Susan G. Butruille

This book contains two parts: a history of women on the Oregon Trail and a guide to women’s history along the Oregon Trail. The latter lists and describes in some detail various sites including museums, parks, statues, homes, historical markers, etc. concerning women. It is a useful guide in trip planning; my husband and I looked up a few places we were interested in visiting on a Western trip this summer. Although I have glanced through this section, I have not read it in any detail.

This show more book is titled Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail probably because Ms. Butruille makes extensive use of excerpts from women’s writings especially diaries and correspondence and to a lesser extents music of the period. Often these messages are almost strung together with relatively little text between them. Some of the writings are from published works, in which case Ms. Butruille gives their source in endnotes. Several of the women -- especially Keturah (Kit) Belknap and to a lesser extent Abigail Scott Duniway, Amelia Stewart Knight, Agnes Stewart, and Helen Stuart – are quoted extensively.

The text written by Ms. Butruille tends to get repetitious, with the same topic covered in different chapters. For example, Ms. Butruille discusses the Cult of Domesticity both on pages 44-45 in chapter 2 and on page 78 in chapter 4. Several times she mentioned the difficulty of washing clothing, usually on Mondays.

Prior to writing the book, Ms. Butruille and her mother made the trip by car, and at times the author compares what the pioneers went through with today’s traveling, which seemed at bit out of place in the main text. Their travels were interesting in the Prelude and Postlude surrounding the text.

Includes Location of source material, Endnotes, Bibliography, and Index at the end. The index includes personal names, place names, and concepts and appears to be accurate. show less