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摘要
摘要
Lillian Schlissel is a professor emerita of English and American Studies at Brooklyn CollegeCUNY. She is the author of numerous books, including The Western Women's Reader (with Catherine Lavender) and Black Frontiers: A History of African American Heroes in the Old West. Byrd Gibbens is a professor of English at the University of New Mexico, Valencia campus, and the author of This Is a Strange Country: Letters of a Western Family 1880-1906.Elizabeth Hampsten is a professor of English at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, and the author of Settlers' Children: Growing Up on the Great Plains.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
One of the enduring myths of the Westward movement is the happy ending: families that survived the arduous journey found a rewarding new life despite hardships. The authors examine the history of three migrant families--everyday people who lived on the Western frontier. Schlissel ( Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey ) tells the story of the Malicks, who emigrated to Oregon from Illinois in 1848. Gibbons writes about the Browns; they left Virginia after the Civil War to wander among the mining camps of Colorado and New Mexico. Hampstein follows the hard times of two German families from Russia--the Nehers and Martins, who came to North Dakota in 1909. Theirs is a story of appalling poverty, feelings of inferiority, lack of communication. These are sad, even tragic tales about women and family life on the frontier. In an afterword, Schlissel discusses mobility and family separation as part of our frontier heritage. A valuable contribution to both women's and Western history. Photos. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Personal histories, mainly based on letters, of three pioneer families who settled on the frontier of the American West in the 19th and 20th centuries. The authors fill in biographical detail, but for the most part allow their subjects to speak through letters written in stark, unschooled English that is powerfully moving in its simplicity--as, for example, when Abigail Malik writes, after describing in terrible detail the accidental drowning of her son while migrating to Oregon: ""It has almost kild Me but I have to bear it."" These are not stories of prominent or influential people; nor are they stories of sensational poverty. Rather, they might stand for the legions of little-remembered middle-class families whose struggles helped build America. The narratives embrace the period from about the middle of the 19th century in Oregon Territory, to late 19th-and early 20th-century Colorado and New Mexico, down to settlers in near-contemporary North Dakota. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of these histories is their power as a corrective to the mythical notion that the settling of America was and is one continuous and nearly universal success story. The truth, as these poignant portraits remind us, is that many people worked hard only to see their accomplishments shattered and destroyed virtually without a trace--this is the dark side, in other words, of the ""American dream."" It is impressive to think that these letters, preserved by chance, have survived the hardships that so tried the energy and patience of the writers--and that they can still speak to us and tell us important things about our past. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
An immensely readable book that peers closely into the lives of ordinary American frontier families to see how their move west influenced family life both in their new home and in the homes of relatives they left behind. Schlissel and two colleagues have pieced together from archival journals, letters, and diaries an almost seamless narrative account of the events that ordered these families' days. Contrary to Schlissel's claim that these "case histories" are not heroic nor even close to the myths we hold about the "westering experience," the wanderlust and hard-scrabble frontier existence vividly described on these pages exude a quiet heroism and give flesh to the myths that continue to enliven our own heritage of rugged individualism. More poignantly, the authors show how the rent in the fabric of family that we view as a modern phenomenon has always been equally a part of our heritage. Highly recommended for all libraries. Photos; to be indexed. --Mary Banas
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
This book focuses on three frontier families--the Malicks in the Oregon Territory, the Browns in Colorado and New Mexico, and the Martin/Neher families in North Dakota. Each of the narratives, drawn from family letters and diaries from 1848 to 1909, realistically portrays how these families ``tested the frontier and were tested by it.'' While recent titles such as Sharon Niederman's A Quilt o f Words : Women's Diaries, Letters & Original Accounts of Life in the Southwest, 1860-1960 ( LJ 11/15/88) and Schlissel's own Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (LJ 4/15/82) emphasize the women's role in the westward movement, this addresses the effects of the harsh frontier on the entire family unit. As a sociological study, this has value in U.S. history and sociology collections.-- Ellen Pine, Andover Elementary Sch., N.H. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.