One Step Over the Line Toward a History of Women in the North American Wests

A co-publication with the University of Alberta Press

This unfamiliar territory is the borderlands of women’s histories traversing the American and Canadian Wests. Specialists in women’s history, settler societies, colonialism, storytelling, education, and native and borderlands studies introduced by Elizabeth Jameson and Sheila McManus pool their distinct contributions toward forging the very first comparative, transnational collection of its kind.

“We cannot build bridges across unmapped divides.”

Sixteen essays arising from the “Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West through Women’s History” conference at the University of Calgary comprise this foundational text. One Step Over the Line is not only the map; it is the bridgework to span the transnational, gendered divide—a must for readers who have been searching for a wide, inclusive perspective on our western past.

About the Author

Elizabeth Jameson held the Imperial Oil-Lincoln McKay Chair in American Studies at the University of Calgary and is the author of All that Glitters: Class, Conflict, and Community in Cripple Creek (1999). Sheila McManus is associate professor of history at the University of Lethbridge in southern Alberta.

Reviews

…do not approach this book with trepidation. It is not pedantic in the least. In fact, it’s a gem…. All 16 [essays] are clear, well-written and appealing pieces in which the eternally rehashed and reheated Famous Five rate nary a mention. Instead, we meet little-known women whose stories, centred on the theme of border crossing, whether geographic or spiritual, are fascinating…. Never revisionist, always fresh and insightful, One Step Over the Line speaks as much to women’s lives today as it does to those of the past.

Calgary Herald

In taking up the challenges of comparative and transnational history, Jameson, McManus, and the sixteen contributors have produced a collection remarkable for its synthesis, iconoclasm, and insight… The collection’s superb contextualization of events, along with its persuasive challenges to the ideas, themes, and categories prominent in Western history, make it a potentially thought-provoking classroom tool and worthwhile reading for any student of Western history.

Chris Clarkson, BC Studies

Students and the general public will find much to appreciate among the individual articles in this collection. Taken as a whole, though, the volume is most useful as a call to arms for scholars to embrace a wide range of research methods to pursue a fuller understanding of the complexities of gender, race, and nationhood in the U.S.-Canada borderlands.

Cynthia Culver Prescott, Western Historical Quarterly

One Step Over the Line is an excellent book. It continues the work of multiethnic, cross-class explorations of women’s experiences within an innovative framework.

Renee M. Laegried, Great Plains Quarterly

This is a vitally important contribution to the history of western women. All who teach and research in this field will profit from the work the individual scholars have done, and the wonderful unity of purpose that the editors have imposed on the book as a whole. In addition the individual essays are beautifully penned narratives that tell individual and family stories that are often moving. They will linger in the readers’ memory long after they have finished the final page of the book. Few history volumes have that impact.

Shirley A. Leckie, New Mexico Historical Review

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Section One: Talking Across Borders
   1. 1. Connecting the Women’s Wests / Elizabeth Jameson
   2. 2. Unsettled Pasts, Unsettling Borders: Women, West, Nations / Sheila McManus
3. Section Two: Re-imagining Region
   1. 3. Making Connections: Gender, Race, and Place in Oregon Country / Susan Armitage
   2. 4. A Transborder Family in the Pacific North West: Reflecting on Race and Gender in Women’s History / Sylvia Van Kirk
4. Section Three: People, Place, and Stories
   1. 5. Writing Women into the History of the North American Wests, One Woman at a Time / Jean Barman
   2. 6. “That Understanding with Nature”: Region, Race, and Nation in Women’s Stories from the Modern Canadian and American Grasslands West / Molly P. Rozum
   3. 7. The Perils of Rural Women’s History (A Note to Storytellers Who Study the West’s Unsettled Past) / Joan M. Jensen
5. Section Four: Pushing the Boundaries
   1. 8. The Great White Mother: Maternalism and American Indian Child Removal in the American West, 1880-1940 / Margaret D. Jacobs
   2. 9. Pushing Physical, Racial, and Ethnic Boundaries: Edith Lucas and Public Education in British Columbia, 1903-1989 / Helen Raptis
6. Section Five: Border Crossers
   1. 10. “Crossing the Line”: American Prostitutes om Western Canada, 1895-1925 / Char Smith
   2. 11. “Talented and Charming Strangers From Across the Line”: Gendered Nationalism, Class Privilege, and the American Woman’s Club of Calgary / Nora Faires
   3. 12. Excerpts from Pourin’ Down Rain / Cheryl Foggo
7. Section Six: The Borderlands of Women’s Work
   1. 13. “A Union Without Women is Only Half Organized”: Mine Mill, Women’s Auxiliaries, and Cold War Politics in the North American Wests / Laurie Mercier
   2. 14. Jailed Heroes and Kitchen Heroines: Class, Gender, and the Medalta Potteries Strike in Postwar Alberta / Cynthia Loch-Drake
8. Section Seven: Teaching Beyond Borders
   1. 15. Gendered Steps Across the Border: Teaching the History of Women in the American and Canadian Wests / Margaret Walsh
   2. 16. Latitudes and Longitudes: Teaching the History of Women in the U.S. and Canadian Wests / Mary Murphy
9. Contributors / Index

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.