Frontier Women of Oklahoma in the 19th & Early 20th Century: What Were They Up Against?

I.  Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma:  Stories from the WPA Narratives.

Where did you learn about women on Oklahoma's frontier:  television, movies, novels?  Have you noticed gaps in the popular record? 

You can fill in many of those gaps with a nonfiction book edited by Terri M. Baker and Connie Oliver Henshaw, 

• ​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma:  Stories from the WPA Narratives, 
• University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2007.

Baker and Henshaw's work drew from the Oklahoma Indian Pioneer Papers, a written record of 11,000 interviews conducted throughout the state of Oklahoma in 1936-1937 with people the "fieldworkers believed knew about pioneer life and had experiences that should be recorded."  

• The typed pages of the 11,000 interviews were bound into 112 volumes.  That extensive record would not have been possible without a grant from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) secured by the University of Oklahoma in conjunction with the Oklahoma Historical Society.  

 

• One of the many things that I enjoyed about the book is that it includes interviews with African-American, Anglo, and Native American women who lived the harsh life of the 19th- and early 20th-century frontier.  Baker and Henshaw grouped selected portions of interviews to depict aspects of the women's lives, for example, making a home, facing adversity, and living with lawlessness.  

The voices of the frontier women are eloquent. ​

A handy "Timeline of Oklahoma History," created by the Oklahoma Historical Center marks 1828 as the beginning of the forced removal of Native Americans to the wilderness of what is now Oklahoma.  Women did live in the area generations before 1828.  Indeed, archeological surveys document the presence of human habitation as long as 30,000 years ago.  
 

• Betrayals of Native Americans by the federal government of the United States, plus individual--and often illegal--Anglo (white) encroachment, led to the federal government severing land from Indian "Territory" in order to create Oklahoma Territory in May 1890.​​
  • As Diana Everett explains in her article, "Indian Territory," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, 
    • ​Indian Territory is a common term often used to refer to a region in what is now Oklahoma.  However, it was never a Territory as defined by U.S. law.   Why?  Because the U.S. Congress never passed an organic act for Indian "Territory." 

​

• Even after Oklahoma Territory was created in 1890, Native Americans suffered more betrayals by the U.S. government and individual white settlers.   
  • Treaty violations continued and, in spite of vigorous protests from the Five Nations. the two territories were joined in order to create the State of Oklahoma on November 16, 1907.    
  • White settlers celebrated while the citizens of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles mourned the loss of their independent republics.

What is clear from the Oklahoma Indian Pioneer Papers is that whether the 19th- and early-20th century women arrived in

• the forced removal of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole (collectively referred to as  the Five Civilized Tribes, the Five Tribes, or the Five Nations) and their African-American slaves from the tribes' southeastern homelands to Indian Territory, or

 

• the forced removal of Plains tribes from their homelands to what is now western Oklahoma, or

 

• the voluntary migration of white settlers, 

they would need--and the harsh frontier demanded--a strong will to survive. 

Baker and Henshaw noticed that the women pioneers didn't speak of courage.  Actions that you or I would call quick-thinking and brave are situations the pioneer women  seemed to see as normal pioneer life.

• ​As one woman reflected, "I suppose our lives were similar in all respects to those of other pioneers....days were frought [sic] with danger and hardships, but we won out and got our start in life."

 

• As another woman recounted, "….Pioneering is not so bad if one is young and healthy.” ​

II.  What Were They Up Against?

The Land.

Today, the Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department identifies twelve ecoregions in the state of Oklahoma.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency counts eleven.   Some sources like to add an unofficial ecoregion of "urban turf" comprised of Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
​  

• Frontier women in the eastern third of today's state were more likely to find forests, water, and soil suitable for the crops they knew how to farm.  

 

• Frontier women on the Plains, however, soon learned, as John Opie explained in his 1993 book, Ogallalla:  Water for a Dry Land, that they and their fellow pioneers were
  • undercapitalized,
  • undertooled, and
  • underinformed about their new environment.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Map of Oklahoma's Ecoregions.

The Climate.

• Oklahoma's climate ranges from humid subtropical in the east to semi-arid in the west.
• ​West of the invisible north-south line of the 98th meridian, annual rainfall declines from a less-than-acceptable 20 inches to a desert-like 12 inches.  
• ​Drought is a recurring situation in the Plains regions of Oklahoma.
  • Frontier pioneers learned that the scarcity of water makes the Plains a permanent frontier.  Even dryland agriculture couldn't solve water problems.  

