"Warmly delightful, vigorously affirmative." - The Wall Street Journal. Told with vivid gusto by a young, fiercely determined widow, this towering classic of American frontier life paints a candid portrait of her work, travels, neighbors, and harsh existence on a Wyoming ranch in the early 1900s. Includes 6 original illustrations by N.C. Wyeth.

Stewart's letters, written from 1909 to 1913, were the basis of the acclaimed 1980 film Heartland. "Mrs. Stewart was a woman whose nineteenth-century pioneer spirit seems to have been laced with a strong dose of twentieth-century liberation. Equally impressive is her ability to characterize the people around her."-Western American Literature. Elinore Pruitt Stewart (born Elinore Pruitt; June 3, 1876 - October 8, 1933) was a homesteader in Wyoming, and a memoirist who between 1909 and 1914 wrote letters describing her life there to a former employer in Denver, Colorado. Those letters, which reveal an adventurous, capable, and resourceful woman of lively intelligence, were published in two collections in 1914 and 1915. The first of those collections, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, was the basis of the 1979 movie Heartland.

Instead of talking about women's rights, these frontier women grabbed the opportunity to become landowners by homesteading in the still wild west of the early 1900s. Here they tell their stories in their own words-through letters and articles of the time-of adventure, independence, foolhardiness, failure, and freedom. Book jacket.

By shedding light on Montana's first women homesteaders--determined 19th- and early 20th-century pioneers--Carter reveals inspiring stories filled with joy, tragedy, and redemption.

""While there have been many published accounts of a woman's life in the West, rarely if ever have they been executed by such a literate scribe.""

Among the most engaging accounts of life in the American West, Elinore Pruitt Stewart related her adventures on an isolated Wyoming homestead with vividness, gusto, and sympathy. Now, we go beyond her published letters to examine the life behind the words. Photographs.