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“We are stepping into unfamiliar territory.” This unfamiliar territory is the borderlands of women’s histories traversing the American and Canadian Wests. Specialists in women’s history, settler societies, colonialism, storytelling, education, and native and borderlands studies introduced by Elizabeth Jameson and Sheila McManus pool their distinct contributions toward forging the very first comparative, transnational collection of its kind.

“We cannot build bridges across unmapped divides.” Sixteen essays arising from the “Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West through Women’s History” conference at the University of Calgary comprise this foundational text. One Step Over the Line is not only the map; it is the bridgework to span the transnational, gendered divide—a must for readers who have been searching for a wide, inclusive perspective on our western past.

Contributors: Susan Armitage, Jean Barman, Nora Faires, Cheryl Foggo, Margaret D. Jacobs, Elizabeth Jameson, Joan M. Jensen, Cynthia Loch-Drake, Sheila McManus, Laurie Mercier, Mary Murphy, Helen Raptis, Molly P. Rozum, Char Smith, Sylvia Van Kirk, Margaret Walsh

Elizabeth Jameson holds the Imperial Oil-Lincoln McKay Chair in American Studies at the University of Calgary. She was Co-Chair of the "Unsettled Pasts" conference organizing committee. She co-edited The Women's West with Susan Armitage and has published extensively on the histories of western women and the Canada-United States borderlands.

Elizabeth Jameson's profile page

Sheila McManus is Associate Professor of History at the University of Lethbridge in southern Alberta. Her book, The Line Which Separates, was co-published by the University of Nebraska Press and The University of Alberta Press in 2005. Currently, she is writing a textbook on women in the U.S. West.

Sheila McManus' profile page

"The major preoccupations of this impressive collection of women historians can be summarized as follows: How did separate national policies governing Native peoples, property ownership, immigration, and citizenship affect women? How do women's individual histories (accounts of daily life) connect to the histories of the nation-state? Jameson and McManus propose here a comparative framework that seeks to uncover the lesser-known stories of women homesteaders, church workers, and prostitutes, to name but a few, in order to sketch out a better understanding of transborder realities. While it may be true that women's histories have always unsettled the past, the scholars in this volume rightly point out that they are in unfamiliar territory, because women in the West have largely been studied within the national paradigm." Katherine Ann Roberts, American Review of Canadian Studies, March 2010

"This excellent collection of 16 articles, 8 by women scholars from the US, 7 from Canada, and 1 from the UK, achieves its goal of communicating the international border, using North American western women's history as its common subject..The authors show how early alliances between Native women and white fur traders produced a Métis society that lost its place to the British determination to create a white society by importing white women and families as settlers. US border crossings attracted different groups of women: prostitutes looking for places on the sidelines of Canada's extractive industries; African Americans, who, despite discrimination, avoided segregation and lynchings; and the American Woman's Club of Calgary, whose members saw themselves as superior sojourners even though many stayed in Calgary their whole lives. Individual women's stories include that of the educator, an Irish immigrant to British Columbia herself, who developed correspondence courses for interned Japanese people, prison inmates, Yukon settlers, and new arrivals." P.W. Kaufman, Choice Magazine, June 2009

"This collection of articles is one of two anthologies that have emerged from a conference held at the University of Calgary in June 2002 entitled "Unsettled Pasts: Reconceiving the West through Women's History." The intent of this collection was to begin a dialogue about the lives of women in both the Canadian and American Wests that would hopefully lead to a comparative analysis of the lives and activities of the women who lived and worked there. The articles are by well-established Canadian and American feminist historians such as Sylvia Van Kirk and Joan Jensen, but also by lesser known women who are studying the lives of western women. The various authors cannot be said to be doing comparative history, but there is an effort underway here to attempt to answer some important questions about western women in both the United States and Canada and to contrast their lives at a particular time in the history of the two countries. For example, should we assume that a woman who settled in the American West experienced similar circumstances as a woman who immigrated to the Canadian West? In fact, we need to ask how the differing national policies that governed Native peoples defined women's lives, and how property ownership and so on impacted the lives of women in the two countries. These questions need to be answered, but at the same time it must be kept in mind that the American West was largely settled before the British began moving west in the northern part of the continent. The book is divided into six sections and covers such diverse topics as prostitution and union issues. As well, the role that women such as Edith Lucas played in the development of public education in British Columbia in the early 20th century is outlined. This is a wonderful and enlightening collection that includes numerous pictures, and the articles will fill in many gaps in our knowledge about Canadian women's history and provide a beginning to a comparison of western American and Canadian women's lives." - Margaret Kechnie, Laurentian University

"Comparative history is an especially fruitful field since people in different nations develop in unique ways because of their pasts and the ways that they structure their institutions. Also, they respond differently to such processes as settlement of the land, colonization of Native or First peoples, and the establishment of agencies of law and order.....This is a vitally important contribution to the history of western women. All who teach and research in this field will profit from the work the individual scholars have done, and the wonderful unity of purpose that the editors have imposed on the book as a whole. In addition the individual essays are beautifully penned narratives that tell individual and family stories that are often moving. They will linger in the readers' memory long after they have finished the final page of the book. Few history volumes have that impact." Shirley A. Leckie, New Mexico Historical Review, Winter 2010

