Cathy Palmini Publishes Article
on Wisconsin Women Settlers
Cathy
Palmini, Associate Professor in the University Library, has published "Across
the Unknown Waters to Wisconsin: The Migration Narratives of Four Women Settlers"
in
Transactions
of The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 88 (2000): 105-120.
Professor Palmini's work stems from a decade of research on Midwest pioneer women, and her thesis on pioneer women prepared for the Master's degree in English at UWSP (Pioneer Women of the Prairie: Portraits from the Novels of O.E. Rolvaag and Willa Cather and the Personal Writings of Pioneer Women, 1991). The migration narratives work has been presented at Wisconsin library conferences and most recently at the national Women's Private Writing/Writing Women's History Conference June 15-18, 2000 at the University of New England, Portland, Maine.
This fascinating, personal glimpse of individual women's lives in the mid-1800s is best illustrated by an introductory line in the article:
- The words of ordinary women in a period of upheaval chronicle homesickness, seasickness, shipwreck, and joy at setting their feet again on firm ground.-
1868 ad for the side-wheel steamer Northwest, departing from Detroit for Sault St. Marie, Marquette, Houghton, and Hancock (courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Archives, WHi (X3)30630) |
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Wisconsin family (courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Archives, WHi (W6)19726) |
The article follows the personal travel accounts of four women (from diaries, letters, and memoirs) who journeyed to Wisconsin by water, and documents their experiences and feelings about their lives during this transition. The work is illustrated by period photos.
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Illustrations and quotations courtesy of the author and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Archives.