Women of the frontier: 16 tales of trailblazing homesteaders, entrepreneurs, and rabble-rousers

Many a weary mile. Margret Reed: surviving starvation in the Sierra Nevada ; Amelia Stewart Knight: on the Oregon trail

Oh, give me a home. Narcissa Whitman: alone, in the thick darkness of heathendom ; Miriam Davis Colt: an experiment in Kansas ; Frances Grummond: Army wife in Wyoming

A woman that can work. Luzena Stanley Wilson: California gold fever ; Clara Brown: African American pioneer ; Bethenia Owens-Adair: female physician

And now the fun begins. Martha Dartt Maxwell: Colorado naturalist ; Charlotte "Lotta" Crabtree: "Golden wonder" of the stage

Great expectations for the future. Mary Elizabeth Lease: political firebrand ; Carry Nation: "Hachetation" against the devil's brew

Clash of cultures. Rachel Parker Plummer and Cynthia Ann Parker: the captive and the "white squaw" ; Sarah Winnemucca: Life among the Paiutes ; Susette La Flesche: "an Indian is a person"

Love song to the West.