Editing Mail-order bride (section)

====European immigrants====
[[European Americans|European American men]] sought financial success in the migration West, but few women lived there at this time, so it was hard for these men to settle down and start a family. During the [[California gold rush]] in 1849, there were at least three men for every woman, and by 1852 the ratio had increased to nearly seven men for every woman.{{r|zug|p=65}} They attempted to attract women living back East; the men wrote letters to churches and published personal advertisements in magazines and newspapers. In return, the women would write to the men and send them photographs of themselves. Courtship was conducted by letter, until a woman agreed to marry a man she had never met.<ref>Enns, C. (2005) Hearts west: the true stories of mail-order brides on the frontier. Connecticut: Globe Pequot Press.</ref> Many women wanted to escape their present way of living, gain financial security and see what life on the frontier could offer them. Most of these women were single, but some were [[widow]]s, divorcées or [[Runaway (dependent)|runaways]].<ref>Jameson, E. (1976). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346071 Imperfect unions class and gender in cripple creek] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423173450/http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346071 |date=23 April 2016 }}. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 1(2)</ref> Mail-order marriages gave Black women an escape from the crushing racial restrictions in the South.{{r|zug|p=141}} In 1885, a group of married Black women in [[Arizona Territory]] formed the Busy Bee Club to advertise for wives for Arizona miners, hoping to reduce violence in the mining camps and encourage Black women to move to the area.{{r|beauman|p=144}}{{r|enss|pp=31–34}}

To recruit mail-order brides for [[Oregon]], area bachelors combined funds to send two brothers east. The Benton brothers began their search in [[Maryland]], posting "Brides Wanted" flyers. They held meetings at which they described the territory and promised free passage west. More than 100 women accompanied the Bentons back to Oregon.{{r|zug|pp=83–84}} [[Asa Mercer]] performed a similar recruiting role for Seattle. Only 11 women accompanied Mercer back on his first trip, but his second was more successful, with more than 100 women travelling to Seattle, accompanied by a ''[[New York Times]]'' journalist to chronicle the journey. These prospective brides were known as [[Mercer Girls]].{{r|zug|pp=89–91}}

[[British Columbia]] welcomed sixty women from Britain, mail-order brides recruited by the Columbia Emigration Society, in 1862. Another twenty women from Australia were bound for [[Victoria, British Columbia|Victoria]] but were convinced to stay in San Francisco when their ship docked there.<ref>{{cite web | website=Canada's History | title=Crinoline Cargo | date=10 January 2016 | last=Hunter | first=Terri | url=https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/women/crinoline-cargo | access-date=29 May 2021}}</ref>

In the early 20th century, answering matrimonial ads was a route to entering the United States after immigration limits became more restrictive. It was also a means of escaping war-torn regions. In 1922, two ships docked in New York with 900 mail-order brides from Eastern European countries such as Turkey, Romania, Armenia, and Greece, fleeing the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)|Greco-Turkish War]].{{r|zug|pp=174–181}}