American Women and the Oregon Trail: 1840-1860

Abstract

Today Americans have little knowledge or understanding of the migration of Americans into the West during the 1840’s and 1850’s. In particular, Americans are not aware of the contribution that women made to the development of the American West during this period. For a woman, migrating to, and settling in, the West was a frightening and exhausting ordeal; but an ordeal over which they prevailed, decisively. The objective of this thesis is to bring about a better understanding of the women who journeyed to the West; what they endured during the journey, and the contribution they made to the development of a civilized American society at their destinations.

For purposes of achieving this thesis’ objective we will examine women’s experiences before, during and after what is known as the Oregon Trail; a two thousand one-hundred-mile journey, undertaken during the 1840’s and 1850’s, across absolute wilderness, from points on the Missouri River to the Willamette River Valley, in the Oregon Territory. This thesis is focused upon the Oregon Trail, in particular, because it was undertaken not for the purpose of religious separation such as the Mormon’s journey to Salt Lake, nor was it undertaken for the mining of gold as was the case for much of the travel to California during this period, nor was it undertaken for the purpose of trade as was the case for what was known as the Santa Fe Trail. Rather, the Oregon Trail was undertaken primarily to travel from one homestead in order to create another homestead: a homestead requiring the presence of a family; a husband, and a wife, and children, all prepared to make their respective contributions to the success of the enterprise. With the Oregon Trail we have a ‘clearer slide’ for our analytical microscope.

This thesis examines scholarly work on the subject as well as individual diaries, journals and letters written by women who travelled the Oregon Trail. In getting to Oregon between 1840 and 1860, and in creating successful homesteads, businesses, political structures, and an encompassing, supportive society, women made an effort and contribution that should be better appreciated by Americans. Professor John M. Faragher wrote in the introduction to his book Women and Men on the Overland Trail, “Still, despite the thousands of pages in print [of diaries, journals, letters by travelers], interesting scholarly interpretations of the Overland Trail experience are a relatively rare commodity and there is ample room for new scholarship.”