​The Wildlife.

Whether a pioneer woman settled in Indian Territory or in Oklahoma Territory, she would have to learn to deal with the local wildlife.  As Baker and Henshaw pointed out, "Throughout Oklahoma, mountain lions, wildcats, coyotes, wolves, and eagles preyed on both animals and people."   

Tarantulas, centipedes, and spiders had to be shaken out of bed real often....They would come out of the ceiling of the dugout and drop on the table where we were eating or on our shoulders or laps--it was surely a scary time for us mothers and many people died from the bites and stings."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.78

When the Five Nations were removed forcefully to Indian Territory, some of the people were able to bring their cattle, hogs, and horses.  Hogs that wandered away in the Territory lived wild, omnivorous lives in the woods.  Apparently, "cattle never slept in the timber."

We could hear the wild hogs with their teeth popping, and they roared like mad hogs.  They made a horrible racket like stampeding cattle."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.84

And there were snakes.

There were not many animals near us.  Wolves, possums, coons and squirrels....There were lots of snakes and I always killed every one I saw, but I do not think there were many poisonous snakes."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.76

Today, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) reports that forty-six species of snakes are native to Oklahoma.  Of those, seven species are venomous.

The rattlesnakes were to be dreaded for they were very poisonous and there were a great many of them."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.76

The Lack of Infrastructure in a Wilderness.

Baker and Henshaw gave us a clear picture of a frontier woman's first house and how she struggled to "make-do" in a time of scarcity.  
​

• Start with a tent, a "dugout," a sod house, a hybrid shack or, in forested areas, a log house.   
  • ​Tents were often a first abode because outbuildings such as smokehouses and barns took priority.
  • First houses of the Five Nations were log homes chinked with clay.
  • First dwellings were often 10 x 12 feet or 15 x 18 feet, that is, one or two rooms.
    • Share your dwelling with several family members.

Mother never got reconciled to her [pole] house and only lived two years.  There was an abundance of good, pure water but that would not take the place of a house."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.47

• Basic kitchen equipment:  a coffee pot, a Dutch oven, and a skillet.
• Basic food:  corn bread, black coffee, beef and wild game such as turkey and deer. 
• Light:  early fires were made using flint and tinder.  Candles and kerosene lamps were necessities.
  • By 1907, electricity was an option for people with money and access.

...truly a goodly land.  Everything would grow....but Mother could not get over the awful house we lived in."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.57

Family and neighbors were critical for survival in a region empty of the infrastructure the women were accustomed to in their previous homes.

• One woman related, "we pioneer women never thought of anything else but working and doing our share."   
• Apparently, children had to work from the time they could remember.
  • A woman reminisced, "I had learned to ride when I was almost a baby...and began to help herd cattle at the age of ten." 

The first few years were very hard indeed, principally because we had no start….If some of our neighbors had not helped us, I don’t know what we would have done...."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.200

​As I look back over the years, I yearn for those days as they were years ago with their simple modes and the more intimate acquaintance of neighbors than we enjoy today.”
​--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.197

Necessity often expanded a pioneer woman's responsibilities.

• ​Some frontier women served as practical nurses, others as midwives.
• If widowed, she might try to keep the family homestead, and perhaps also pick cotton in other farmers' fields to make ends meet.  
• If living in town, she might try to keep the small store she and her husband owned, or become a laundress, or operate a small hotel.

We never had a doctor for confinement cases; the women of the neighborhood took care of each other."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.198

Pet dogs played an important role.  

• Family dogs with names like Shep, Bull, Rover, Tige, or Fan were trained
  • to herd stray cattle during trail drives and
  • to chase farm stock out of crop fields back into their respective pens.  
• One frontier woman said that her family "didn't have many chickens or eggs until the boys got a pack of hounds and killed the coyotes out."

Lawlessness.
​
From the time of forced removal, through the American Civil War, into the forced allotment of Indian lands, and the "legal" opening of "excess" Indian lands to white settlement, violence was a common threat to the innocent and the guilty.  

The population was small, the land area was large, and peacekeeping forces were insufficient.

• The Native Americans never had enough resources and legal clout to prevent all lawlessness.

 

• The U.S. government provided some protection via the establishment in 1824 of Fort Gibson.  At the time, it was the western-most military fort east of the Mississippi River.  

 

• The fort's strategic location at the convergence of three rivers--Arkansas, Verdigris, and Grand--in northeastern Indian Territory, positioned it to control river navigation, and to serve a key role in the Removal years.
  • Fort Gibson (1824-1890) was abandoned in 1857, reactivated during the Civil War, and played a role during Reconstruction and the Indian Wars to combat outlaws and squatters.

