Bertha Muzzy Bower was living in a drafty cabin on the outskirts of Big Sandy\, Montana\, when she started writing s tories for popular magazines. It was the only way she could think of to ge t the money she needed to leave her unhappy marriage and gain her independ ence. She chose for her subject the antics and adventures of the cowboys w ho worked\, along with her husband\, for the McNamara and Marlow cattle op eration in early-20th century Montana. After four years of rejections\, he r breakthrough came in 1904 when her first novel\, Chip of the Flying U\, launched Bower&rsquo\;s career as the first author to make a living writin g popular westerns. Over the next four decades\, Bower&rsquo\;s 68 novels would sell an estimated 2.5 million copies\, and it was a rare issue of Th e Popular monthly magazine that did not include a Bower story. Despite her undeniable success\, Bower&rsquo\;s contribution to the popular western i s not well known. This talk will discuss Bower&rsquo\;s influence on the p opular western with particular emphasis on her early writing about Montana cowboys\, as well as the factors that contributed to Bower&rsquo\;s erasu re from American literary history.
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Victoria Lamont teaches American Litera ture and culture at the University of Waterloo in Ontario\, Canada and is a researcher of women writers of the American West. She is the author of W esterns: A Women&rsquo\;s History (University of Nebraska Press\, 2016)\, and The Bower Atmosphere: A Biography of B.M. Bower (Bison Books\, 2024). She and her partner live on a farm in southern Ontario along with a flock of sheep\, numerous border collies\, and a miniature dachshund.
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