Women Go West: A Frontier DBQ

Why on Earth would women pick up and leave a home to go to a wild west wilderness in the 1840s, 50s and 60s? There are hundreds of extant settler women's diaries of the period - they need to be read and cherished for the invaluable resource that they are! Using relevant passages, students will read and analyze primary documents supported by some secondary sources for context to see the dangers of the western trails for themselves.