Customer Reviews

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

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Wonderful! Like the author's groundbreaking classic, "They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush," extensive quotes from humorous, poignant, and often astonishing primary sources bring to life these two remarkable women and the time they lived in. And what a fascinating time! California gold rush, women's rights, suffrage, phrenology, Sing Sing prison, Gettysburg, Spiritualism - these women were everywhere, involved in everything! This book was clearly a labor of love for the author, who shares her passion in an easy and engaging style. And, as the esteemed Kevin Starr attests in his foreword, makes a significant contribution to women's history. Praising this book, historian J.S. Holliday wrote: "What a revelation, what an achievement!" Absolutely!

The extensive research which the author had access to has not overcome her basic faults in the structuring ot the book. Two pioneer women of the mid-nineteenth century are not given their proper place in history and have not been given a cohesive retelling of the adventures of their lives. The book consists of more than thirty chapters, many illustrations, a forward, an index and pages of notes and bibliography but the book does not have a clear and focused plan. Bits and pieces are popping up at the slightless turn of thought. The material is there but it is like wading through the Isthmus of Panama with unlaced tennis sneakers. The thought strays with each plodding footstep.