ABSTRACT
The contents of the letters, in terms of language and rhetoric, reveal the complex identities of mountain women, identities that counter and complicate dominant discourses about women and about mountaineers. The fact that women wrote the letters to government officials during this time suggests a counter-narrative of the mountaineer and reveals interesting economic, political, and social factors shaping this moment wherein women were contributing rhetors in their communities. The women writing letters to government officials assumed roles counter to those expected of them, and consequently obliged officials to consider them in different ways. This chapter highlights several letters that illustrate these categories and how they reflect women's literacy at this time. Lassiter's letters to other government officials contain disparaging comments about mountain residents as a whole.
