Women's History Month: Unspoken Heroines

One of my passions is reading women’s diaries and journals, particularly those of the westward movement.  My personal library includes upwards of over fifty of these journals.   In reflecting on women’s history and contributions the following quote from the book “More than Petticoats……Remarkable Montana Women” by Gayle Shirley  is applicable to begin Women’s History Month:

“There are unwritten chapters in the history of every new settlement, which no pen will ever write, but could they be written, they would tell of the many heroines as well as heroes, women as brave and deserving of credit as those who landed from the Mayflower.  They have had much to do in the ‘winning of the west,’ and a higher civilization has always followed closely in the footsteps of the woman pioneer.”

                                    ……Lucia Darling Park, 1839-1905, Pioneering Teacher, Montana.

Gayle Shirley has a series of More Than Petticoats books detailing women’s remarkable lives from various states.  See http://www.gayleshirley.com/