Searching for Calamity: The Life and Times of Calamity Jane
With concise writing, precise facts and punctuations of sympathetic humor, author Linda Jucovy has created a fascinating account of the life of Calamity Jane, a true character of the West who rode rails and horses seeking her elusive freedom. For too long, Calamity's travels have remained in the shadow of the contemporary men of her times about whom we read so much--until now.
Searching for Calamity sets us straight with Jucovy's story and its solid backbone of carefully researched history. What a terrific reading journey we have been given alongside this unique American frontier woman who was a true feminist in her own right. The many old photographs are a treasure, and clear maps of Calamity's wanderings ensure we don't get lost along the way. I definitely will read this fascinating book again.
Calamity Jane - Wikipedia
While I don't question the veracity of the book, I was hoping to learn more about her children One person found this helpful. Searching For Calamity by Linda Jucovy is a great read. The writing, both crisp and smooth,is frequently accompanied by direct quotes from letters, newspaper articles, and histories of America about the days of the Wild West.
Each chapter's ending beckons the reader on by suggesting that the enigma of Calamity Jane has yet to be sufficiently unraveled, and just might be solved in the next chapter.
The book's photos of Jane and maps of her travels are noteworthy. That Jucovy was able to track down so many pictures of Jane is a testament to her skills as a researcher and a persistent one at that! The maps work in two ways: And a closer inspection offers an itinerary of the towns and territories Jane visited and the years she was there. Jucovy's 'Notes'to the text,and her extensive index and bibliography will help researchers and teachers as well as the more casual reader.
From the book's introduction,to the last chapter, Jucovy places Calamity Jane where she belongs: This is a thoroughly engrossing biography of Calamity Jane. Packed with information about the enigmatic legendary figure of America's 19th-century westward expansion, Searching for Calamity captures the culture of that era and of the places where Calamity Jane traveled and the people she encountered, while it offers a penetrating and understanding portrait of the woman herself.
Linda Jucovy's deft and lively narrative also opens up themes which resonate forcefully for a 21st-century reader. As a bonus, Jucovy provides a large selection of photographs of Calamity Jane, maps that illustrate her complicated paths through western towns, and comprehensive endnotes. See all 26 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.
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Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Explore the Home Gift Guide. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. In , she gave birth to daughter Jesse, who was adopted by foster parents. She also participated in the Pan-American Exposition. At that time, she was depressed and an alcoholic. Her addiction to liquor was evident even in her younger years. Jane returned to the Black Hills in the spring of , and brothel owner Madame Dora DuFran was still running her business.
For the next few months, she earned her keep by cooking and doing the laundry for Dora's brothel girls in Belle Fourche. In late July, she travelled by ore train to Terry, South Dakota , a small mining village near Deadwood, and stayed at the Calloway Hotel. She died at the age of Tillett, carried her off the train, [19] a bartender secured a room for her at the Calloway Hotel, and a doctor was summoned. She died almost immediately afterwards on Saturday, August 1, from inflammation of the bowels and pneumonia.
A bundle of unsent letters to her daughter was allegedly found among her few belongings. Some of these letters were set to music in an art song cycle by 20th-century composer Libby Larsen called Songs From Letters. Those letters were first made public by Jean McCormick as part of her claim to be the daughter of Jane and Hickok, but their authenticity is not accepted by some, largely because there is ample evidence that Jane was functionally illiterate.
Calamity Jane was a musical-western film from Warner Bros. In the Disney movie Tall Tale: Wild West Legend , directed by Gregory Monro In the Facebook application FrontierVille there is a suitlike outfit for female characters called the "Calamity Jane Outfit. A character in a card board game BANG!
In Season 6 of Fortnite Battle Royale ,one of the main skins of the season is a gunslinger and cowgirl named "Calamity". Calamity Jane was an important fictional character in the Deadwood Dick series of dime novels beginning with the first appearance of Deadwood Dick in Beadle's Half-Dime Library issue 1 in This series, written by Edward Wheeler, established her with a reputation as a Wild West heroine and probably did more to enhance her familiarity to the public than any of her real life exploits.
There is no evidence that she was consulted by Wheeler or approved the Deadwood Dick stories, so the character in the stories was entirely fictitious — as were the events described, but the fictional adventures were muddled in the public mind with the real Jane. Queen of the Plains , by the author "Reckless Ralph". The science fiction writer A. Bertram Chandler included a character named Calamity Jane Arlen in his far future novels set on the frontier Rim Worlds, a space analogue of the Old West.
Jane is a central character in Pete Dexter 's novel Deadwood An alternative universe version of Jane is a character in the short story "Deadwood" in Corsets and Clockwork , a steampunk anthology. The story also features Jesse James. In Calamity's Wake , a novel of historical fiction written by Natalee Caple , Martha, or Calamity Jane, is one of two main narrators; the other is Jane's daughter Miette.
Some of her purported letters were set to music in an art song cycle by 20th-century composer Libby Larsen , called " Songs From Letters ". Soprano Dora Ohrenstein commissioned five pieces compiled under the title Urban Diva , the second piece, Ben Johnston's Calamity Jane to Her Daughter is a theatrical setting of selected letters.
Calamity Jane is mentioned in the song "The Lighter" by the French pop-rock band Superbus , from the album "Sixtape". The name "Calamity" is given to the children's character played by Nancy Gilbert in the — syndicated television series, Buffalo Bill, Jr. In the story line, series character Christopher Colt, played by Wayde Preston , hires Calamity Jane to drive the stagecoach containing Dr.
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McGraw and the vaccine needed for the smallpox outbreak in Deadwood. Colt is unsure if Calamity can handle the job because miners and Indians seek to steal the valuable medication. In this primarily comedic episode, she is rescued by Little Joe , who at first thinks she is a male. She becomes infatuated with him, and he receives threats from Doc, who covets Jane for himself.
Searching For Calamity: The Life and Times of Calamity Jane
At her urging and threat , Doc demurs from facing-down Joe, and Jane and Doc exit town. No official or unofficial documentation exists suggesting that Doc Holliday and Jane ever met during their lifetimes. It is highly unlikely that they met considering the geographical distances between them during their lives. When Bill tells her she should act like a lady, he soon realizes he made a bigger mistake. The television movie Calamity Jane featured her life story, including her alleged marriage to Wild Bill Hickok and the daughter she purportedly gave up.
The show also featured an early performance of Sara Gilbert as Calamity's daughter, Jean, at age 7. Media related to Calamity Jane at Wikimedia Commons. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Calamity Jane disambiguation. Princeton, Missouri , U. Terry, South Dakota , U. As you read on with this book you realise that this woman new nothing but poverty, plus her worst habit of all was her inability to curb her drinking. She poses by his grave two weeks before her own death; 1 st August The doctor diagnosed her cause of death to be inflammation of the bowels; liver disease.
I found this book very interesting, so I viewed Deadwood on Google Maps.
The cemetery is very nice and so are the gravestones especially the statue sculpted in the memory of Bill. The Google pictures are really good. This book has pages which includes Introduction, Afterword and Appendix — this being the Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane by Herself her famous pamphlet dictated by an interviewer. It also has 29 chapters. Home Read Write Forums Blogs.