5 min1800's Human Hair Funeral Art As early as the 1400s in Europe, creating hair art to memorialize the dead began, especially because epidemic and plagues took a high toll.
8 minWhat Pioneers AtePioneer survival depended on harsh realities and there was little room for sentimentality in food production.
9 minThe Incredible Saga of SacagaweaSacagawea is one of the most famous figures in American history. Nearly all American school children and adults recognize her name.
7 minNative Warrior WomenWe all know the immortal names of Pocahontas and Sacagawea, native women who played important roles in the formation of our early nation.
5 minFootbinding & Prostitution in the 1800sThe tradition of foot-binding, also called “lotus feet,” was a thousand-year-old tradition in China that was brought to the United States.
9 minThe True Story of Katie ElderThe truth about the real Katie Elder is far more spectacular than any Hollywood fiction.
7 minThe Triangle Shirtwaist FireWomen have always worked but during the Industrial Revolution, they flocked to the cities in droves to work in factories.
7 minThe True Story of PocahontasFew legends in American history embody the power and poignancy that Pocahontas does.
7 minAngela's Awesome Art & Her Appy, CappyIt turns out that Angela Swedberg is one of the leading Tribally Certified Indian Artisans in the country.
4 minStagecoach MaryThe legend was a towering, six-foot-plus black woman named “Stagecoach Mary.” And she could drink, smoke, cuss, fistfight and shoot.
5 minCalamity JaneCalamity Jane, born Martha Jane Canary, is an enigma in Western legend. Much has been written about her, much of it fictional.
2 minElectric CorsetsIn 1800s America, corsets took a strange turn toward the bizarre, even the fetishistic. The smaller the waist, the more feminine the woman.
3 minKate ShelleyIn 1881, a 17-year-old Irish immigrant girl named Kate Shelley risked her own life to save the lives of 200 souls on a midnight train.
2 minSoiled DovesThe "oldest profession" was one of the first to go West to the frontier, following the first mountain men, loggers and prospectors.
1 minWomen HomesteadersUnder the Homestead Act of 1862, single women, widows, and divorced or deserted women had the right to claim 160 acres in their own name.
2 minMy Pioneer MotherBoth my mother and my mother-in-law grew up on Iowa farms and attended one-room country schools.