Covered Wagon Women, Volume 3: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1851
by Kenneth L. Holmes
Covered Wagon Women (3)
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Description
The wagon trains to California greatly decreased in 1851 as reports of deadly cholera on the trail the year before and strikeouts in gold prospecting became known. Those who did go west--about 2,160 men and 1,440 women--tended toward Oregon's rich Willamette Valley because of a new federal land law that awarded a husband and wife a full section. Volume 3 of Covered Wagon Women contains the diaries and letters of six Oregon-bound women, as well as the journal of an English Mormon woman who show more described her experience all the way from Liverpool to Salt Lake City. The words of these pioneer women convey their exhilaration, courage, exhaustion, and terror in traveling so far into the unknown. show lessTags
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Very interesting look at the terrible difficulties of everyday life on the westward trails from women's perspectives. Truly amazing how they survived.
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15 Works 900 Members
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Covered Wagon Women, Volume 3: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1851
- People/Characters
- Harriet Talcott Buckingham; Amelia Hadley; Susan Amelia Cranston; Lucia Loraine Williams; Elizabeth Wood; Eugenia Zieber (show all 8); Jean Rio Baker; Anonymous
- First words
- [Introduction to Bison Books Edition] One of the earliest and most evocative portraits of the overland pioneer was penned by Francis Parkman in The Overland Trail (serialized in 1947, published in book form in 1849).
[Introduction to Volume III] From the best information . . . but few persons will emigrate to California or Oregon this year. This time last year our town literally was crowded, but now very few are in the place. -- St. Jo... (show all)seph, Missouri, Gazette, March 26, 1851
A major problem with the diary of Harriet Talcott Buckingham is that there are two diaries that cover essentially the same journey over the Oregon Trail. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)[Introduction to Bison Books Edition] And so, indeed, it was for everyone--long and tedious, but a journey to look back on with pride of accomplishment, intermixed with other feelings, some of them captured in these seven diaries, some kept only in the personal memories of the women who made the covered-wagon journey west.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)[Introduction to Volume III] Our goal is to add to the knowledge of all regarding this portion of our history -- the story of ordinary people embarked on an extraordinary experience.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)A lovelier or more healthy climate could not be, and when I get a few friends about me, I think I shall be nearly happy again.
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Biography & Memoir, Sexuality and Gender Studies
- DDC/MDS
- 978 — History & geography History of North America Western United States
- LCC
- F591 .C79 — Local History of the United States, Canada and Latin America United States local history The West. Trans-Mississippi Region. Great Plains
- BISAC
Statistics
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- 71
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- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.33)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 1
