Throughout its history, the American West symbolized a place of hope and new beginnings, where anything was possible, especially for men. However, the history written until the 1970s and 1980s excluded women. Sigrid Schönfelder illustrates how the American West served as a catalytic gold mine for many transformations for women. It draws on the life narratives of three healthcare providers whose devotion within the social reform movements of the long nineteenth century contributed significantly to shaping healthcare policies. Their stories show how women contributed to place-making in the West and served as role models for other women to enter the field of medicine.

Sigrid Schönfelder completed her studies at the Technische Universität Dresden, where she majored in North American Studies, focusing on concepts of identity in Native American autobiographies. Her research on the transformation of nineteenth-century women's lives and medicine in the American West at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the Universität Passau, Germany, culminated in her Ph.D. thesis.