cover image They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush

They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush

Jo Ann Levy. Archon Books, $28.5 (265pp) ISBN 978-0-208-02273-8

In the literature of the Gold Rush, women have been generally neglected. Freelance writer Levy here corrects that oversight with a colorful account of intrepid female argonauts--with and without men. She draws on letters, journals and reminiscences for a fresh view of western history. The women traveled overland, by ship round the Horn (one family survived three burning ships); they crossed the Isthmus of Panama by mule, and Nicaragua by steamship and mule. In California they ran boardinghouses, provided meals and laundry service for miners, and organized schools and churches. The cast of characters includes actresses and prostitutes, a stagecoach driver and ordinary women seeking to make a new home. Levy does for the Gold Rush what Lillian Schlissel did for the Plains emigrants in Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey . The book is a welcome addition to regional history as well as to women's studies. Illustrated. (May)