A Cowman’s Wife (Degolyer Library Cowboy & Ranch Life Series)

Product Description

Women played a vital and, until recently, frequently overlooked role in the settlement of the American West. They were not only mothers, schoolteachers, and nurses, but also cowgirls, outlaws, and ranchers. Mary Rak’s career as a ranchwoman, and eventually an author, began in 1919, when she and her husband Charles Lukeman Rak purchased a 22,000-acre spread fifty miles north of Douglas, Arizona. She went on to recount her struggle to learn the cattle business and cope with the numerous problems of life on an isolated ranch.
The new introduction to this rangeland classic was written by the late Sandra L. Myres. Her research into the lives and writings of ranchwomen provides an excellent background for understanding Mary Rak and her work.

From the Back Cover

Women played a vital and, until recently, frequently overlooked role in the settlement of the American West. They were not only mothers, schoolteachers, and nurses, but also cowgirls, outlaws, and ranchers. Mary Rak’s career as a ranchwoman, and eventually an author, began in 1919, when she and her husband Charles Lukeman Rak purchased Old Camp Rucker Ranch, a 22,000-acre spread some fifty miles north of Douglas, Arizona. When she first went to the ranch, Mary admitted, “I had absolutely no knowledge of cattle”. Rak went on to recount her struggle to learn the cattle business and cope with the numerous problems of life on an isolated ranch. In A Cowman’s Wife, she details the seasonal round of ranch chores; the devastating effects of drought; the difficulty of finding, and keeping, competent hired hands; and the exigencies of marketing the cattle, especially during the Depression. But Rak also tells of the pleasures of ranch life – spectacular sunsets; glorious mountain scenery; the camaraderie of ranch people; all-night dances at the neighborhood school house. Despite the rigors, she found time for literary pursuits, and in 1934 Houghton-Mifflin published A Cowman’s Wife to critical acclaim. J. Frank Dobie and Jeff Dykes, two major scholars of Western literature, praised her contributions to the genre. The new introduction to this rangeland classic was written by the late Sandra L. Myres. Her invaluable research into Rak’s life, and into the lives and writings of ranchwomen, provides an excellent background for understanding Mary Rak and her important work. This reprint of A Cowman’s Wife is a significant addition to the literature of the Western experience and the important role ofwomen in that experience.

About the Author

Mary Kidder Rak was born in Iowa and earned a degree at Stanford University in California. She first moved to Arizona to teach at the University of Arizona. In 1918, she and her husband Charlie Rak, a forester, bought a remote ranch in the Chiricahua Mountains. She wrote four books about her life as a rancher, including
A Cowman’s Wife (1934) and
Mountain Cattle (1936).
 
A historian, author, and educator, Sandra L. Myres was born in 1933 in Columbus, Ohio. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Texas Tech University and her Ph.D. (1967) from Texas Christian University. She joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Arlington in 1967, and was made full professor in 1983. Her published works include 
Westering Women and the Frontier Experience, 
Ho for California, 
The Ranch in Spanish Texas, and 
Force without Fanfare: the Autobiography of K. M. Van Zandt. Active in various professional associations, Myres also served as president of Westerners International in 1985. She died on October 16, 1991.