Liza Ketchum’s brief biographies of eight women whose lives spanned almost 100 years describe both the challenges and the opportunities that the expanding frontier represented. Drawing on the women’s own diaries and letters as well as oral family histories, and using extensive research into other primary documents, Ketchum’s lively profiles are hard to put down. Her subjects include Susan Magoffin, who was 17 when she set off on the Sante Fe Trail with her husband in 1846; Lotta Crabtree, who went from child performer in gold rush camps to national stage star; Bridget “Biddy” Mason, a slave who sued her owner for freedom in California and won, becoming a leading Black citizen of Los Angeles; Bethenia Owens-Adair, who, after raising her child alone, went to medical school and became the first female doctor in the Pacific Northwest; Susette LaFlesche Tibbles, a member of the Omaha Nation who became a spokesperson for the rights of her people; Susan LaFlesche Picotte, sister of Susette, who became the country’s first American Indian doctor; Mary McGladery Tape, a Chinese immigrant who fought to allow Chinese children into mainstream public schools in San Francisco; and Katherine Ryan, who traveled alone to the Klondike and established her own business. One or more photographs of each woman accompany the profile. (Ages 10-14)