Texas Women on the Cattle Trails
Texas Women on the Cattle Trails tells the stories of sixteen women who drove cattle up the trail from Texas during the last half of the nineteenth century. Some were young; some were old (over 30). Some took to the trails by choice; others, out of necessity. Some went along to look at the stars; others, to work the cattle. Some made money and built ranching empires, but others went broke and lived hard, even desperate lives.
Like the cowboys on cattle drives, they faced dust and heat, thirst and exhaustion, rustlers and Indians, stampedes and prairie fires. Drawing heavily on the accounts of the women themselves, the authors of these chapters vividly illustrate the complexity and diversity of women’s experiences on the cattle trails. Their stories of cattle drives and moving cattle to distant pastures add an important chapter to the story of life in the real Old West.
Click here to see the archived chat for Texas Women on the Cattle Trails
Texas First Lady Anita Perry from Texas Monthly Talks on Vimeo.
Tanya Tucker Presents Frontier Women
Courtesy of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image
Produced by Jim Ruddy and presented by the Shell Companies Foundation and the Texas Committee for the Humanities, The Texas Experience presents the history of Texas through a series of one-minute clips.
Miriam “Ma” Ferguson
Produced by Jim Ruddy and presented by the Shell Companies Foundation and the Texas Committee for the Humanities, The Texas Experience presents the history of Texas through a series of one-minute clips.
Emma Tenayuca
Watch a character portrayal of Emma Tenayuca La Pasionaria, leader of the striking pecan-shellers in 1939 Texas. Voiceovers tell details about Tenayuca’s story and her struggles to bring the group justice.
Produced by Veronica J. Cavazos.