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Common Knowledge

Canonical name: Cleaveland, Agnes Morley
Birthdate: 1874
Date of death: 1958-03-08
Gender: female
Nationality: USA
Places of residence: Datil, New Mexico, USA
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Berkeley, California, USA
Occupations: memoirist
Rancher
pioneer
social activist
writer
Short biography: Agnes Morley had a hardscrabble childhood on a cattle ranch in a remote region of New Mexico, and then many years of rigorous education. In 1899, she married Newton Cleaveland, with whom she had four children. The couple lived in Berkeley, California, where Agnes became a clubwoman and social activist. She was also a prolific writer. Agnes Morley Cleaveland achieved fame with her memoir, No Life for a Lady, published in 1941, which remains in print. Her son Norman Cleaveland grew up to be an athlete and writer.

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Reviews

No Life for a Lady (Women of the West) by Agnes Morley Cleaveland

This is an interesting autobiography about Agnes's life filled with entertaining stories of fun and hardship, the good times and the not so good, on a ranch in western New Mexico in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She learned to make the best of it.

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mapg.genie | 1 other review | Apr 12, 2024 |

No Life for a Lady by Agnes Morley Cleaveland

A memoir about growing up on a New Mexico cattle ranch in the late 1800s and then watching that land and its way of life slowly changing in the early 20th century.

I wasn't too sure about this book at first; the writing struck me as unpolished and a little disjointed. But there is a certain simple, good-humored honesty about it that grew on me very quickly and left me utterly charmed. It's full of terrific anecdotes, too. Agnes Morley Cleaveland did not particularly like the romantic mythologizing of the cowboy, but her life story nevertheless displays a lot of the exciting Wild West color that has made them such an icon in popular culture, including tales of cattle rustling, outlaws and gunfights. Just as interesting, though, are the glimpses of ordinary, day-to-day life on the range, even if much of that life does seem to have consisted of wandering around on foot looking for horses followed by wandering around on horses looking for cows.

Adding to the attraction of this book for me is the fact that the ranchland in question was about sixty miles west of where I am right now, and the town I live in gets a number of mentions. So the experience of reading it is a little like having echoes of the past brought to life right around me.… (more)