for "deconstructing, reconceptualizing, and reconstructing" these "structures of colonial ism" (p. 57). As Casta?eda points out, some of the best work today is being done by women of color ? some ofwhom have contributed to thisbook ?but coverage ofdifferentracial-ethnic groups ofwomen varies substantially. For example, there isonly one piece dealing with AfricanAmerican women, as World War II industry workers, but it isderived largelyfromoral histories and thefilm The Life and Times ofRosie theRiveter,which is classic but hardly cutting-edgematerial. A simi larpiece isone of the few references toChinese Americans. Latinas are well represented, but the only piece about Native American women discusses the southwestern tourist industry, where they appear largelyas objects ofAnglo American colonization and exploitation. It isan interesting piece, but a better choicewould show Native women more activelyengaged as cultural defenders,mediators, and negotiators. Perhaps more than any other racial-ethnic group, Na tive Americans deserve contemporary visibility because theyhave resisted marginalization, and Native women havemade vital contributions to that struggle. Many of the essays utilize oral histories, a wonderful technique for recovering women's voices but one with weaknesses as well as strengths,as discussed by Emily Honig in her article on the Farah strikersand by Debra A. Castilllo, Mar?a G?mez, and Gudelia Rangel Delgado in theirpiece on Tijuana prostitutes. The essays that are conscious of the pitfalls as well as theadvantages of this method are among thebest. The section on ruralwomen, which reflects the editor's particular interests,illuminates the problems farm and ranchwomen are facing in the twentieth-centuryeconomy,but treatingthe topicwith awhole section seems excessivewhen themajority ofwesterners have lived inurban areas since 1890.The poem by Carol Konek is lovelybut seems out ofplace as theonly literary work in a collection of scholarly articles. In summary, this book contains some ex cellentmaterial but isheavily oriented toward personal, social, and cultural history.These are all important,but politics, economics, and race relations do not receivemuch analytical atten tion. Without a firmgrounding in thepolitical economy, it is hard to contextualize women's individual agency and activism. General read ers should enjoy the book, while historians of women in theU.S. West will find that there is stillplenty ofwork tobe done in this important area. Trappings of theGreat Basin Buckaroo ByCJ.Hadley University of Nevada Press, Reno, 2003. Photographs. 216 pages. $29.95 paper. Reviewed by Robert Boyd High Desert Museum, Bend, Oregon C.j. hadley's Trappings of theGreat Basin Buckaroo is an engaging and important overview of the lives and work of a group of artisans who create the gear that defines the culture and customs of contemporary bucka roos. Buckaroo is the termused for cowboys in thehigh desert,which stretches from theeastern slope of California's Sierra Nevada, across the basin and range country of northern Nevada, and into the rimrock and sagebrush landscape of southeastern Oregon and Idaho's Owyhee country. The term evolved from vaquero, the 496 OHQ vol. 106, no. 3 name given to Hispanic horsemen in early California. Between 1769 and 1848, vaqueros developed special gear and customs for train inghorses and working cattle.These vaqueros carried theirways to the Great Basin when they came northwith the traildrives ofAnglo American stockmen in the late 1860s and 1870s. They were role models for the next generation, who anglicized the termvaquero into buckaroo by the early twentiethcentury. Across two centuries, vaqueros and bucka roosmade their gear frommaterials at hand: rawhide and leather, coin silver, horsehair, and wool. Their silver-inlaid spade bits and spurs, twistedhorsehair mecates, rawhide bosals and reatas, and other finely crafted pieces of gear were thedistinctive and practical tools of their calling. C.J.Hadley has chosen carefullythepeople whose stories she tells. The twenty-one crafts people profiled inTrappings of theGreat Basin Buckaroo represent some of the region's best artisans. Each has a story of how he or she came to be amaster at producing finely crafted and beautiful gear. Frankie Dougal learned to twisthorsehair mecates, used as reins in training colts with a hackamore, from her mother, Clara Drummond Whitby. Clara learned the skill from a vaquero named Jesuswho worked in Idaho's Owyhee River country,where theDrummonds had a remote ranch. Frankie's daughter Helen...
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