Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, Belle Starr, Pearl Hart: Toting guns, these women of the Wild West shot down the view that life as a female pioneer was about cooking, sewing, cleaning and caring for ...

Their presentation in an "authentic" Wild West show encouraged audiences to imagine these women were real cowgirls ... were showing the future of mass entertainment. Talking motion pictures ...

Entertainment in the Wild West might not be your idea of fun, but men, women, and children out on the frontier had a fair number of options for ways to spend their free time.