Beyond the Book: Cowgirls

Welcome to another edition in my Cowgirls series. Not all cowgirls herded cattle and knew how to shoot. I'm betting that Abigail Scott Duniway probably didn't. Duniway was born in Illinois and traveled to the Oregon Territory in 1852. She taught herself almost everything she knew, and read every newspaper she could get her hands on.

She became a follower of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and started campaigning  for women's rights. She also started a newspaper and became a schoolteacher. In 1886, the National Women's Suffrage Convention convened in Washington, DC, and named her as the most influential women's advocate in the West.

She became the first registered female voter in her county when Oregon granted women the right to vote in 1912. She was 78 years old. Unfortunately, she died five years before a constitutional amendment granted women the right to vote.

http://www.thewildwest.org/cowboys/wildwestlegendarywomen/203-abigailscottduniway
By Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This series on cowgirls is in honor of my heroine in Rest Thy Head. Peyton found Rest Thy Head and learned to ride horses, explore caves, and talk to ghosts.