Customer Reviews

One Woman's Gold Rush: Snapshots from Mollie Brackett's Lost Photo Album 1898-1899

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I picked up this engaging little book in Skagway, Alaska, this summer and read it in one sitting. I write and teach history, and I was very impressed with how much the author (Cynthia Brackett Driscoll) could do with one little photo-journal. Mollie Brackett's album was a wonderful discovery, of course. But what makes it really work as history is the excellent job Driscoll does in filling in the background. Driscoll puts the photos and their creator in context with material from contemporary newspaper articles, advertisements, and local history. She describes the kind of camera Brackett probably used and the sorts of clothes she might have taken with her. Local clippings and family legends are woven in, rounding out the edges of Brackett's life. Ultimately, the reader feels as though she knows this young woman, and through her, the community of Skagway and the riotous times in which Molie Brackett lived. Anyone interested in the American phase of Alaska's frontier, or women's history in general, will enjoy this book.