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Book Review
Canada and the United States
Dee Garceau. The Important Things of Life: Women, Work, and Family in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, 18801929. (Women in the West.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1997. Pp. x, 215. $45.00.
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This book centers on women's prominence in the settlement of southwestern Wyoming from 1880 to 1930. Dee Garceau argues that "survival required adjustments that expanded women's work roles and increased their domestic authority," within a context of "group cooperation" (p. 1). A wide range of sources informs this study: oral histories (including native-born and foreign-born informants), personal writings, folklore and songs, newspapers, and the U.S. manuscript census. Garceau's findings contribute to our understanding of how migration and settlement reshaped the lives of both immigrant and native-born American women and their daughters in the West. |
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Like many places in the West, the mines, towns, and ranches of Sweetwater County owe much to the Union Pacific Railroad, not only for the rail line but also, in the early 1870s, for the discovery of rich coal deposits that attracted miners, mostly foreign born, and encouraged the development of towns. A decade later, cheap land and the availability of water drew cattle ranchers, mostly native born. Garceau utilizes these two separate orbsone urban, mining-oriented, and foreign born, and the other rural, ranching-oriented, and native bornto provide comparisons. |
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