Join Mark Johnson at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives for this talk titled: “‘A worthy ambition for a Chinese girl’: The Changing Status of Chinese Women, 1860s to 1950s. “ Due to Chinese cultural traditions that discouraged women from migrating combined with American legal obstacles that excluded Chinese women from entering the nation, Chinese communities in Montana had a severe gender imbalance. The scarcity of women made family formation difficult. The few Chinese women in the region suffered negative stereotypes and assumptions about their character from non-Chinese Montanans and experienced confinement and oppression within patriarchal Chinese cultural traditions. Despite these obstacles, several extraordinary Chinese women emerge in the documentary record, exhibiting perseverance and a strength of spirit that helped them carve out influential roles in Montana’s Chinese communities and beyond.