Not surprisingly, pioneer lives were equally difficult for Army wives on the frontier.  Informative displays at the historical reconstruction of Fort Gibson's original log stockade remind us that military rank had privileges.

• A lower rank meant a harder life for a soldier and, if married, for his wife--if he could bring her to his duty station.  
  • The Army didn't always officially sanction Army wives on the Western frontier due to "inconvenience and cost."
  •  Enlisted wives were usually employed as laundresses, hospital matrons, or as commissioned officer's servants.  

The photo below shows a recreation of one-room quarters for married enlisted soldiers in the historical reconstruction of Fort Gibson's original log stockade.    

Recreation of Married Enlisted Quarters, circa 1830, at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory (Oklahoma). September 2019.

The historic greed of white settlers to grab more land from Native Americans continued unabated in what became Oklahoma--and often was supported by the U.S. government.  

As the meticulous research of historian Angie Debo demonstrates, the independent republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles were overcome by sheer numbers and crime.  (See And Still the Waters Run:  The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes (Princeton University Press, 1940, 1972).

• Some immigrants in Indian Territory were legal residents who conformed to tribal law and performed labor desired by the Native Americans.  
• The pre-Civil War trickle of non-Indian immigrants grew to a flood not long after the Civil War.  The region became a haven for legal and illegal migrants from "the States," as well as criminals passing through in flight from the law.​       

....part of Atoka County [in southeastern Oklahoma] is rough and rocky and mountainous with mountain streams, high bluffs and caves covered with pine and oak timber....it gave outlaws and robbers good places to hide and rest without being molested."
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma, p.147

Horse thieves, who were very numerous, were hated above all." 
--​Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma,  p.174.

III.  My Compliments.

​I admire the grit of frontier women who accepted the risk of pioneer life in what became the state of Oklahoma.  Whether Native American, African-American, or Anglo, whether they were forced to come west or volunteered, they built a life in harsh and often chaotic times.  They're worthy of monuments commemorating their contributions to society. 

Pioneer Woman Statue, Pioneer Woman Museum, Ponca City, Oklahoma. September 2024.

 IV.  Pioneer Woman Statue.
 
Ponca City, Oklahoma.  On April 22, 1930--the 41st anniversary of the first land run in Oklahoma--more than 40,000 spectators swarmed the city of approximately 16,000 people.  Most likely, some of the spectators had run in one of the Oklahoma land runs. 

What better date to dedicate a monument honoring pioneer women who helped settle the land?

The millionaire oilman, philanthropist, and future Oklahoma governor, Ernest W. Marland, conceived, directed, and financed the project to honor his own pioneer mother and grandmother, as well as their sister pioneers.  

Marland wanted the best.  

He invited twelve sculptors to propose designs, and then arranged for small models of selected entries to tour Ponca City plus thirteen major American cities in order for viewers to indicate their favorite.  

Approximately 750,000 people voted.  The sculptor Bryant Baker (American, British-born, 1881-1970) won hands down.  

In appreciation of the heroic character of the women who braved the dangers and endured the hardships incident to daily life of the pioneer and homesteader in this country."

​                  --Inscription on the base of the Pioneer Woman Statue,
                   Ponca City, Oklahoma

The Pioneer Woman statue stands 17 feet tall and weighs 12,000 pounds.  Sculpted in bronze, she balances atop a quarry-stone pyramid base.  Her given name is "Confident" but she became well-known as the Pioneer Woman.  

I've enjoyed visiting the sculpture over the years.  I admire the dignity, confidence, and sense of purpose apparent in the portrayal of a young mother ready to take on the frontier.  It's my favorite of the pioneer mother monuments.

​Ernest Marland was thinking of his mom and grandmother when he began his Pioneer Woman project.  The sculptor Bryant Baker's creation of an idealized version of a pioneer woman as a mother is common in pioneer women statues, especially in the earliest monuments.

Dr. Linda Williams Reese (1946-2024) discussed the Pioneer Woman Statue in her research, Women of Oklahoma, 1890-1920 (University of Oklahoma Press, 1997).  She noted that none of the design models sent on public tour in Ernest Marland's project to build a Pioneer Woman statue were African-American or Native American.

Dr. Cynthia Prescott, a professor of history at the University of North Dakota, shared her research, Pioneer Mother Monuments:  Constructing Cultural Memory (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019).  Many pioneer mother monuments feature certain tropes.

