When a name is not enough: women’s lives in the American West

Concerned by the absence of women’s voices in her school’s scheme of work on the American West, and struck by the narrow, male-dominated narrative in her GCSE textbook, Nicole Ridley set out to rethink the way the topic was taught. Galvanised by her research into different ways to integrate women’s history, Ridley began to explore how gender could be used as a lens to reshape not just who appears in the story of the American West, but how the story is told. In this article, Ridley shares her reflections on building a more inclusive curriculum: one that avoids placing women and indigenous communities as marginal figures in the narrative of events, and instead emphasises their role as central agents in the shaping of the American West...