Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and Rabble-Rousers

Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and Rabble-Rousers — page 5
and Scandinavia also joined the hopefuls heading west Most pioneers especially those heading to the goldfields of California were single men But families and a handful of single women undertook the west ern journey too Of the 50 000 people journeying west in 1852 about 7 000 were women John Sutter's mill Sacramento California The discovery of gold here led to a gold rush of emigrants From Story of the Great Republic by Helene Guerber To meet the emigrants needs publishers churned out manuals like The National Wagon Road Guide and The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California Unfortu nately too many guidebooks proved dangerously unreliable One manual even assured readers that notions of toil hardship and danger on the trail grew from their own fruitful imagination 4 And though women too studied the manuals the books offered Back to page 322 Page 13