Covered Wagon Women, Volume 4: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1852: The California Trail - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080327291X ISBN 13: 9780803272910

Publisher: Bison Books, 1997

Synopsis

In 1852 a record number of women helped keep the wagons rolling over the perilous western trails. The fourth volume of Covered Wagon Women is devoted to families headed for California that year. Diaries and letters of six pioneer women describe the rigors en route, trailside celebrations and tragedies, the scourge of cholera, and encounters with the Indians.

About this title

Review:

The fourth volume in a well-edited series of letters, memoirs, and diaries, this collection takes in recollections by six pioneer women who traveled the California Trail in 1852. These documents give a firsthand view of just what it was like to cross the continent in buckboard and prairie schooner, and to face the hardships of weather, starvation, and occasional Indian or bandit attack. We find fascinating glimpses of historical figures like the trapper Jim Bridger, who had, writes Marriett Foster Cummings, "stock in abundance, and gold without end, and yet is much of a gentleman but lives like a hog." Such material is of great use to students of women's contributions to Western history.

From the Back Cover:

The fourth volume of Covered Wagon Women is devoted to families headed for California that year. Diaries and letters of six pioneer women describe the rigors en route, trailside celebrations and tragedies, the scourge of cholera, and encounters with Indians.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bison Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 080327291X
• ISBN 13: 9780803272910
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 303
• Editor: Holmes Kenneth L.