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.
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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.
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“The writing is rich with the sounds of common speech and jargon . . . and it should be a gold mine for students of everyday life.”—John Mack Faragher, Western Historical Quarterly
(John Mack Faragher Western Historical Quarterly )“The entries from these pioneer women are alternately rich with optimism, stark with tragedy, and always laced with the mind-numbing details and foot-blistering discipline required to keep to that inexorable march toward the western horizon.”—The Olympian
(The Olympian )"The diaries and letters . . . throb with excitement, pain and mind-boggling determination."—Kliatt
(Kliatt )
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great if you are a researcher, okay if you aren't,
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This review is from: Covered Wagon Women 4: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails 1852 : The California Trail (Covered Wagon Women Vol. 4) (Paperback)
I loved the first Covered Wagon Women book. The diaries were compelling, and the explanations from the editor are just enough to make the stories understandable without speaking over the voice of the diary writers.
The subsequent Covered Wagon Women books weren't as compelling. They are published by the year that the original diaries were written, and if you are doing research on the Oregon Trail or on the westward migration, these volumes would be irreplaceable. However, for the casual reader like me, they begin to lose a lot of interest. The books include smaller and smaller diary fragments, and little tables of how many diaries were written by women widowed or orphaned along the trip. Some diaries are merely snippets with weather reports and a counting of graves that were passed. Instead of including all of these "diaries," the editor could have simply mentioned them and used them for the little charts. If you're a casual reader, grab the first Covered Wagon Women and devour. These women were uprooted from their lives without any concern about their opinions or welfare, and their voices speak with a power that wasn't reflected in their status as women. This volume can be skipped, unless you are specifically researching 1852 in the American westward migration.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Same ole same ole,
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This review is from: Covered Wagon Women 4: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails 1852 : The California Trail (Covered Wagon Women Vol. 4) (Paperback)
I loved the first 3 books and i was looking forward to buying and reading the whole series, but by the time i read 4 i was totally bored and burnt out.
The diaries are tedious and contain little more then "Found food, no water" "can see indians off about a mile, did not come to our camp" Hundreds of pages of this and little more. i actually prefer the letters home then the diaries. They offer a more compressed form and seem to mention interesting facts and not just the mundane. I also prefer to hear more about what happened to them once they reach California and Oregon not how they got there. i dont think i will be buying another in this series unless it contains more of the letters and less of the diaries.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courage, spirit and determination,
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This review is from: Covered Wagon Women 4: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails 1852 : The California Trail (Covered Wagon Women Vol. 4) (Paperback)
More adventurous accounts from the diaries and letters of six westward women. Braving the dangers of river fordings, cholera, fatigue, food and water shortages, etc. these women write with much ambience and flavor of their trail experiences.Seventeen year-old Eliza Ann McAuley is extremely descriptive and articulate of day to day activities along the way: remedies for cattle after drinking alkali water; ferry boats sinking; intolerable weather; constructing a makeshift road, later charging a toll to increase income; they even had a 'pet' antelope for six weeks while venturing west. Francis Sawyer was another very descriptive writer of daily occurences: first of all, her party traveled at a remarkable speed, many times averaging over thirty miles a day; depredations by Digger Indians along the Humboldt River; insufferable weather conditions, etc. Marriett Foster Cummings shoots from the hip when describing people (such as Jim Bridger and Brigham Young), places and incidents while crossing the country. Lucy Rutledge Cooke's letters read like a novel: very sincere, compassionate and composed in her writing style. These Covered Wagon series of books are an insightful look into our past and give the reader a sense of respect and connectedness to our yesteryears.
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