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.
(01:18) - Start of interview
(01:46) - Introducing Polly Bemis
(03:04) - The majority-Chinese American West
(06:55) - Polly Bemis traveled without moving
(09:12) - Chinese women were the first targets of US anti-immigrant policy
(09:50) - The aggressive anti-Chinese immigration policies of the United States
(12:13) - How big government made the West for white men
(13:43) - Ella Watson's broken American dream
(14:25) - The cattle queens
(23:03) - A high tolerance for risk
(24:30) - Why correcting the Frontier myth matters today
(27:06) - How trad wives utilise the American Frontier
(30:21) - What moment in history should we revisit from women's perspective?
(34:30) - Outro
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