| Historically, the myth of the frontier has been dominated by images of adventure, individualism, and violence. Within these male-dominated and male-oriented myths women become a casualty of western history and the result is a one-dimensional history grounded more in stereotype than in reality. By adding women's diaries to traditional, historical sources we can construct a new and more complete history of the West. Diary writing is perhaps the most important source for demythologizing the history of the frontier. By examining the content of women's diaries it becomes clear that the themes of adventure, individualism, and violence do not reflect the women's frontier experience. The emphasis in their private writings is upon the struggle to maintain the domestic sphere, and their own identity within that sphere, in the face of the challenge of migration. By a close reading and a linguistic analysis of the diaries it is clear that the linguistic codes employed by the diarists, and the gender-specific differences in syntax and semantics, reflect similar differences in the experiences of men and women on the Overland Trail. |
