"Stagecoach" Mary Fields was born in March 1832... in Hickman County Tennessee and moved to the Great Falls, Montana area. Fields was the first female African American carrier for the mail service in Montana. She also owned several businesses in Cascade County Montana and drove the stagecoach, hence her nickname. Fields was an extremely popular person in Virginia City, Montana, so much so, that a Virginia City ordinance was enacted that made it legal for her to enter a saloon, a place forbidden by law to any other self-respecting woman, except Mary, not engaged in the honky-tonk business.Text and image from the Billings, Montana Examiner article about the High Plains Women's Museum, via the interesting Hey to Your Mama N'em blog, via Fuck Yeah, Victorians!
Addendum: prompted by Ninabi's comment, I tracked down more of Mary Fields' history at Cascade Montana.
This is awesome! Girl power!
ReplyDeleteWe need more t-shirts with positive female images for both girls and women like this one on them, not those terrible ones that J.C. Penny pulled that said "I'm too pretty to do homework. My brother does it for me."
Whoooo hoooooooo! This gets my Monday morning off to a great start - thanks! As good as caffeine!