“chris enss”

"WANTED: A girl who will love, honest, true and not sour;a nice little cooing dove, and willing to work in flour."Desperate to strike it rich during the Gold Rush, thousands of men traveled West to the emerging frontier, where they outnumbered women twelve to one. Only after they arrived did some of... More

From Sacramento to Los Angeles, San Francisco to Nevada City, the frontier towns of California were populated by some of the toughest and most dangerous characters in the West. Tom Bell, the flat-nosed, felon doctor had his "Catch me if you can!" motto finally catch up to him when he was hanged afte... More

A crumbling headstone in the cemetery at Bodie, California, memorializes Rosa May, a prostitute still known for caring for the sick. In Deadwood, South Dakota, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, infamous to the end, lie interred side by side, per Jane's last request. And at the top of Lookout Mount... More

"Place your bets, place your bets . . ." From the muddy cowtowns of Montana to the posh parlors of Deadwood and Tombstone, past a succession of swinging batwing doors to the smoke-filled rooms in the back, some of the most colorful ladies in the Wild West also happened to be some of the shrewdest ga... More

Did you know that pioneer women sewed lead in their hems to keep their dresses from billowing on the trail? Or that hatless men had to wear bonnets to protect their eyes from the scorching sun?From old familiar Levi's to the short-lived "instant dress elevator," How the West Was Worn examines the so... More

"What we want to do is give our women even more liberty than they have. Let them do any kind of work that they see fit, and if they do it as well as men, give them the same pay." William F. Cody-1899With rough-riding cowboys, sure shots, and fantastic reenactments of battles and train robberies, Buf... More

"The grandest and healthiest life known is this rough pioneer life. And I don't see why more women are not in the hills." --Lillian Malcolm, 1905As owners of claims and as workers on the land, female miners made fortunes panning and mining, working right alongside men in the copper, silver, and gold... More

The picture of the early American West would not be complete without a fashionably dressed madam standing at the top of the saloon stairs surveying the activity below. More than just casual observers, these tough-talking and whip-smart women often had a pistol hidden in the folds of their skirts, re... More

Moving portraits of twelve courageous women who taught--and tamed--the Wild WestBetween 1847 and 1858, more than six hundred female teachers traveled across the frontier to provide youngsters with an education, and the numbers grew rapidly in the decades to come. Enduring hardship, the dozen women w... More

In 1944 Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lit up the silver screen in The Cowboy and the Senorita, making their names - and lives - inseparable. It was the start of a fifty-six-year partnership that included thirty motion pictures, a long-running hit television series, and a family of nine children. The Cow... More