Though the diversity of farm women's contributions was recognized by novelists such as Cather, Aldrich, and Sandoz in the 1800s, it would be many decades later before the work efforts of farm women would be formally recognized by the government and agricultural researchers. The West used a masculine environment, and farm animals and females where expected to conform to the dictums of both. While fiction after World War II was less likely to focus on agriculture and women's role in agriculture, modern fiction writers such as Molly Gloss (in her novel, "The Jump Off Creek," about a middle-aged woman homesteader in Oregon in the 1890s) and Mary Blew (in her short story collections, "Lambing Out" and "Runaway") vividly portray the historical and contemporary dimensions of the interdependency of women and agriculture by blending the facts with fiction. Excerpts from the works of Gloss and Blew illustrate the struggle of women to earn a living from their land and to survive in a masculine dominated world. Studying these works in the college English classroom can add to students' knowledge about the role of women in United States history. (PRA)