Wyoming is famous as the Cowboy State, but women have shaped its laws, land, culture, and communities from the beginning. In 1869, Wyoming Territory became the first U.S. territory to grant women the right to vote, a historic breakthrough that helped earn it another proud name: the Equality State.

Fifth-generation Wyomingite, photographer, and storyteller Lindsay Linton Buk joins Women Road Warriors hosts Shelley Johnson and Kathy Tuccaro to reveal the remarkable women behind Wyoming’s history and the modern American West.

Lindsay’s new book, Women Shaping the West: Stories from Wyoming, grew out of her acclaimed podcast and museum exhibition. After training in New York City and returning home, Lindsay traveled more than 15,000 miles across Wyoming, shot 600 rolls of film, and recorded over 3,000 minutes of interviews.

Her visually stunning collection profiles more than 25 extraordinary women from an Eastern Shoshone language preservationist and a backcountry pilot to an abstract painter and a Wyoming Supreme Court justice. Their lives challenge the enduring myth that rugged men built the West alone.

In this episode, discover:

• How Wyoming women fought for, won, and protected early voting rights
• How Haudenosaunee women influenced early leaders of the American women’s rights movement
• Why living and working close to the land demands extraordinary resilience
• How women’s interdependence creates a circular web of strength that uplifts entire communities
• What Wyoming’s ranchers, artists, pilots, judges, language keepers, and other leaders reveal about identity, purpose, and leadership

Meet the women who helped build Wyoming and the bold women who are still shaping the American West today.

Learn more about Women Shaping the West:

https://www.shapingthewest.com/

Meet Lindsay Linton Buk:

https://www.lintonproductions.com/about

www.womenroadwarriors.com

www.womenspowernetwork.net

#WomenShapingTheWest #WyomingWomen #WomensHistory #WomensSuffrage #AmericanWest #StrongWomen #WomenLeaders #EqualityState #LindsayLintonBuk #WomenRoadWarriors

This is Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

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So gear down, sit back, and enjoy.

Welcome.

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I'm Shelley.

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We've always been told that the west was built by cowboys.

But what if the real story is that women were shaping it all along?

Why is the story of the American west missing its most powerful voices?

In Women Shaping the West, photographer and storyteller Lindsay Lynton Buck reclaims that narrative.

She reveals the women who've long been the backbone, the builders, and the bold voices behind the region's identity.

A Wyoming native with deep generational roots, Lindsay left for New York City to train as a photographer.

She was driven by a desire to understand people and their connection to place.

But it was when she returned home that her perspective shifted, realizing the stories that needed telling were right in front of her.

She spent years crossing more than 15,000 miles of rugged terrain, shooting 600 rolls of film and recording over 3,000 minutes of interviews.

She captured the lives of women who are artists, lawmakers, ranchers, pilots, and pioneers in their own right.

Her new book is a storytelling project with magnificent photography that blends history, pictures and lived experience to show how women have actively shaped the culture, leadership, and identity of Wyoming and the American West.

It challenges the myth that the west was built only by rugged men and replaces it with a more complete truth.

Women have always been leaders, creators, decision makers, and change agents, and that's definitely evident in Wyoming.

They made some major changes for women.

Lindsay's joining us today to tell us more.

Welcome, Lindsay.

Thank you so much for being on our show.

Thank you so much, Shelly and Kathy.

And that was an incredible introduction.

Thank you.

That's because you are incredible for everything that you do.

This is a wonderful testament to women, Lindsay, and the state of Wyoming.

Before we dive into the book, because there's some really interesting information here and some wonderful women you featured.

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Absolutely.

So, as you mentioned in that introduction, I have very deep roots in Wyoming.

I grew up in a small farm town in the northwest part of the state called Powell, and I was always a big thinker.

A lot of my journey has been this tension between constraints and freedom and Grew up in these wide open spaces.

But a part of, part of my spirit did feel a little contained.

Being in a small town.

I always have loved stories, loved people, fascinated by how people live their lives across the world.

And so like a lot of kids from Wyoming, I couldn't wait to leave.

When I graduated from high school, I went out east.

My mom is from Connecticut, so we had that connection and went to college on the east coast.

I was always creative.

I was a dancer, was my first kind of storytelling, creative expression.

I lived in LA for a little bit, pursuing that professionally, but found photography a little bit later in life and ended up going back to school for commercial photography actually in Powell, where my story began.

A community college there, got a two year degree and then moved straight to New York and did the New York hustle.

