One Step Over the Line: Toward a History of Women in the North American Wests

Contributors:Susan ArmitageJean BarmanNora FairesCheryl FoggoMargaret D. JacobsElizabeth JamesonJoan M. JensenCynthia Loch-DrakeSheila McManusLaurie MercierMary MurphyHelen RaptisMolly P. RozumChar SmithSylvia Van KirkMargaret Walsh "We are stepping into unfamiliar territory."This unfamiliar territory is the borderlands of women's histories traversing the American and Canadian Wests. Specialists in women's history, settler societies, colonialism, storytelling, education, and native and borderlands studies-introduced by Elizabeth Jameson and Sheila McManus-pool their distinct contributions toward forging the very first comparative, transnational collection of its kind. "We cannot build bridges across unmapped divides."Sixteen essays arising from the "Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West through Women's History" conference at the University of Calgary comprise this foundational text. One Step Over the Line is not only the map; it is the bridgework to span the transnational, gendered divide-a must for readers who have been searching for a wide, inclusive perspective on our western past.Elizabeth Jameson holds the Imperial Oil-Lincoln McKay Chair in American Studies at the University of Calgary. She was co-chair of the "Unsettled Pasts" conference organizing committee and has published extensively on the histories of western women and the Canada-United States borderlands.Sheila McManus is Associate Professor of History at the University of Lethbridge. Her book, The Line Which Separates: Race, Gender, and the Alberta-Montana Borderlands, was co-published with the University of Alberta Press in 2005. Currently, she is writing a textbook on women in the U.S. West.Jameson, Elizabeth is the author of 'One Step Over the Line: Toward a History of Women in the North American Wests', published 2008 under ISBN 9780888645012 and ISBN 0888645015.