Cheryl Mullenbach - Stagecoach Women: Brave and Daring Women of the Wild West

Cheryl Mullenbach is a former history teacher, newspaper editor, and public television project manager. She is the author of five nonfiction books for young people. The American Library Association named Double Victory to its Amelia Bloomer Top Ten List in 2014. The FDR Presidential Library and Museum honored her as one of ten authors at their Roosevelt Reading Festival in 2013. All of her books (Great Depression for Kids, Industrial Revolution for Kids, Women in Blue, and Torpedoed!) have been included in the National Council for Social Studies Notable Trade Books for Young People. The International Literacy Association recognized Industrial Revolution for Kids in 2015.

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A HUGE UNCOUTH, UNMANNERLY, ROUGH LOOKING BEING, SCARCELY human; his visage would frighten a wolf. Stagecoach passenger Anne Newport Royall didnt hold back in her straight-talking description of a worker she encountered at a stage stop in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1828. She added, It is surprising that the owners of those lines cannot see their interest to employ none but obliging men to superintend their business, particularly men who are qualified to treat travelers well for their money.

By 1828, when Anne expressed her displeasure with stage travel, including her interaction with a greasy, black coach, the cushions of which were nails, a beastly drunk fellow passenger, and a drunk chambermaid at the tavern, stagecoaching had been operating as a form of public transportation for roughly a hundred years. Despite Anne Royalls unsatisfactory experience, the stagecoach industry as a whole succeeded in many facets of business. Stagecoaching provided jobs, inspired entrepreneurship, facilitated mass movement of people, transmitted news, promoted commerce and tourism, and supported the needs of hopeful but lonely prospectors. It generated widespread economic impact, and it would continue to do so for generations. In time its usefulness was diminished and ultimately eliminated, but for two hundred years stagecoaching was a sustained and profitable contributor to the economy.

It was in the early 1700s that European colonists in North America first began utilizing stagecoaches as a vehicle for hire to carry passengers, mail, newspapers, and small freight. This much-needed endeavor provided a service as well as job opportunities. But the lack of decent roads was a huge barrier.

There is a large variety in American roads excellent limestone roads which stretch out in three directions from Nashville, Tennessee there is quite another sort of limestone road in Virginia, sloping so as to throw the passengers on one another there are the rich mud roads of Ohio and the admirable road running parallel with Lake Ontario. British tourist and writer Harriet Martineau described her experiences traveling by stage on American roads in 1838. Her encounter with the corduroy roads of America were happily of rare occurrence as passengers were tossed about like pills in a pill box.