community, Race, & Gender on the 19th-Century American Frontier, 4 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper carries the title Experiences of men and women in Texas and is closely related to the subject of the Nineteenth Century American Frontier, the Voices of Frontier Women in specific. The westward expansion connected to the different frontiers in North America brought along new opportunities, of which making a fortune and leading a better life can be mentioned. According to Frederick Jackson Turner s The Significance of the Frontier in American History , the frontier life many people sought furnished them with traits that dominate the American character today:§"That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom - these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier."§In the seminar this paper refers to, several frontiers were mentioned and discussed. Among them the Hispanic and the Indian Frontiers as well as the Ranching and Cattle Frontier, all of which seem to play a role in Jo Ella Powell Exley s Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine. This book forms the basis of the findings following this foreword.§In it, sixteen Frontier Women describe parts of their lives, whether it be conflicts with Indians and Yankee soldiers or struggles against natural forces. It covers a time frame from about 1821 until about 1905, thus, of course, including the year 1890 when the Bureau of the Census declared the frontier closed. This time frame is divided into four stages, which, as it becomes obvious from looking at the Table of Contents, was transferred here.