Covered Wagon Women, Volume 2: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850

The women who traveled west in covered wagons during the 1840s speak through these letters and diaries. Here are the voices of Tamsen Donner and young Virginia Reed, members of the ill-fated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and Salt Lake City; Rachel Fisher, who buried both her husband and her little girl before reaching Oregon. Still others make themselves heard, starting out from different places and recording details along the way, from the mundane to the soul-shattering and spirit-lifting.

Author: Kenneth L. Holmes
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 04/01/1996
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.74lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.59w x 0.64d
ISBN13: 9780803272743
ISBN10: 080327274X
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | 19th Century
- Social Science | Women's Studies

About the Author
Kenneth L. Holmes was a professor of history at Western Oregon State College. He edited and compiled Covered Wagon Women, drawing on archives and private sources.

Lillian Schlissel is the author of Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey. She is a professor of English and director of the American Studies program at Brooklyn College.