Edith
embedded in these images, as in so many anthropological images of primal wilderness, is the Western version of the hunt as a self-making journey, updated through the substitution of the camera for the gun. ‘Now nature—tamed, endangered, mortal—needs to be protected from people. When we are afraid, we shoot. When we are nostalgic, we take pictures’ (Sontag, 1977, 15; see also Haraway, 1989).
Though it is well documented that women also used the Oregon Trail to journey west, the rare carving of a woman’s name on the rock façade is striking on the one hand because of the well known physical demands of the trek, and on the other hand because of the hyper masculinization of the site on which the name is carved. Adjacent to Independence Rock, Edith’s name appears alongside a foreboding marker–Independence Rock which was named by emigrés who had survived the journey and arrived in California or Oregon, who then advised future travelers that if they made it to this particular site by July 4th, they would have adequate time to traverse through the Rocky Mountains before the snow fall. Parties that risked continuing forward having arrived at Independence Rock later than the 4th, such as the Donner party, often met dire fates. Presumably, those that were fortunate enough to set off in time to reach Wyoming in July would find freedom. Many women made the journey successfully, although the national memory finds it difficult to understand how they were capable. Shafer’s insistent work in such historic sites of trouble pushes back against such sexist tropes and questions why it is so difficult to understand a woman freed?