Video Project Curation

Our course textbook has a chapter that focuses on the changing gender roles of women who made the move to the Texas frontier (Chapter 7). Although the textbook is a secondary source of information it contains primary sources that I will look into.

Specifically I will be looking at the primary source by Helen Chapman written in 1849 (p.203), the primary source by Elizabeth Scott Neblett written in the years 1852 and 1860 (p.205), and the primary source written by Sam Houston to his wife Margaret in 1854.

These three primary sources will help me have a better insight into what women who were actually there were facing in their everyday life while living on the Texas frontier.

Helen Chapman is a women who moved to Texas and played a large role in the religious lives of people in Texas.
Elizabeth Scott Neblett was a woman who struggled through life on the frontier and describes her marriage to her husband from two different time points.
Sam Houston was one of the most influential men in Texas history and he wrote a letter to his wife that shows the effect she had on his life and how some married women were viewed by their husbands.

Haynes, Sam W., and Cary D. Wintz. "Chapter 7." Major Problems in Texas History: Documents and Essays. N.p.: Cengage Learning, 2017. 195-224. Print.

"Frontier forts, despite their primitive environments and military purposes, were not exclusively male enclaves. A surprising number of women and children shared forts with the U.S. Army's troops."

This article is a secondary source that talks about families that moved to the forts on the Texas frontier and life for them. These families included the wives of commanders and the article describe their daily life. I want to use this to show the different types of work that women had to do because of their situation and talk about how this is differs or is similar to traditional southern values.

Ramos, Mary G. "Family Life at the Forts." Texas Almanac. Texas State Historical Association, 2005. Web. 18 Sept. 2018.

This map shows the general area that I would like to focus on for this project, the line between Native American lands and Texas settlements.

This is a secondary source that will help show and make clear the area of Texas that I will be focusing on in this project.

I will use this article as a secondary source that talk about daily lives for everyone on the frontier, including the duties of wives to their families. It talks about the loneliness of wives who had to stay and hold down their homes while their husbands were away for long periods of time, which was common on the Texas frontier. This article was written about the time before the civil war when life on the Texas frontier was hard and women had to take on a bigger role in the family.

Ramos, Mary G. "The Pre-Civil War Frontier." Texas Almanac. Texas State Historical Association, 1991. Web. 19 Sept. 2018.

This is an essay written by Angela Boswell that talks about the differences between Texas women on the frontier and the general norms for women in the south. This sources will help me to identify key differences that led women on the frontier to leading different lives than that of their southern sisters.

Found on page 215 of our course textbook.

Haynes, Sam W., and Cary D. Wintz. "Chapter 7." Major Problems in Texas History: Documents and Essays. N.p.: Cengage Learning, 2017. 195-224. Print.

This is a primary source written by Edward Smith in 1849 talking about a journey traveling through Texas and Louisiana territories. It describes the climate, weather, health, farming, and laws that would have affected family life in these areas at the time.

I will use this source to show the conditions that families were living in at the time and how that would have made an impact on how women's norms.

http://www.americanwest.amdigital.co.uk.ezproxy.uta.edu/Documents/Images/Graff_3843/3#Chapters

This is a primary document that talks about how money was made on the Texas Frontier. It was written in 1844 by Josiah Gregg who had made several trips to the area. I will use this document to look into the economic climate of the area during this time and relate that to how women did work at home while their husbands were away and what that meant for their new social norms.

Gregg, Josiah. 1844. Commerce of the prairies, or, the journal of a Santa Fe trader: during eight expeditions across the great western prairies, and a residence of nearly nine years in northern Mexico, volume II. New York: Henry G. Langley. Available through: Adam Matthew, Marlborough, American West, http://www.americanwest.amdigital.co.uk.ezproxy.uta.edu/Documents/Details/Graff_1659-2 [Accessed September 20, 2018].