It's the first time I felt really confident calling myself an artist.

Living in New York just got, got like my training grounds and so much experience and just loved existing in a microcosm of the world.

And then came back to Wyoming to a place where, you know, I never thought my journey would circle home.

And it was really when I returned that that sort of tension came back.

And my project called Women Shaping the Stories from Wyoming, where I told the stories of 25 women making an impact in the cowboy state, that's our unofficial motto, became my way to kind of explore what, what is possible in Wyoming and confront that long, long held belief that if I ever returned home there would be nothing for me as a creative.

So the project kind of started as a, like a side project.

I'm, I am a commercial photographer by trade.

So when I moved home to Wyoming, I opened the commercial photography studio and that was my business and my foundation and what allowed me to stay in Wyoming and you know, actually work.

But then there was just more in me and I really wanted to explore my state.

This massive state that we live in.

Wyoming is the least populated state in the country, but the 10th largest in in size.

So it's a lot of wildness, a lot of open spaces and because of that there can also be a lot of isolation.

So I was just really curious, just wandered who is out there, you know, what are my peers creating and how are they leading and how are they feeling these, you know, these tensions as well.

And that's really the seed where my project was born.

And it's just continued to be this incredible adventure and discovery almost a decade later, culminating in my book.

This is wonderful.

I mean this is kind of like National Geographic for the state of Wyoming.

It really, really is.

Thank you, Shelley.

Have you ever driven through Wyoming?

No, I haven't.

I have once and it is beautiful.

Oh my gosh.

I was leaving, going from LA up to Alberta, Canada.

And my daughter and I, we had done this, this, this road trip around the US and we came up, the last state to go through was Wyoming.

And oh my gosh, it's breathtaking.

It's like the wild wilderness out.

It's beautiful.

The rolling hills and oh my gosh,.

It's a lot of wilderness.

You might have gone on i90, which is stunning and takes you through the bighorns.

I80 is more of that desert prairie.

And you might think when you're driving through that, like it's more just kind of emptiness.

But I so appreciate you too, Shelley.

Touching upon the Nat Geo connection, I write in my book how as a child growing up, my parents used to collect National Geographic.

So there was a bookshelf, but just the rows and rows of the yellow spines and my eyes would always just be so captivated to that corner of our home and was just so.

It just nurtured so much of my curiosity and how people are connected to place.

I was a history major in college.

That was my first degree.

Cause I just loved those stories.

And when I went back to school for photography, that was my original goal, was to become a Nat Geo photographer and, you know, fell more into the commercial, commercial realm.

But yeah, the work is certainly more documentary based and the way I shot it as well, I wanted it to be a departure from my commercial studio and my commercial work, which is more styled, more produced.

I wanted just to be able to be immersed in these women's worlds and just take a completely different approach.

So I really appreciate you giving me that nod because it's been a big part of my journey, that publication, it's super impressive.

You, you really chronicled Women Wyoming so beautifully and you're extremely versatile as a photographer.

And you know, pictures do tell a story.

I mean, when you think about it, as we become adults, we have books that have fewer and fewer pictures and I enjoyed the pictures when I was a kid.

Words can only capture so much.

Well, we're visual creatures, right?

So you see, once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Isn't that the saying?

Yes, very true, very true.

Good and bad.

So Wyoming, it's historically been a very independent and progressive state.

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Wyoming the last state to adopt a speed limit?

Because I think you could drive pretty much as fast as you wanted.

I actually don't know, but it could be.

Yes, we tend to be, yeah, probably Wyoming or Texas or know one of the western states.

I'm not sure about that one though.

I didn't know that.

Yes.

So you know, the women's suffrage movement got its start.

And it was kind of this radical declaration at the end of this articles of Sentiments to add, add the right to vote.

You know, women wanted equal pay, they wanted custody of their children, they wanted property rights.

And these early suffragists realized if they didn't have voice, if they didn't have power at the ballot box, there would be no way to get those, those you know, other, other rights that we should have as human beings.

But Wyoming was the first state to actually formally recognize that power.

And a lot of women in Wyoming were incredibly active in the suffrage movement nationally.

What's really neat too about our suffrage history is not only were we the first state to recognize women's right to vote and enfranchise women, we also recognized women's right to hold office with that legislation.

So it was you could go to the ballot box, but you could also hold positions of power, which was incredibly revolutionary at the time.

And so because of that, Wyoming gave the country its first female governor, Nellie Taylo Ross.

She actually went on to become the first female director of the U.S. mint.

