Lesson 4: Renegade Women
The women discussed in this lesson were not necessarily outlaws, just women who for some reason could not or did not wish to conform to the role expected of them in society. In this section of the course we will take a look at the lives of Calamity Jane and several other rough, tough women who drank, smoked cigars and wore men's clothing.
Wild Women of the West
In this lesson, we will take a look at the extraordinary lives of Calamity Jane, Poker Alice, Charlie Parkhurst and Sally Skull. Not all the women in this lesson were outlaws. Some, like Calamity Jane, simply did not wish to conform to the role expected of her in society. Instead, she preferred to go her own way, to dress as she pleased, and to spend her time in bars and pursue occupations normally held by men. This rebellion led to both admiration and censure on the part of her contemporaries. Though many tales have been written about her heroic adventures, the ladies of Deadwood once took it upon themselves to "clean her up" by giving her a bath and cutting her hair, an act of charity Jane did not appreciate.
During the early days of settlement, a woman needed to have grit and courage in order to survive. Because of the constant dangers from Indian attacks and other hazards, many of the women, from an early age, learned to ride a horse and shoot like a man. Calamity Jane learned her shooting skills on the trek westward with her family. Charlie Parkhurst began dressing as a man to escape an orphanage and continued to do so after learning skills more suited to a male than a female.
Women who did not conform to society's ideas of who they should be or how they should act often took on a tough, masculine role to pursue a job normally held by men. Calamity Jane often masqueraded as a man when she served as a scout or as a muleskinner. Charlie Parkhurst assumed a masculine identity in order to keep the job she loved--driving a stagecoach. She could not have held this job, traditionally held by men, if the truth of her gender had been known.
Sally Skull, horse trader, would not have gained the fear and respect of her fellow traders if she had been wearing skirts.
Other women discovered they had a skill or interest that was definitely unladylike. Poker Alice's penchant for playing cards kept her out of the mainstream of genteel society.
Not all of the women in this lesson were outlaws, though all of them lived outside the rules of society. Calamity Jane worked hard and was described as being kind-hearted. She probably did more good deeds than bad. However she also was known to have worked as a prostitute and had a heavy drinking problem. While Poker Alice did not commit any hard crimes, she ran a bordello as well as a card-playing establishment. Sally Skull not only lived outside the role expected of her gender, but was also a dangerous criminal who murdered a countless number of her rivals in the competitive horse trade. These women in this lesson came from diverse backgrounds and had different motivations for how they lived their lives. But in one way they were the same--all of them defied the roles set for them by society. The purpose of this lesson is to explore the lives of these renegade women and see how they came to be who they were. Sources used in this lesson include Women of the Western Frontier in Fact, Fiction and Film, Lackmann, Ron McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1997., and Ladies of the Lamplight Blair, Kay Reynolds. Western Reflections Publishing, Ouray, CO. 2000.
