Uncommon Common Women

Based on the successful lecture/performance that Anne Butler and Ona Siporin have been presenting throughout the Intermountain West for several years, this work brings their art, scholarship and wisdom to the printed page. Uncommon Common Women will broaden and enrich the general reader's understanding of women's lives during the western emigration era.
The authors cast a wide net; they are not interested in promoting the stereotypes of the West - the schoolmarm and the dance hall girl - but rather in bringing to notice the forgotten roles and gritty realities of women's lived experience during what was often a brutally difficult time.

Uncommon Common Women is a multi-genre collection that will broaden and enrich the general reader's understanding of women's lives during the western emigration era. Uncommon Common Women is not about the school marm or the dance hall girl, rather it focuses on the forgotten roles and gritty realities of women's lives during an often brutally difficult time. Featured are nonwhite pioneers, indigenous women, criminals, nuns, educators, and suffragists. By combining historical narrative with storytelling and photographs, Uncommon Common Women takes the reader on a rich and rewarding historical journey of many images and many voices. Uncommon Common Women is a highly recommended, painstakingly researched, exceptionally well presented addition to all women's studies and western studies collections and reading lists. -- Midwest Book Review