Four of America's First Women Explorers

Women of the Four Winds
Book review by Shelley Hepler

If danger, excitement, high risks and high rewards are the things that feed you or if you just love reading about them, Women of the Four Winds, The Adventures of Four of America's First Women Explorers is the book for you! It celebrates the adventures of four of America's first women explorers: Annie Smith Peck, Delia Akeley, Marguerite Harrison, and Louise Arner Boyd. In the 18th and 19th century, these bold and daring women abandoned the domestic life that was expected of them in era's past. It was a new and exciting time for Victorian women; a new breed of audacious gals, known as the "traveling women," undertook adventurous journeys into remote and often dangerous lands.

Annie Smith Peck
Climbed the highest mountain in Peru when she was sixty

Delia J. Akeley

Traveled across Africa collecting big game specimens for
American museums and lived with Pygmy tribes

Marguerite Harrison

Was jailed in Russia as an American spy

Louise Arner Boyd

Conceived, financed, and lead seven scientific
expeditions to the icebound coast of Greenland

Author Elizabeth Fagg Olds (1913 - 1995) was a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and bureau chief for Time-Life in Mexico. Her portrayal of these four remarkable women is lively and well researched. Olds quotes and references numerous journals and other publications in such a way as to make the subjects feel like contemporaries rather than historical figures. She also includes a list of books and articles written by each of the remarkable women.

I found myself transported, as if in a time machine, to the different experiences these women engaged in, wishing it could be me. Any book that can take you to new and exciting places the way this book has, be it fiction or fact, is worthy of my library!

Shelly Hepler is the CEO of Shine Consulting and the Publisher/Editor of Mermaids of the Lake.