And she served in that role for I believe 20 years.

We gave the country its first female justice of the peace, Esther Hobart Morris.

Esther was incredibly active on the national suffrage movement and was really involved in the suffrage associations across the country.

First female bailiff, first female jurors.

What I want to say about that legislation was it wasn't like this unanimous vote.

It actually came down to a tie breaking vote.

And because we had so many, the west really became a place where women came to kind of leave the structure of society and more of those rules.

And so you had a lot of these suffragists and they, they were advocating, they were advocating to their legislators.

So during that really transformational legislation, it wasn't like all the men in Wyoming's territory government at that time were unanimously voting for it.

It came down to a single tie breaking vote.

And it is believed that one of the other big suffragists in Wyoming at the time who did a lot of advocacy was very involved politically, that she was a big part of kind of swaying that vote.

And a lot of, a lot of the women in those communities were.

But nevertheless, you know, it did kind of pave the way for women to have enormous power compared to their American contemporaries.

And, you know, it was a lot of these female firsts, but it was also, you know, women in small towns.

So in, in my book, I tell 25 contemporary stories, but then I do tell 20 historical vignettes of women from that time.

And so women became small town mayors.

They would be the game warden or a county clerk in their town.

And that, that again, was because that legislation not only recognized women's right to vote, but also recognize women's right to hold office, which is incredible.

And that gave us our official state motto, which is equal rights.

We're known today as the Cowboy State.

That's more of our unofficial motto and really our nickname.

And so, so much of my project is connecting past to present.

And while they call Wyoming the cowboy State, women have always been at the heart of our most powerful transformations.

And so my book really seeks to elevate women's voices and contributions and impact and just bring that back to the forefront.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road warriors coming up.

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We're talking with photographer and storyteller Lindsay Linton Buck about her magnificent new book, Women Shaping the West.

Most of us hear Wyoming and picture cowboys, cattle and wide open country.

It is the cowboy state, but that's only part of its identity.

Before Wyoming was even a state, its territorial legislature gave women the right to vote.

And that earned another proud nickname, the Equality State.

It's been a central theme of protecting women and their progress.

And the state was well ahead of its time.

But it was not without a huge push by women that was hard fought and not always guaranteed.

Lindsay, it is interesting you were talking about how a lot of these changes for women in Wyoming came down to one vote.

What many people may not know today, the 19th Amendment came down to one vote.

That's right.

There was a man from Tennessee named Harry Byrne and he voted for the right to vote because of a note that his mother put into his shirt pocket, I believe, or his suit pocket that said do the right thing.

That's right.

That's right.

And you know, I will say the suffrage movement, when I think about progress and even things today, I do look at that suffrage movement as an example because it really was decades.

So even the 19th Amendment, that was exclusive to white women and so right.

In many areas of the country there were poll taxes and intimidation.

All of that prevented African Americans from voting.

That finally gave African American women the rights they deserved across the country.

It took a long time.

When you look at really the length of enfranchisement and voting as a whole and for all women in our country, it was, it was over a hundred years.

When you look at the full scope and require just that continual advocacy and showing up and it does give me, it reminds me to keep doing that in my life today, you know, you just have to keep showing up and progress is not linear and sometimes it just takes, it takes a long time to make change.

It does.

I had a family member who was a suffragist, and I was raised as a child by my mother who said, voting, you vote, Voting, always vote.

I mean, voting was extremely important.

And that's the first thing I did when I was 18, because it was pounded into my head.

You will do this.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

And, you know, it is something that sometimes we take for granted.

And when you really start digging into the suffrage movement.

So something else I learned when researching the suffrage movement was the women who formed that Declaration of Sentiments and even were inspired to add the right to vote to their list of other demands.

They were inspired by the Iroquois and Iroquois women.

It was a much more egalitarian society.

So a lot of our suffrage movement and this idea of equality, this idea of having a voice, was modeled on indigenous nations.

So I.

There's just so, so much depth.

And it is something that even when I talk about it, there's still language, like, women were granted the right to vote.

I always like to say, you know, the state or the government recognized women's right to vote because it wasn't like.

Like all of a sudden, oh, now you deserve it.

It's like, no, this is an inherent human right, and it required a lot of advocacy and progress to get to that point.

And it is something to.

To exercise, right to exercise.

Absolutely.

I love how your book talks about women shaping through action, not recognition.

They didn't wait for permission.

They stepped in where they were needed, and leadership came from what the community gaps, the personal hardship and a sense of responsibility.

