Pioneer Women in Fact and Fiction: Kansas Nebraska South Dakota, 1860 - 1900

Abstract

Using history books, personal accounts, and fiction, this study will focus not only on pioneer life, but also on the role played by women in the settling of the prairie. Furthermore, fictional families who made their homes in Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota between 1068 -1890 will be the primary focus of this study. Historical and personal accounts will serve to validate the imaginative literature and serve as a basis for comparisons of the pioneer experiences. This study by no means attempts to be conclusive, but it does attempt to examine representative literature to determine what the role of women was in the pioneer experience as a whole. Limiting the geographical and chronological setting makes this study regional in nature, and allows for a number of parallel experiences to be examined.