Women Coming To The West Essay

The West was and still remains a symbol of opportunity. It was a place of opportunity for families who were struggling in East; which was starting to get industrialized and the gap between social classes was increasing. Thus the government started to encourage settlement by giving grants for land, the railroad Their ride to the West was filled with hardships more so for women than for men. Women had to take care of the children, feed their families and keep a home in the wagons. Women had worked for more hours than men. In the West, women had to engage in “unladylike work” which allowed women’s views of womanhood change as they had to deal with things such as farming, building a house from scratch, which they didn’t had to back in the East.

However this benefited women coming to the West, because they had the opportunity to earn a living, by doing domestic work such as laundry, cooking, sewing and others domestic shores. But also, they were those women who were even able to set-up businesses that were normally only done by men such as gambling places and hotels. Prostitution was another “job” women took. Which, even though, had many consequences in the long run; in the short run it was an opportunity to have an income. The Gold Rush brought many opportunities for women in the West; to earn a living for themselves and for their families. But is important to remember that these opportunities were exclusive to white women. On the other side of the sphere, there were the Mexican-American women, who had to fight oppression. Before become part of the US, the women of this California area, were doing good. Under Mexican law, they were able to have control of their land. These lead to the opportunity of inheriting businesses and taking over ranches after male figures death. Some were daughters, mothers and wives of wealthy landowners and politicians; others were market women, nuns and farmers. But as California became part of the US, women had to abide by their laws, thus leading to a lot of Mexican women falling into poverty and living off poorly paid domestic labor when they didn’t have male figure to support