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Autumn

2023

Axes on the Ground: Wolves and Women on the North American Frontier

Published
2023-12-19

Abstract

Nineteenth-century US print media is rife with interactions between white settlers and the wolves (and other wild canids) they slaughtered. Print played host to the evolutions of folkloric villains, heroes, and gender norms in ways that directly impacted national identity and settler conceptions of the so-called American frontier. North American frontiers provided an opportunity for settler women to embody gender roles different from those handed down to them in European folklore. What would we learn about these ideas by approaching the settler women with blood on their hands?