Reading these accounts by women homesteaders is like discovering a dusty trunk in the attic of a beloved grandmother, where you sift through stacks of letters bound by faded ribbons, open brittle pages of a diary, or leaf through yellowing magazines. Time will suspend as you are transported to another era, and you may not want to return. --Susanne George Bloomfield, author of The Adventures of The Woman Homesteader<br /><br />Staking Her Claim is doubly rewarding for its wealth of data about women who stepped outside the picture-frame of myth on the Western homestead frontier, and for the pure pleasure of hearing the stories of these women in their own words. --Mary Clearman Blew, author of Jackalope Dreams: A Novel<br /><br />This book is an invaluable gift. Marcia Meredith Hensley achieves here what no other writer or historian has done in gathering and explaining the important writings of dozens of single women homesteaders in the interior northern West. Hensley stakes her own claim as a new authority in this rewarding collection. --Richard W. Etulain, author of Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West

This book is an invaluable gift. Marcia Meredith Hensley achieves here what no other writer or historian has done in gathering and explaining the important writings of dozens of single women homesteaders in the interior northern West. Hensley stakes her own claim as a new authority in this rewarding collection. --Richard W. Etulain, author of Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West

Staking Her Claim is doubly rewarding for its wealth of data about women who stepped outside the picture-frame of myth on the Western homestead frontier, and for the pure pleasure of hearing the stories of these women in their own words. --Mary Clearman Blew, author of Jackalope Dreams: A Novel