The book is organized chronologically, in much the same way as "Lay of the Land". The first section is titled "Book One: From Captivity to Accommodation, 1630-1833", and traces the writings of and about women as they moved from captivity both literal (Mary Rowlandson’s account of being captured by Native Americans) and figurative (the sense of being forcibly confined in a new and strange land) to adaptation in the form of survival skills, such as those reputedly possessed by Rebecca Boone, the wife of Daniel Boone. Book two, "From Promotion to Literature, 1833–1850", follows attempts to encourage women to move westward by male writers to western narratives by the women themselves. The third and final section, "Book Three: Repossessing Eden, 1850–1860", documents the attempts by women to create a familiar order in a still unfamiliar country.