Where the Wild Animals Is Plentiful: Diary of an Alabama Fur Trader's Daughter, 1912-1914 [Hardcover]

May Jordan (Author), Elisa Baldwin (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 3, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0817309802 | ISBN-13: 978-0817309800 | Edition: 1

This rare find--a journal of a young backwoods woman--provides a unique picture of rural life in southwestern Alabama early in the 20th century.

"I am a little Alabama girl living on the frontier where the wild animals is plentiful," wrote May Jordan in 1912. During the hunting season her father traveled Washington County buying furs, and May--already 23--accompanied him on two of these trips, cooking meals, helping out with the business, and recording their experiences.

May's diary of these trips from December 1912 to March 1914 describes the routine of the fur trade and provides a vivid portrait of wilderness travel and social customs. Through May's eyes, readers can experience the sights and sounds of pine forests and swamps, the difficulty of wading through waist-deep mud, and the neighborliness of the people living in this isolated area. May also shares both the solace of religious faith and her love of laughter as reflected in the jokes she records.

 

Elisa Moore Baldwin provides an introduction that traces Jordan family history and describes economic, social, and political conditions during the period. Baldwin also includes annotations based on court records, census rolls, and other primary sources and photographs of many of the characters in May's narrative to provide a vivid picture of the times. Because few first-person accounts exist of the life of poor whites, this diary will be invaluable to students of southern and women's history; no comparable work exists for this part of Alabama during this era. May's journal takes us to another world and teaches us about the lively human spirit in the face of hardship and loneliness.
 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"We Southerners talk endlessly about a place, a specific spot on earth; valued, loved, remembered, or even criticized (as long as we are doing the criticizing). May Jordan offers us a gift of just such a place--Washington County, Alabama--a wild frontier when May described its flora and fauna, its religion, economy, women, folkways, roads, and neighborliness during the first years of the 20th century. This is one of the best sources for the lives of ordinary people in turn-of-the-century Alabama. "

—Wayne Flynt, Auburn University

"May Jordan's diary, skillfully edited by Elisa Baldwin, should be of interest to the general public as well as historians. There are many diaries of upper-class southern women but few of rural southern women who engage in the fur trade. The diary provides a picture of rural life rarely seen."

—Mary Martha Thomas, Jacksonville State University

About the Author

Elisa Moore Baldwin is Associate Librarian and Archivist at the University of South Alabama Archives.

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: University Alabama Press; 1 edition (September 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817309802
• ISBN-13: 978-0817309800
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,830,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Important source material, monotonous read, July 16, 2001

By 

M. Miller (Chicago, Ill.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Where the Wild Animals Is Plentiful: Diary of an Alabama Fur Trader's Daughter, 1912-1914 (Hardcover)

Where the Wild Animals is Plentiful is worth a look if only because it offers a (sometimes frustratingly incomplete) window on the life of a young woman in rural Alabama some 90 years back. The diary contains some tantalizing hints at a life lived in frequent solitude and understood through a powerful but circumscribed sense of place and community. Unfortunately, it also seems to reflect well the monotony and repetitiousness of life in rural Alabama at that time. The occasional points of interest come packed between pages of very detailed accounts of May Jordan's fur-buying trips with her father, including frequent comments on soil quality, lists of furs they bought and descriptions of the routes they traveled. Which isn't to say that this sort of material doesn't have some value in understanding a life like May Jordan's, but it does keep the book from being a real page turner. Elisa Moore Baldwin has done a fine job editing the diary insofar as she has left the text alone except where the reader might have had problems with comprehension (most spelling and punctuation irregularities are preserved) and used the introduction to give a more than competent sense of May Jordan's particular historical context.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars old Jack Frost, June 9, 2009

By 

Bett Norris (St. Petersburg, FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Where the Wild Animals Is Plentiful: Diary of an Alabama Fur Trader's Daughter, 1912-1914 (Paperback)

Alabama in the Twentieth Century (Modern South)

Wayne Flynt quotes this journal extensively in his excellent history of Alabama, which led me to May Jordan's journal. I find it fascinating, quite moving, in fact. May was twenty five years old, a single lady who still lived at home with her parents and younger siblings. She died only a few months after her last diary entry, and a younger sister kept and preserved the notepads for some seventy years, providing some family photos as well when she agreed to publication.

May's education was sketchy, as it was rare, in that time. Despite punctuation and grammar failings, she could be quite lyrical at times: "Jack Frost has powdered the grass with A fine suit of Ice and over the shivering water he spread A carpet that will sparkle in old Hannahs rays when she rises so bright." Isn't that something?

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Look Into The Lives Of My Late Husband's Ancestors, August 17, 2009

By 

Bookworm - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Where the Wild Animals Is Plentiful: Diary of an Alabama Fur Trader's Daughter, 1912-1914 (Hardcover)

The reason I purchased the book,Where the Wild Animals Is Plentiful: Diary of an Alabama Fur Trader's Daughter, 1912-1914 (Purchased on 07/17/2009)
by May Jordan, was because I noticed that my late husband's maternal grandfather was mentioned in the book. After reading the book, I have found references to even more of his relatives. Since I am "into" genealogy and enjoy researching our family histories, this little book has been most helpful in "bringing to life" these relatives and how they lived.