There were certain of hardships in Wyoming.

Women had to be pretty darn tough to be pioneers.

So do you think that that's some of what shaped this tenacity to say, we want our share, this is our right?

I think so.

And I think, you know, Wyoming is very small scale, and it was during those early years as a territory and statehood, too.

There just weren't a lot of people.

So you really do require everybody to.

To step forward.

And I think that still exists today.

I mean, it's.

It's something I talk about in the book and just something that's part of my creative journey.

It's this contrast between.

You could look at it like a lack of resources, or you could look at it as opportunity, you know, but.

But we are smaller scale.

We don't have millions of people in our state.

We don't even.

We have, you know, about 600,000 people across our entire state.

So for the most part, we're very, very rural.

And that means, you can't be as anonymous.

That means you can step forward and have an impact.

The degree of separation amongst people is a lot less.

So there can be more transparency and more accountability.

And I think, you know, that was certainly true over 100 years ago.

And obviously then you're dealing with the hardships of just the elements.

Our winners are long, they're six months long.

I think about that all the time.

Like how, you know, how hard life would have been without just being able to turn on your heater.

I mean it's, the winters are long and they're cold and like we still to this day, you know, we're deeply connected to, to the elements.

They're just, there's, there's less of that artificial suburbia around of us.

We don't, we don't have a lot of that.

So you do get to be more in tune and connected.

But I think there, there is that opportunity for you to, you can really have a voice if you choose to step forward.

But in a lot of cases it's also required.

Like you just have to.

And certainly with like the ranchers and the farmers, I mean women are just so integral to all of those operations.

It's just, there's not a, there's no discrimination with the type of job.

It's just you, you lend a hand and you do.

You get the job done, whatever it.

Needs to be sure it's massive work even today.

I mean we may have electric and all of that, but doing all of that.

Farmers, ranchers, they work.

I mean, at the crack of dawn they're up.

Yes, yes.

I just reconnected with the sheep ranching family in my book, the Tomans.

And they're in their calving and lambing season right now.

You know, their days start essentially at sunrise and go until 10 o' clock at night.

And that's the season of life they're in.

There's, you know, working the land.

It's just you there.

It's not something you can put off to the next day.

You know, it's like things have to be done every single day.

That's right.

My grandparents were farmers and they never took a vacation.

Their season never ended.

A few years ago I was volunteering in this family garden out in northern Canada and there was a fam where I was, they were running the farm and they had seven children all within, you know, a year apart.

And the woman, the mother was carrying the newborn on her back was pregnant and she was managing all these children with.

And they were all doing their all little Chores.

And she still had time to make her own bread right from the wheat, like cracking the corn and making like from scratch.

And I mean scratch.

It blew my mind.

And so here I am, I'm working in the garden and these little kids are instructing me, educating me about the seeds and about this and about that and, you know, how not to plant them.

I'm like, oh, my God.

It was, it literally took my, my breath away.

Like, it was so beautiful to see that in this day and age that that's still.

People are still, you know, doing the work.

Even though we could have easily, you.

Know, gone to the store and just.

Get a bag of flour.

No, they're making it from scratch.

And you saw an example of a very strong woman.

Oh my God.

I gave her the biggest hug.

I'm like, you have inspired me beyond belief.

Like, wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, and certainly in Wyoming, you still have a very harsh landscape.

It's beautiful, but you really have to be still a pioneer, basically.

You have to be self reliant in many ways, but you also have to have a sense of community because you are, like you said, there's isolation there.

You have to learn a lot of things and that brings in a lot of resilience, self reliance, deep connection to the land and an independence that Wyoming definitely has.

And like you said, because you are smaller in population, you have to be more, what, Progressive.

And you have to be louder.

It's like, hey, we're out here.

You're going to listen to us.

Yeah, I think that's the.

Again, so much of my work and I feel like my journey in Wyoming is those contrasts and you know, coming against the boundaries, so to speak.

And, you know, the cowboy, like, where the cowboy state, it's the symbol of independence.

Yet what I've realized through creating my work and what I think women do so well is really that interdependence and which is so vital, you know, to our resilience.

And, you know, certainly we aren't all like, tracking our own wheat and making, you know, I, I do feature a woman in the book who she calls herself a prairie philosopher, Jill Winger.

She's amazing.

She's really a nuanced renaissance woman who loves to work the land, loves to live off the land, but has essentially, you know, like a huge online platform where she's teaching, teaching and mentoring people.

