FREE: The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West (Women of the West) [Paperback]

The listing, The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West (Women of the West) [Paperback] has ended.

Dee Brown is a novelist and historian best known for his masterpiece Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Although Gentle Tamers is an entertaining read, the difference in tone and style between 1958 and 1970 is remarkable. People who came to this book expecting something similar to Bury My Heart will be probably be disappointed. This is a much lighter work, and dated in a way that Bury My Heart is not. It is still a remarkably researched and well-written work, so the fact that it is different should not dissuade you from reading it.

Brown looks at the different categories of women western pioneers and works out his thesis that while the men settled the western US states, it was the women who civilized it. His different chapters include: hardships of the journey; women captured by Native Americans; women of easy virtue; performers; rebels; schoolteachers; and homesteading housewives. He provides ample stories and pictures to accompany the different categories.

I enjoyed reading Gentle Tamers although I did not find what I was looking for (more information about Narcissa Whitman). The stories are lively and entertaining. It reads quickly, and Brown is a very smooth and skilled writer.

There are several wince-worthy moments in the very 1950s language around Native Americans and women (very surprising given that the vocabulary was totally gone by the time he published Bury My Heart). For a serious treatment of issues of women in the West, I would look elsewhere. This book is clearly more focused on well-researched and light anecdote.