- Term
Women in the American West
- Qualifier
selected objects
- Remarks
Women have shaped the Western landscape through choices about how to sustain their homes and families, how to build communities, and how to claim meaningful lives for themselves. Exploring history from a woman's point of view reveals that the West was neither empty land nor easily claimed. To indigenous women from many cultures, the West has been home for more than 10,000 years. Women also played complex roles in shaping interactions between different cultures. They both resisted and participated in European conquests of the West. American Indian women, Hispanic women from Spanish/Mexican frontiers, and female immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries struggled to hold the homes they claimed. Despite hardships, women also seized new opportunities in the West for work, business, art, education, and political equality. Women continue to fashion identities in the West through their connections to diverse pasts, creating new legacies in the process. Women in the American West guides you through a selection of the Museum of the American West's collections with a spotlight on women. Think of it as your personal tour guide as you explore how women-real and symbolic-perform starring roles in our mythologies of the West and how everyday objects reveal the ways in which women from different backgrounds experience shaped the West.
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Looking for Women in the Everyday West (selected objects)