‘I shall not consent to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making.” (Pearl Heart)

Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, Belle Starr, Pearl Hart: Toting guns, these women of the Wild West shot down the view that life as a female pioneer was about cooking, sewing, cleaning, and caring for children was the sole provence of pioneer women. Women of the American wild west had to be a resourceful lot to cope with the elements that surrounded them: the harsh conditions, lawlessness and living in an age where there were few amenities. Some women took to the gun as readily as any man and others made lives for themselves apart from dignified society.