They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush - Softcover

Levy, JoAnn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0806124733 ISBN 13: 9780806124735

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014

Synopsis

"The phrase ’seeing the elephant’ symbolized for ’49 gold rushers the exotic, the mythical, the once-in-a-lifetime adventure, unequaled anywhere else but in the journey to the promised land of fortune: California. Most western myths . . . generally depict an exclusively male gold rush. Levy’s book debunks that myth. Here a variety of women travel, work, and write their way across the pages of western migrant history."-Choice

"One of the best and most comprehensive accounts of gold rush life to date"ˆ–San Francisco Chronicle

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Countless letters, diaries, and reminiscences survive to testify to their feelings and their achievements, to their experiences coping with adversity--and the freedom--they found at the frontier. In their own words they tell us how they laid another child to rest along the way encountered Indians, thirsted under the merciless desert sun, and stepped out of their burdensome layers of petticoats to do whatever needed to be done.

About the Author:

JoAnn Levy is a free-lance writer born and raised in California. She lives in Los Angeles, but is most at home in a mountainside cabin near the Old Okum mine in the Sierra Nevada Mother Lode.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0806124733
• ISBN 13: 9780806124735
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288