So you're still connected, of course, to the modern world.

And we still have all the conveniences of modern society.

So we aren't all like, you know, living off the grid.

By any means.

But I do think that was really kind of even like the full circle journey for me, coming home and producing this project, which has followed me through a lot of chapters of life from when I moved home in my 20s, to like setting down roots, starting my family, becoming a mother, and now producing the book as a mom and like trying to find that balance between which that's probably the wrong word for, you know, how we show up as moms.

But just like trying to find it now, it's like, how do I create as a mom?

And I did grow up with a very strong sense of independence and freedom and kind of like, yeah, I can do it all on my own.

And what I've learned through this project, through all these women and through motherhood, is it's actually the interdependence that takes us so much further.

And what I think the stories in my book absolutely promote and share and highlight is, is really that web of connection and just, it's more circular.

You know, it's not like this linear, like you're in your own lane.

Tough it out.

It is like, how do we all keep the connections and uplift people in our community?

And how does that create ripple effects to expand well beyond our communities?

It's.

It's really the interdependence that's so vital.

Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors.

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Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

We're back with Lindsay Linton Buck, author of Women Shaping the West.

There are history books we read, and then there are books we experience.

This is both a richly visual journey through Wyoming, filled with magnificent portraits and the lived stories of women who preserved cultures, built communities, made laws, worked the land, and challenged expectations.

Every photograph seems to say, look again.

This book says that very loudly and that the west was never shaped by rugged men alone.

Wyoming women are a lived history of that even today.

Lindsay, there's so many different meanings and messages that people can get out of your book, not only visually, but the written word.

And you showcase what, 25 different women who are definitely an inspiration.

Did you want to maybe showcase a few of them Absolutely.

I love sharing the stories.

It's my favorite, favorite part.

I love.

I love these women so deeply, and they really have.

So many of them have become really dear friends and mentors and just made my life in Wyoming so rich and full to have these incredible women in my life.

I always like to tell the story of Nell G. Because she was the first woman I featured in the project.

And when I conceptualized this project, I really did want to feature women that maybe you weren't expecting to hear from Wyoming.

So I was connecting with a friend about actually raising money for the project to go produce it.

And she said, have you heard about this woman who paints 10 by 30 foot canvases from her ranch in Banner, wyoming?

I thought 10 by 30ft, like not inches feet.

This is not a woman painting from her elbows to her fingertips.

It is this very physical, full body, massive, you know, process.

And I just thought, no, but I have to meet her.

So she was quite remarkable.

And I was able.

She was painting these canvases in her 80s, so I was able to go spend a couple days on her ranch.

I told her story in December.

She lives seven hours on the other side of the state.

So for seven hours I was crossing a pretty sleepy landscape, you know, snowy landscape things.

The colors were obviously very subdued and hibernating tundra.

And then I, seven hours later, arrive at her ranch and walk into her home, which is just full of color and life and vibrancy and art.

And she loved to travel to primitive cultures.

And so she had all this beautiful, you know, beaded tapestries or wooden sculptures.

And I just came into her world and was like, where am I?

I mean, it was just really this pretty transformational experience.

And then got to spend a couple days on her ranch on just being completely immersed in her world.

I was also, for this project, shooting medium format film, which I had, you know, shot film a little bit during photography school, but never for an assignment or like a formal project.

So it was a lot of risks.

I was also interviewing everyone and there's podcast episodes that accompany all the stories.

So I was doing that for the first time.

And so she was just such an incredible co creator for that first story where she was just really up to try everything and anything and was very generous with her time.

So it was a really great way to start and, you know, just.

Just tried everything.

And then when I left a couple days later, just like crossed my fingers like, I hope I hope I got it, you know, because with film, obviously you can't check the back of your camera.

Like, you know, did I get the shot?

I was like, I hope I got it.

And you know, same with the interview.

Obviously the interview I could listen back to.

But it was that really kicked off the whole journey.

And it was, I think just like for every person I realized is like, what's that driving question?

Like, what.

Why do you need to create at this scale?

Like, why do you have to express yourself, you know, at this 10 by 30 foot, like the size of like an entire building wall in your.

Why does your spirit need that?

You know?

And so these were kind of the driving questions that I tried to apply applied to all the women.

Another.

So I told the stories five stories at a time.

The and they would become chapters.

So that first chapter was called chapter one, breaking Boundaries.

And it shared the stories of some of these women who really were just like either like breaking those expectations of what is possible, like Nell G. Or they were the first in their field.