• She is a young, stalwart, white mother with her child either walking beside her or in her arms.
• She wears a simple, long-sleeved, ankle-length dress, study shoes, and a sunbonnet.
• She might be carrying a Bible or a rifle.
• Her gaze is fixed on the western horizon.​

About the same time that Ernest W. Marland dedicated his Pioneer Woman statue, the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) dedicated their Madonna of the Trail series.  

Look at the following snapshot.  How many tropes of pioneer mother monuments can you find?  Hint:  she's holding the barrel of a musket in her right hand.

Madonna of the Trail, one of 12 identical monuments erected along the National Old Trails Road (Route 40) and dedicated circa 1928-1929. Council Grove, Kansas, March 2025.

​As Prescott explains, many early monuments, whether about mothers or the broader pioneer experience,

• feature white settlers dominating indigenous people,
• omit the cost to Native Americans​, and
• exclude Native American, African-American, and Hispanic-American contributions to the frontier experience. 

​Although sculptures that include the history of all Americans have started to appear in the 21st-century, I suspect that many mainstream Americans still hold a misconstrued mental picture of all frontier pioneers as white.  

Moreover, many of those same Americans might be unaware of the prevalence and achievements of modern-day Native Americans in the USA.

Thirty-nine American Indian tribes are headquartered in Oklahoma."
--Oklahoma Indian Country Guide:  One State, Many Nations

​Fortunately, visitors to my favorite Pioneer Woman statue can also enjoy, on the same historical site, the exhibits and activities of the Pioneer Woman Museum, 701 Monument Road, Ponca City.   Since the museum's establishment in 1957, its donors, staff, and volunteers continue to do their part in addressing the gap.

__________
​Notes:
1.  Photo by Lynne Schall of the cover of the nonfiction book, Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma. Stories from the WPA Narrative, edited by Terri M Baker and Connie Oliver Henshaw, forward by M. Susan Savage, University of Oklahoma Press:  Norman, 2007.

2. Oklahoma History Center, "Timeline of Oklahoma History,  https://www.okhistory.org/historycenter/forms/timeline.pdf

3.  Dianna Everett, "Indian Territory," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=IN018 (accessed September 27, 2024).

4.  John Opie, Ogallala:  Water for a Dry Land.  A Historical Study in the Possibilities for American Sustainable Agriculture, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1993.

5.  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Map of the 11 Ecoregions of Oklahoma," available on the website of The Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ranch Ecology & Sustainable Management, https://kerrcenter.com/conservation/ranch-ecology-management-philosophy/ (accessed September 28, 2024)

6. The History of Fort Gibson, https://www.okhistory.org/sites/fortgibson.php (accessed 9-28-2024).  

7. Photo by Lynne Schall, "Recreation of Married Enlisted Quarters, circa 1830, Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, (Oklahoma)."  September 21, 2019.  

8. Photo by Lynne Schall of the Pioneer Woman Statue located at the Pioneer Woman Museum, Ponca City, Oklahoma.  September 2024.

9.  "Pioneer Woman Museum and Statue," Oklahoma Historical Society, https://www.okhistory.org/sites/pioneerwoman (accessed September 18, 2014)
​

10.  "The Pioneer Woman Statue,"  Learn More, Pioneer Woman, The Pioneer Woman Museum, https://www.pioneerwomanmuseum.com/ (accessed September 18, 2024)

​11.  ​Cynthia Culver Prescott, Ph.D., Professor, University of North Dakota, Pioneer Mother Monuments:  Constructing Cultural Memory, University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.  Her book won the 2020 Gita Chaudhuri Prize, and the 2020 Fred B. Kniffen Book Award.  

12.  Photo by Lynne Schall of the Madonna of the Plains statue located in Council Grove, Kansas.  March 20, 2025.

​13.  Madonna of the Trail Statue, Daughters of the American Revolution.
https://www.dar.org › national-society › historic-sites-and-properties › madonna-trail  (accessed April 20, 2025)

14  Oklahoma Indian Country Guide:  One State, Many Nations

• https://www.travelok.com/brochures (accessed September 18, 2024)

15.  Since 1957, the Pioneer Woman Museum has showcased Oklahoma women who were pioneers in various fields.   You can visit both the Pioneer Woman Statue and the museum at the same location:  701 Monument Road, Ponca City, Oklahoma.

16.  Lynne Schall updated this blog post on April 20, 2025.