"This ambitious collection seeks to redress dominant histories of the US and Canadian Wests where considerations of gender and cross-border similarities and distinctions are concerned.... Many essays engage with race as well as gender in a crucial recognition that the experiences of white women in the West have not spoken for all Western women. Other subjects tackled include sexuality and sex work, education (both as an object of history and through a discussion of cross-border pedagogy), class and union politics.... On the whole, however, these first steps across the lines of nation-state and gendered borders successfully argue for a dislodging of the primacy of male-centred approaches to the histories of both Canadian and American Wests. Perhaps most effectively, several essays foreground the methodological challenges of focussing on the histories of women in the North American Wests, exhibiting a self-reflexivity and a desire to proceed as ethically as possible in this emerging field of women's cross-border history." Gillian Roberts, The Journal of American Studies, Volume 44, 2010

"The essays in One Step Over the Line step over ... national and gendered lines in a number of ways, and the result is a valuable and interesting contribution to Western cultural studies.... [A]s a whole the collection provides significant contextualizing material to literary scholars and suggests many avenues for further research.... Overall, this collection contributes usefully to ongoing conversations about the tenor of the North American Wests, reminding readers that national borders can be crossed, but also do make a difference." Alison Calder, Canadian Literature 206, Autumn 2010

"Ever since western women's history emerged as a distinct field of study in the 1980s, collaborative efforts have produced some of the best and most innovative works in the discipline. One Step Over the Line continues this fine tradition..With essays from a wide array of scholars, the volume's exploration of the role of nation as framework broadens and enriches knowledge of women's lives on both sides of the line, connects parallel histories, and challenges assumptions about the role of the nation in the construction of each country's history. Divided into seven sections, the book moves from theory, to analysis, to teaching advice....One Step Over the Line is an excellent book. It continues the work of multiethnic, cross-class explorations of women's experiences within an innovative framework." Renee M. Laegried, Great Plains Quarterly, Fall 2009

"[The] contributors to One Step over the Line come from Canada, the United States, and Britain and cross academic generational lines. Even in more than four hundred pages, One Step over the Line cannot discuss all of the topics and issues relevant to the experiences of women in the Canadian and American Wests. But the very presence of such a book will be welcomed by those who regularly teach classes on the West, especially in the field of women's history.... This anthology is an attempt to stimulate further scholarship that uses comparative and transnational frameworks. To elicit conversation and research toward this end, the editors have paired the essays (one by an American author, the other by a Canadian or British author) in seven sections....This anthology is one you will want to get your hands on for the ideas and possibilities for teaching women's western history across borders offered in section 7....Thanks to Jameson and McManus for initiating the conversation in this fine collection." Sandra Schackel, The Journal of American History, Vol. 96, Issue 3 [full review at http://tinyurl.com/ygfkosz]

"In taking up the challenges of comparative and transnational history, Jameson, McManus, and the sixteen contributors have produced a collection remarkable for its synthesis, iconoclasm, and insight. To the credit of both the editors and contributors, One Step Over the Line is a tightly integrated ensemble. The editors have arranged the articles into seven thematic sections designed to induce comparison..Editors Jameson and McManus also establish compelling connections between the articles. Their introduction and the synopses opening each section set the historical context, outline central themes, and emphasize important arguments and historiographical issues. These commentaries and the thoughtful sequencing of articles generate a high level of intertextuality... The articles in One Step Over the Line hold the potential to recast our understanding of major events and social phenomena in important ways..That a volume so intently focused on reconstituting women's lives concludes with two chapters exploring the connection of women's experiences to broader historical themes highlights the thoughtful editorial choices made in structuring the collection..The iconoclasm that typifies One Step Over the Line owes much to the authors' devotion to questioning received themes, categories, and professional practices..One Step Over the Line is an important and meaningful addition to the histories of the American and Canadian Wests, and it would serve well as a college or university course reader..the collection's superb contextualization of events, along with its persuasive challenges to the ideas, themes, and categories prominent in Western history, make it a potentially thought-provoking classroom tool and worthwhile reading for any student of Western history." Chris Clarkson, BC Studies, Spring 2009"

"...do not approach this book with trepidation. It is not pedantic in the least. In fact, it's a gem.... All 16 [essays] are clear, well-written and appealing pieces in which the eternally rehashed and reheated Famous Five rate nary a mention. Instead, we meet little-known women whose stories, centred on the theme of border crossing, whether geographic or spiritual, are fascinating....Never revisionist, always fresh and insightful, One Step Over the Line speaks as much to women's lives today as it does to those of the past." Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald, August 10, 2008

"...these sixteen articles guide the reader to a deeper understanding of the complexity of gender relations along the 49th parallel and suggest new women's history methodologies. In the final section, Mary Murphy's and Margaret Walsh's reflections on teaching provide excellent introductions to the histories and historiographies of the region.... Students and the general public will find much to appreciate among the individual articles in this collection. Taken as a whole, though, the volume is most useful as a call to arms for scholars to embrace a wide range of research methods to pursue a fuller understanding of the complexities of gender, race, and nationhood in the U.S.-Canada borderlands." Cynthia Culver Prescott, Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2010

One Step Over the Line: Toward a History of Women in the North American Wests