Unsettling the West: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby in Frontier California (California Legacy Book) - Softcover

Levy, Jo Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 189077183X ISBN 13: 9781890771836

Publisher: Heyday Books, 2004

Synopsis

California during the gold rush offered many strange sights, but few were as startling as the arrival of two women activists in Santa Cruz in 1850. When Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby showed up to work on the farm dressed in bloomers and boots, the townsfolk were amazed. It was shocking enough that these two East Coast women were suffragettes; when they learned that Eliza was not advocating women’s equality, but rather lecturing on women’s superiority, it seemed the entire state was abuzz.

JoAnn Levy, the well-known historian and author of _They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush_, has pieced together for the first time the grand story of two of American history’s forgotten treasures: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby. Together they made national headlines with their writings and their beliefs, be they abolitionism, women’s suffrage, Spiritualism, or phrenology. Both were extraordinarily gifted authors; known nationwide in their time, they have since fallen into obscurity. Levy mined extensively their writings, and found gold: Eliza—herself the author of five books—was the first woman to write a book about California, and the letters written by her and Georgiana are full of intelligence and humor.

More than just a history of women in the American frontier, _Unsettling the West_ is the story of a profound friendship. The courage, passion, and wit exhibited by Eliza and Georgiana are surpassed only by their love and respect for one another. These women were at the vanguard of the major social and political movements of their time; they invented identities for themselves that the world had never seen before. They were both oddities and inspirations. In this energetic new book we find ourselves introduced to two characters whose courageous examples we need today more than ever.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

By the end of 1849, an estimated thirty-nine thousand gold-seekers had arrived in San Francisco by sea, and some thirty thousand others had crossed the continent on land. Another eighty-six thousand would arrive in 1850. According to the census for that year, there were twelve men for every woman in California. But who would want them? The words "gold rush" generate at best an image of raucous, all-male camaraderie, at worst a storm of lawless and irredeemable violence.

Eliza Wood Burhans Farnham, a young widow who had already generated considerable attention for herself as the matron of Sing Sing Prison, had a vision for California. "Woman, with all her kindly cares and powers, so peculiarly conservative to man under such circumstances," would bring a civilizing influence to the state. Farnham's vision went beyond gentility however, to a society in which individuals--male or female--could fulfill their potential, and virtues championed by free-thinking New England philosophers would reign supreme.

The realities of everyday life in gold-rush California were daunting, but when Farnham's friend Georgiana Bruce (later Kirby) joined her the following year, hope returned in full measure: "She fills up a great place in my dark world and comes to me like a pleasant breeze or a bright sun after one of our long rains. We are going to be very independent and free...dashing about at our discretion."

Crusading, reforming, and advocating, adopting the Bloomer costume, building a house, vacationing on horseback and picking wild strawberries on the California coast, lecturing across the nation, and generally trying to lead the West into a more civilized state--while raising families of their own--Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby were forces to be reckoned with. Always outspoken, often outrageous, and fervent on behalf of their causes--prison reform, women's rights, Spiritualism, phrenology, abolitionism, suffrage--these admirable idealists believed not only in the perfectibility of humankind, but devoutly in their personal responsibility to point the way.

Quoting extensively from their books and articles, as well as unpublished correspondence, newspaper articles of the day, and numerous other sources, author JoAnn Levy has assembled a biographic gem, an entertaining and groundbreaking work that all readers with an interest in the history of the American West or women's rights will want on their bookshelves.

About the Author:

JoAnn Levy is the author of the now-classic _They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush_. Her first work of fiction, _Daughter of Joy: A Women of the West Novel_, won the 1990 Willa Award for Best Historical Fiction. A second novel, _For California's Gold_, received the prize in 2001 after debuting at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where Levy spoke in honor of Women's History Month and California's statehood sesquicentennial. She is a frequent speaker on behalf of the gold-rushing women she discovered in nearly a decade of research, and she has been featured in numerous television documentaries. She lives and writes in Sutter Creek, in the heart of California's gold country.

About this edition

• Publisher: Heyday Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 189077183X
• ISBN 13: 9781890771836
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 343