From the California gold rush through the mid-twentieth century, a special breed of women played an integral and heretofore unrecognized part in some of the most stirring adventures of the pioneer experience - the saintly Nellie Cashman; the copper queen Ferminia Sarras, known for her grand sprees; the former rodeo champion turned prospector; the ex-actress who snowshoed her way to Nome; and many more. A Mine of Her Own tells the definitive story of America's women prospectors for the first time.

Sally Zanjani depicts more than one hundred women prospectors in often grueling, financially unrewarding, and utterly lonely efforts to strike it rich from the desert Southwest to the frozen rocks of Alaska and the Yukon. She tells their stories with warmth and skill and, in bringing them to life, forever changes our mental picture of the women who helped shape the modern West.