Benson M. Martha Maxwell. Rocky Mountain naturalist

Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. — 386 p. — ISBN: 0-8032-1192-9.The Women in the West series is designed to reflect the extraordinary range of new research into the contributions made by women to the westward movement and to the subsequent development of western North America. Maxine Benson's finely crafted biography of Martha Maxwell marks an auspicious beginning for this series. Based on many years of research in public and private collections and depositories, Benson's work illuminates the little-known but important career of a remarkable woman. Naturalist, museologist, and artist. Maxwell pioneered in a number of fields new for women in addition to carrying out the traditional roles of wife and mother. Her complex character and personality reflected many of the conflicting ideas about woman's place and woman's role in nineteenth-century society. And her tragic and lonely death revealed something of the price she paid for daring to be different. Like that of other accomplished women of her era. Maxwell's fame did not keep pace with the significant influence she had on her profession. Thanks to Maxine Benson, Martha Maxwell has been restored to her deserved place in the history of the West and of the nation.