So I featured our first female Supreme Court justice, Marilyn Kite, our first indigenous state senator.

Afiellis on just to some other really remarkable women.

For the second chapter, I really wanted to contrast that.

I wanted to find women who were in smaller towns in Wyoming.

This idea of filling the void kept coming to my mind.

And the idea of like the void is not empty.

It's really the space where all potential exists.

But the void to me was also kind of, you know, Wyoming and like all these seemingly empty spaces, like, what can you forge and harness from this vastness?

So I went to smaller towns.

I went to our Wind River Indian reservation.

And I also had this vision to tell the story of a female pilot.

For that story.

I couldn't really find anything when I was searching online.

So I took out a paper map of Wyoming and just noted where all the municipal airport symbols were and started cold calling the list.

And when I got to Upton, Wyoming, which is a town of about 900 people, I found Lori Materi.

And she was the director of that airport.

But she really loves to fly in the backcountry.

So if you look at her photos, it's with her plane, Papa Charlie.

That's her loyal partner for adventure and discovery.

It's an American Citabria plane.

But you'll notice in the photos, the tires are massive.

They're not your standard little small airplane tires.

There's these really giant round, smooth wheels.

Because her passion is flying into the wilderness, she does not like landing on Runway.

She does not like landing on pavement.

She wants to land in a field next to a remote alpine lake.

So it was just this, you know, every story was, I, I got to be a stranger and traveler in my state and just it was a continual discovery.

And then every chapter kind of informed where I was going to go next.

So it's a really diverse collection of stories in all, all across industries from from the ranchers and the farmers to businesswomen and politicians and community advocates, and from the more rural parts of our state to the more cultural hubs.

So I tried to get a really broad collection of industry, of age, of backgrounds, just to show a more rich, colorful picture than, you know, even that I was used to seeing as somebody who grew up in our state.

And all of these women are so very interesting.

It's not somebody you would normally meet.

And in their stories and the things they do, it's really spectacular.

And like I said, this is very inspirational for any reader.

Now, Effie Ellis, I was seeing that she ran for office because there were almost no women left in the Senate.

What was that about?

Yeah, so, you know, Wyoming has this really incredible history.

Why being the first state to recognize women's right to vote and women's right to hold office, we now have one of the lowest representations of women in our state government.

And there's a lot of reasons for that.

I think one of honestly, one of the biggest barriers is our legislature meets in Cheyenne, which is in the southeast corner of the state.

And as I mentioned, our state is massive, so it's really far.

And the way that our legislature works, we have a citizen legislature, meaning that the legislature meets for session for, you know, six to eight weeks.

And then people go back to their lives.

I mean, they have committee meetings throughout the year, but no one's a full time politician in our state.

So it creates a barrier of you have to have that flexibility and to be able to leave and to during session.

It's really intense.

If you live seven hours, like I live seven hours from Cheyenne, I'm a mom.

Like, there's no way I could just like pick up and leave for a couple of months or even for like the week and commute back and forth.

So it is challenging for, I think, moms and you know, even just for like young people, for people who have a family.

So our legislature tends to be people that are either closer to Cheyenne or, you know, they have more freedom to be able to serve in those offices.

Afy, she grew up in Jackson but lived in sh.

She lives in Cheyenne now.

So she lives where our state capital is, and she's been involved in government and politics.

She became a lawyer and she was.

She brought her daughter to session, and her daughter Marlo turned to her as they were observing the Senate and she said, mom, are girls allowed to serve in the state senate?

And AFI said, well, of course.

Like, there's.

There's one woman right there.

She was the lone woman serving in the Senate at the time.

Senator Bernadine Craft, who I also feature in my book.

But she had just announced her retirement and afi, you know, it was on her mind to run, but it was kind of in that moment where she thought, wow, if no women run for our state senate and win, like, we will actually have a state senate that year that has no women represented.

And so that was kind of the push she needed to throw her name in the hat.

And she won that election.

She is, she's Navajo, so she was our first indigenous person to ever serve in our state senate in Wyoming.

And she's featured in chapter one.

Yeah, there, you know, we, we definitely have more representation now than we did at that time.

It fluctuates, but it's still, we still overall have one of the lower representations of women in, in our state government.

I think what you find when you go into communities, women are really engaged civically.

You know, whether they're serving as mayors or on school boards, you see a lot more participation in government in local communities.

But it is, it is tough with our state being so massive and with the state capitol not being a central location.

It does create a big barrier for entry for mothers especially.

