Women's History Month 2022: Women of the Northern Plains

In this third week of Women's History Month, we are looking at social history books that will help you better understand her life.

Title: Women of the Northern Plains: Gender & Settlement on the Homestead Frontier 1870-1930

Author:  Barbara Handy-Marchello

Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press

Synopsis: 

"In Women of the Northern Plains, Barbara Handy-Marchello tells the stories of the unsung heroes of North Dakota's settlement era: the farm women. As the men struggled to raise and sell wheat, the women focused on barnyard labor--raising chickens and cows and selling eggs and butter--to feed and clothe their families and maintain their households through booms and busts. Handy-Marchello details the hopes and fears, the challenges and successes of these women--from the Great Dakota Boom of the 1870s and '80s to the impending depression and drought of the 1930s. Women of the frontier willingly faced drudgery and loneliness, cramped and unconventional living quarters, the threat of prairie fires and fierce blizzards, and the isolation of homesteads located miles from the nearest neighbor. Despite these daunting realities, Dakota farm women cultivated communities among their distant neighbors, shared food and shelter with travelers, developed varied income sources, and raised large families, always keeping in sight the ultimate goal: to provide the next generation with rich, workable land. Enlivened by interviews with pioneer families as well as diaries, memoirs, and other primary sources, Women of the Plains uncovers the significant and changing roles of Dakota farm women who were true partners to their husbands, their efforts marking the difference between success and failure for their families." (Project Muse)

Why You Need This Book: 

"She was just a farmer's wife." Please. Don't say that. Learn what life was like for that time and location for farmer's wives. There are a number of academic press-type books that study this. Farmer's and farmer's wives lives can be studied and shouldn't be discounted so quickly. This is one book that can help. This book's chapters look at marriage and family, work, butter and egg production.