Westering Women by Sandra Dallas

1852
A posting for eligible women of high moral fiber to travel from Chicago on a wagon train to California where they will look at the gold miners as future husbands. Some have dead-end lives in the Midwest caring for their family, spinsters without prospects but some are running from their violent past. The road to California for these Midwestern women will be dangerous but not as dangerous as staying.
Sandra Dallas does an excellent job of portraying the unglorified truth about these wagon trains and the Westward migration. They dealt with danger from weather, starvation, disease, unwanted attention from men and an angry Native American population. For fans of classic westerns and historical fiction such as 1000 White Women.