Covered Wagon Women

by Holmes, Kenneth L.

• ISBN13: 9780803272996
• ISBN10: 0803272995
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Forty years after the legendary overland travels of Oregon pioneers in the 1840s, Lucy Clark Allen wrote, "the excitement continues". Economic hard times in Minnesota sent Allen and her husband to Montana in hopes of evading the droughts, grasshoppers, and failed crops that had plagued their farm. Allen and her compatriots, in this volume of 'Covered Wagon Women', experience a much different journey than their predecessors. Many settlements now await those bound for the West, with amenities such as hotels and restaurants, as well as grain suppliers to provide feed for the horses and mules that had replaced the slower oxen in pulling wagons. Routes were clearly marked - some had been replaced entirely by railroad tracks. Nevertheless, many of the same dangers, fears, and aspirations confronted these dauntless women who travelled the overland trails.Elliott West is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas. His works include 'The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier', also available in a Bison Books edition.

Author Biography

Elliott West is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas. His works include The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier, also available in a Bison Books edition.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction	7	(4)
A Letter From the Arkansas Valley, 1875
Angie Brigham Mitchell
Introduction	11	(1)
The Letter	12	(5)
Iowa to Oregon, 1878
Mary Riddle
Introduction	17	(1)
The Diary	18	(41)
Journey in a Prairie Schooner, 1878
Lucy Ide
Introduction	59	(2)
The Diary	61	(30)
Missouri to Oregon, 1879
Laura Wright
Introduction	91	(1)
The Family Journal	92	(45)
Minnesota to Montana, 1881
Lucy Clark Allen
Introduction	137	(1)
Foreword to the Diary	138	(2)
The Diary	140	(37)
Kansas to Wyoming, 1881
Virginia Belle Benton
Introduction	177	(1)
The Diary	178	(19)
Missouri to Idaho, 1881
Emily Towell
Introduction	197	(1)
The Diary	198	(23)
Kansas to Oregon, 1883
Sarah J. Collins
Introduction	221	(2)
The Overland Diary	223	(14)
Kansas to Oregon, 1883
Mary Matilda Surfus
Introduction	237	(1)
The Composite Diary	238