In an 1851 Indiana newspaper editorial, John B.L. Soule famously advised: "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Apparently, young women were either better off back East, or didn't need to grow up. In any case, a lot of young women did go West, and many of them found the freedom of the frontier allowed them to escape their traditional Victorian roles as wives and mothers. Oklahoma's The Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center at The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum has organized an exhibit that highlights the women who took advantage of Manifest Destiny to forge a freer future for themselves. The exhibit, Not Just A Housewife: The Changing Roles Of Women In The West, highlights 13 women whose boots were made for walking miles away from home and hearth. Some of their names are well known, such as Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley. But others are unsung heroines of the Wild West. Their stories may be unfamiliar, but their refusal to be fenced in by stereotypes made them true female mavericks.
The life and career of one of these women, rodeo star Fox Hastings, proves that the "weaker sex" was often anything but. Eloise Fox (1898? -1948) caught frontier fever early. She ran away from a convent school at age 16 with her steer-wrestling beau, Mike Hastings, and joined him on the rodeo circuit. When they married, she shed her feminine first name for the more marquee-friendly moniker "Fox Hastings." The newly-minted Mrs. Hastings didn't let marriage slow her down. She became a rodeo star herself as a trick rider and bucking bronco buster, known for a daring ability to perform on the fastest horses in the Irwin Brothers' Wild West Show...
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In an 1851 Indiana newspaper editorial, John B.L. Soule famously advised: "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Apparently, young women were either better off back East, or didn't need to grow up. In any case, a lot of young women did go West, and many of them found the freedom of the frontier allowed them to escape their traditional Victorian roles as wives and mothers. Oklahoma's The Donald C. & Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center at The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum has organized an exhibit that highlights the women who took advantage of Manifest Destiny to forge a freer future for themselves. The exhibit, Not Just A Housewife: The Changing Roles Of Women In The West, highlights 13 women whose boots were made for walking miles away from home and hearth. Some of their names are well known, such as Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley. But others are unsung heroines of the Wild West. Their stories may be unfamiliar, but their refusal to be fenced in by stereotypes made them true female mavericks. 
The life and career of one of these women, rodeo star Fox Hastings, proves that the "weaker sex" was often anything but. Eloise Fox (1898? -1948) caught frontier fever early. She ran away from a convent school at age 16 with her steer-wrestling beau, Mike Hastings, and joined him on the rodeo circuit. When they married, she shed her feminine first name for the more marquee-friendly moniker "Fox Hastings." The newly-minted Mrs. Hastings didn't let marriage slow her down. She became a rodeo star herself as a trick rider and bucking bronco buster, known for a daring ability to perform on the fastest horses in the Irwin Brothers' Wild West Show...read more
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