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In addition to her substantial work
to ensure the rights of women, children, and immigrants, Hebard
found time to build the University of Wyoming Library from scratch,
act as its first librarian, and serve as the president of the Wyoming
Library Association. She served on the advisory board of the Wyoming
Historical Association, which led to her involvement in mapping
the Oregon Trail through Wyoming. She began a collection of Wyoming
documents and artifacts, which included her own maps and publications.
Of these, three books stand out: The Bozeman Trail (1922), Washakie
(1930), and Sacajawea (1932). These books were widely read as historian
Virginia Scharff wrote, Hebard wanted to “assert Wyoming’s significance to the march of western conquest, and to women’s history.”
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Letter from the president Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to historian Grace Raymond Hebard concerning the placing of a marker at Independence Rock, Wyoming, 1931.
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Life membership award presented from the Oregon Trail Memorial Association to historian Grace Raymond Hebard in recognition of her work in preserving western trails. |
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Her collection began as a store of items she kept in an exhibit case in her office. In 1924, the library included a “Hebard Room” to house her collection. Before her death in 1936 at the age of 76, Hebard willed her growing collection to the University of Wyoming. “There is great happiness,” she wrote, “in knowing that you have saved something of value from obscurity. Perhaps that is the chief reward of the pathbreaker, because, of course, he is a discoverer.” |
Credits
Virginia Scharff. Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. "Marking Wyoming: Grace Raymond Hebard and the West as Women's Place," pp. 93-114.
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