In the Shadow of Billy the Kid: Susan McSween and the Lincoln County War by Kathleen P. Chamberlain (review)

The frontier history of the United States is a topic that has fascinated scholars and laymen alike for the last hundred years. One of the most popular topics of the “wild west” is that of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War in New Mexico territory. One person who has traditionally been little more than a footnote in that story is Susan McSween, the wife of Alexander McSween, the business partner of Billy’s patron, John Tunstall. Kathleen Chamberlain has brought this resourceful woman also known as the “Cattle Queen of New Mexico” out of the shadow of The Kid and into a limelight all her own. What results is a work that not only adds a significant study of women on the frontier, but also goes far to show the deep history that lies beneath the surface of popular culture.

The stated purpose of this study is to bring the nuances of the Lincoln County War out of the realm of “popular” history and give it a thorough scholarly examination of the issues of race, class, gender, and ethnicity at the core of this struggle in burgeoning New Mexico territory in the late nineteenth century. Central to that is bringing Susan McSween out of the background and examining the conflict through her eyes. In the process, Chamberlain has produced a detailed biography of McSween from her birth in Pennsylvania to her fateful entrance into the legend of Billy the Kid, her post-Lincoln County War rise to financial prominence, through her two marriages, the loss of her fortune, and finally her death. The author has made substantial use of a large array of primary sources, from letters, newspaper articles, photographs, interviews, and published primary accounts.

The author shows McSween to be a truly three-dimensional individual, both a strong frontier woman, and a conservative example of Victorian womanhood. Chamberlain has provided a thought provoking addition to the history of frontier women, examining a woman of considerable depth that cannot be pigeonholed into traditional ideas of gender or class.