The Most Famous Women of the Wild West: The Lives and Legacies of Calamity Jane, Belle Starr, and Annie Oakley

Name: The Most Famous Women of the Wild West: The Lives and Legacies of Calamity Jane, Belle Starr, and Annie Oakley
Brand: Charles River Editors
SKU: 41393294639274
Price: 9.99 USD
Availability: InStock

By: Charles River Editors

ISBN: 9781535538954

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*Includes pictures *Includes the women's quotes about their own lives *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading The most famous woman of the Wild West was also possibly the most colorful and mysterious. “Considered a remarkable good shot and a fearless rider for a girl of my age”, Calamity Jane claimed to be a veteran of the Indian Wars, a scout, and the wife of Wild Bill Hickok, all on the way to becoming a dime novel heroine. While all of those legends have stuck, it’s unclear to what extent if any they are actually true, and even her contemporaries doubted the authenticity of her statements. More than anything, people in frontier towns like Deadwood looked on with amusement at the girl who was more often than not drunk and was described by one of Wild Bill’s friends as “simply a notorious character, dissolute and devilish.” Her frequent drinking binges and her insistence that messing with her would “court calamity” had helped establish her nickname even before she arrived in Deadwood in the mid-1870s. Ultimately, Calamity Jane’s tall tales, eccentric personality, and association with Wild Bill would all make her a popular figure in the last quarter of the 19th century, and she became so well known that she started taking part in traveling shows of the kind made famous by Buffalo Bill Cody. America has always preferred heroes who weren’t clean cut, an informal ode to the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit that defined the nation in previous centuries. The early 19th century saw the glorification of frontier folk heroes like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, and after the Civil War, the outlaws of the West were more popular than the marshals.

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