It would, well, seven hours.

I don't think a lot of people can even fathom that it takes seven hours to get from one place to another place in a state.

Yes.

You know, yeah.

Yes.

And you have to be tough to be able to.

Well, like you said, you have winter, Lindsay, six months out of the year.

And of course, Kathy Canada has that too.

So it takes a lot of tenacity and certainly it makes sense that you have a part time legislature.

Of course, Mark Twain would have said, that's good.

Yeah, I think, you know, there, it's been a topic of debate like how, how do we make it more accessible.

But on the other hand, it is, it is kind of nice that, you know, I do think you still absolutely have career politicians in Wyoming.

But for the most part, most of the legislature, legislators, they go back to a business, a ranch.

They have other things going on, which I think is good.

It keeps them engaged with their communities.

And not so removed from the people they're serving.

I think that is excellent because I think that that's kind of part of what's happened.

You have people in the legislature that it's kind of like there's Oz and they've lost touch with the people they represent.

And if you've got the citizen legislature, they're out there in the trenches doing things and they know what's going on.

So I mean, that's, yeah.

And you're going back to your community and you're going to run into the people you represent at the grocery store and other places.

You know, there's not, like I said, there's not so many places to hide and be anonymous.

So I think you can be.

I, I've, I've found for myself, you know, I do, I do enjoy being engaged with our legislature.

And it's hard.

Like if you aren't right there in Cheyenne things, every like session happens so quickly.

And it's not like, here's our set schedule for the, for the next six weeks.

It's like, it's obviously a very dynamic, every day is incredibly dynamic.

So most people that are involved with government do live a little closer to the capitol there, There are virtual options for poor Wyoming citizens to engage, but it's still, it still requires a lot to do that.

So again, that's where the power of your vote is so important.

And you know, you just have to put your, you know, you, you vote and elect the people that you want to represent you for those decisions.

There's a lot of, lot of advocacy that happens in our state and I'm involved with our Wyoming Women's foundation, which works for economic self sufficiency and opportunities for girls in Wyoming.

And we do a lot of advocacy to the legislature.

So that's, I feel like, you know, organizationally there's a lot of, there's a lot of opportunity for impact.

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Welcome back to Women Road warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Tucaro.

Wyoming state motto is equal rights and women shaping the west gives those words, faces, voices and personal histories.

Lindsay lynton Buck introduces us to more than 25 remarkable women, from an Eastern Shoshone language keeper and a backcountry pilot to an artist and a state Supreme Court justice.

There's tons of history in this book, and it's far more than a stunning pictorial to display.

It's a record of women whose determination helped define the west and those whose influence continues today.

It's a history of a state that recognized women long before the rest of the nation did, and the recognition of amazing women who live there today.

Lindsay, your book showcases so many things, and there's so many takeaways.

It's just marvelous.

I thought we could touch on this question real quickly, and then we can find out where people can actually buy your book.

Why do you think history has overlooked women's roles in shaping the West?

Because when you look at the history books and what I remember and what I paid attention to, I think that might be part of it, too.

I don't remember women being talked about that much.

Yeah, I think it's just our patriarchal society, you know, where we, you know, women have really had to.

Had to fight and advocate for a voice.

And in history, the stories that are valued are the ones that are preserved and shared.

And for a long time, that has been more of the story of the conquests and the men.

And also, women weren't allowed to serve in positions of power.

I mean, I think that was amazing for me to learn just how few rights American women had just be.

Even before that suffrage law.

It's like you didn't have custody of your children.

You know, it's just you were absolutely paid, paid less simply for being a woman during that time.

It wasn't.

It was incredibly transparent.

And that was something also, that was cool about Wyoming.

With that first legislation, we passed one of the first equal pay laws in the country that demanded that teachers be paid the same as men, regardless of their sex.

And that was with that territorial legislation, the suffrage legislation.

So that's amazing.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

So, you know, I just think in terms of storytelling, the stories that we value are the ones that we share.

And a lot of times the ones that we value are the majority voice or the people in power.

And so.

But that doesn't mean that people that are not in those positions of kind of that hierarchical power are not doing great work.

So there is.

I feel encouraged, because I do.

I do think there is so much more now of kind of reclaiming what not necessarily has been lost, but just that hasn't been as amplified.

Right.

Because There, of course, there are so many.

Of course women have always been there.

Of course women have always been making an impact and contributing.

It's just there they were not necessarily as valued and so therefore those stories were not necessarily as preserved.

