In part 2 of our exploration of the American frontier, Megan Kate Nelson introduces two women who belie the homesteader image conservative "trad wives" like to harken back to. Polly Bemis was a Chinese immigrant who built a life and a community in Idaho, despite intense prejudice and stringent anti-Chinese immigration policies. Ella Watson was a self-made homesteader and small rancher, a so-called cattle queen who got on the wrong side of cattle barons in Wyoming and paid the price.

Read more: How Chinese women were barred from the American dream

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On this episode:

• Isabelle Roughol - Host
• Megan Kate Nelson - Guest

• Read & comment at broadhistory.com
• Reply on Bluesky
  
• Email me: isa@broadhistory.com

Jump to:

• (00:00) - Megan Kate Nelson part 2 (updated 29/7)
• (00:35) - Start of interview
• (01:03) - Introducing Polly Bemis
• (02:20) - The majority-Chinese American West
• (06:11) - Polly Bemis traveled without moving
• (08:29) - Chinese women were the first targets of US anti-immigrant policy
• (09:07) - The aggressive anti-Chinese immigration policies of the United States
• (11:29) - How big government made the West for white men
• (12:59) - Ella Watson's broken American dream
• (13:41) - The cattle queens
• (22:19) - A high tolerance for risk
• (23:46) - Why correcting the Frontier myth matters today
• (26:22) - How trad wives utilise the American Frontier
• (29:38) - What moment in history should we revisit from women's perspective?
• (33:47) - Outro

Click here to view the episode transcript.