When reflecting on the birth of the U.S. women’s movement, our attention often turns to the efforts of eastern women and initiatives like the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. But while women organized, protested, and sought change from this convention all the way to the passage of the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, a more profound change was occurring on the western frontier.

Evolution Toward Equality analyzes the many conditions necessary for this fundamental societal change where women in the West received voting, property, and legal rights long before their eastern sisters.  Neal proposes three stages that made this evolutionary change possible: rejection of traditional role models, finding new and often unexpected role models, and integrating women into the public sphere. She explores factors of the western environment which opened new opportunities and attitudes for both women and men to accept steps toward equality.