So it's definitely a big part of my mission to, to try to bring to the forefront the impacts and contributions of everybody.

But specifically for our state, which I think, and with the west in general, like it is still very centered upon the cowboy.

It's like there's so much more, you know, there's so much more.

And it's just up to other storytellers to bring those voices to the forefront.

And that's what I've done with my project and my book.

You've done a marvelous job.

You've preserved the legacy, the history, and it's a great reminder.

It's also a great way to inspire and empower.

There's so many elements here.

It's.

It's just.

I love this.

Thank you.

Where can people find your book?

So you can find my book at my project website, which is Shaping the west dot com.

You can also find all the podcast interviews on that site as well.

It's also available wherever books are sold.

So if you like going to bookshop.org or purchasing from your local bookstore, it's available wherever books are sold.

So shapingthewest.com is the main hub and it is a book that you can explore and dive into in a lot of different ways.

As you mentioned, Shelly, it's highly, highly visual.

There's over a hundred photographs, so it can be something where you just open up to a page.

There's also lots of pull quotes that I've pulled from the podcast.

So just opening to a beautiful spread with like a little dose of wisdom.

You can read the book like that.

You could read it cover to cover.

My mother in law was just visiting and reading the book and she's reading one story a day.

So it's a book that, yeah, can, can stay with you and it's kind of you.

You can use it however you need it.

If you need more of that visual inspiration, it's there for that.

It's also very rich in narrative.

There's the history component and then I tell the whole creative process towards the end of the book, which is how I actually brought this vision to life over the period of years, from the 25 stories to the podcast, to the traveling exhibit and now this book.

So if you are a creator, a builder, there's a lot of helpful information in that section as well, so it's wonderful.

It is.

It's the type of book that you can always look at and never, never get tired of it.

So what is your website again, Lindsay?

It's Shaping the West Dot com.

I love this.

And the photography is phenomenal.

And your work has appeared in Outside and Southwest magazines.

Women of Wyoming has been featured by Forbes in the Travel Channel.

There's been a tremendous interest in your work and.

And it's justifiable.

It's great.

What a gift to the world.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It is, you know, it's.

It feels very full circle to have the book.

There's a lot of reasons not to create a book or not to do these projects at all.

Right.

Like, it's.

No one made me go out and tell these stories.

It was just this curiosity and this frustration to a degree, too, that I wanted to confront.

And I think it's so worth it.

I think it's so worth it to explore what's inside of you, what's frustrating you, maybe what scares you, and to go towards that.

And it's.

Can be deeply uncomfortable, and it's going to test every ounce of yourself, and it's so worth pushing through and persevering.

I told this book a number of years after producing the stories because I came up, became a mom, and I had to take some time away from production, which, you know, is demanding and demands need to be away.

And there were a lot of reasons not to create the book years later, but I just felt like I.

It's why I created the stories in the first place, to put them in a physical object, to put them in this record.

I think that's really important too.

Just the physical object and the record, those carry energies and frequencies.

And again, then it is this.

This legacy and this item that is preserved.

And.

And it's just been such a joy to get to keep sharing the stories.

And so it's like that's the.

That's the magic that comes out of a creative process, are.

These conversations are.

It's the spontaneity.

It's the.

It's the memories that I have as a result of producing these stories, from going to sheep camp and camping in a sheep wagon and telling Mickey Tillman stories, to being in Neljie's studio, to telling.

She's our only female medevac pilot, so she flies Blackhawk helicopters into the battlefield to save lives.

I got to.

She got.

I got to go on a test flight with them.

Like, these are the things that can't be taken away.

And like I get to live with these rich experiences and again, just get to make these connections with really incredible people.

And like, that's, that's what I think life is about.

And.

But it takes a lot of.

It's priceless.

Exactly.

Thank you, Kathy.

It is absolutely priceless.

But it is, it is challenging to get to that.

Like, you do have to go through.

You are going to be tested, you are going to be, there are going to be a lot of reasons to, to walk away.

And, but if you can just keep iterating, if you know, you just keep going, you just keep going.

Like the only way out is through.

And it's like that, that is, that is what I think we're here to do is to, to excavate but not keep what is inside of us locked inside.

Like we're meant to share it, we're meant to release it and keep moving forward.

Well said.

Good advice.

I've really enjoyed this.

I know Kathy has too.

Me too.

Holy smokes, you're great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for the work you're doing, ladies, and thank you so much for having me.

I've really appreciated our conversation.

Thank you, Lindsay.

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