Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce this week launched a new book featuring moving stories of more than 300 pioneering women from all regions of bush Queensland from the 1860s to the 1960s.

The CQU Press publication is based on the same research that produced the Women of the West exhibition at the Queensland Museum.

Publisher Professor David Myers said the women faced up to and triumphed over hardship, privation and loneliness as they staked their historical place in the annals of the Queensland outback.

"Here at last is a fitting tribute to the women pioneers. Their personal stories of tribulation, tragedy and triumph are told with verve by two of Queensland's most experienced social historians, Helen Gregory and Ross Johnston," Professor Myers said.

"There are Irish nuns establishing lonely bush schools, English women from the cities breeding and raising children in timber camps and cattle stations, and even the women who ran the shops in the tiny, remote townships of the bush." Professor Myers said the book told of women like Mrs Mulholland in the Channel Country, who was besieged in her homestead for days by Aborigines but was eventually rescued when one of her black servants slipped through the warriors' lines and raised the alarm.

He said the same Mrs Mulholland later cared for a little black boy for 18 months to save him from severe tribal punishment.

"There are also stories of Aboriginal women, for example of half-caste girl Jeannie Rice. Every day back around 1897 in Maytown on the Palmer, Jeannie's sisters would blacken her skin with charcoal. But the charcoal washed off when she went swimming and she was captured by police and removed the Yarrabah Mission in Cairns. These half-caste children never saw their mothers again." Professor Myers said Women of the West was full of heart-rending stories showing courage, endurance, self-help and determination.

He said the autors had broadened the traditional field of research to embrace the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and also female immigrants from Europe.

The launch was attended by CQU Vice-Chancellor Professor Glenice Hancock. The Chair of the Queensland Museum Board, Ms Anne Jones and the Director of the Museum, Dr Ian Galloway, were also present as hosts for the occasion.

CQU Press will publish further books from the Queensland Museum. The next one is: Showing Off. Queensland at World Exhibitions 1866-1988 by Dr Judith McKay, which carries a Foreword from Premier Beattie.