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Title Comstock women : the making of a mining community / edited by Ronald M. James & C. Elizabeth Raymond
Published Reno, Nev. : University of Nevada Press, ©1998

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 394 pages) : illustrations, maps
Series Wilbur S. Shepperson series in history and humanities
Wilbur S. Shepperson series in history and humanities (Unnumbered)
Contents 1. "I Am Afraid We Will Lose All We Have Made": Women's Lives in a Nineteenth-Century Mining Town / C. Elizabeth Raymond -- 2. Women of the Mining West: Virginia City Revisited / Ronald M. James and Kenneth H. Fliess -- 3. Redefining Domesticity: Women and Lodging Houses on the Comstock / Julie Nicoletta -- 4. "They Are Doing So to a Liberal Extent Here Now": Women and Divorce on the Comstock, 1859-1880 / Kathryn Dunn Totton -- 5. The "Secret Friend": Opium in Comstock Society, 1860-1887 / Sharon Lowe -- 6. Creating a Fashionable Society: Comstock Needleworkers from 1860 to 1880 / Janet I. Loverin and Robert A. Nylen -- 7. Mission in the Mountains: The Daughters of Charity in Virginia City / Anne M. Butler -- 8. Divination on Mount Davidson: An Overview of Women Spiritualists and Fortunetellers on the Comstock / Bernadette S. Francke -- 9. "The Advantage of Ladies' Society": The Public Sphere of Women on the Comstock / Anita Ernst Watson, Jean E. Ford and Linda White -- 10. Their Changing World: Chinese Women on the Comstock, 1860-1910 / Sue Fawn Chung -- 11. "And Some of Them Swear Like Pirates": Acculturation of American Indian Women in Nineteenth-Century Virginia City / Eugene M. Hattori -- 12. Erin's Daughters on the Comstock: Building Community / Ronald M. James -- 13. Girls of the Golden West / Andria Daley Taylor -- 14. Gender and Archaeology on the Comstock / Donald L. Hardesty -- App. I. Statistical Profile of Women on the Comstock -- App. II. Birthplace of Females in Storey County, 1860-1910 -- App. III. Occupations of Women on the Comstock, 1860-1910
Summary The conventional view of Virginia City as a ramshackle mining camp populated largely by miners and the businesses - saloons, hotels, brothels- that served their needs obscures a significant and fascinating aspect of its history: it was home to large numbers of women and children. In this provocative and path-breaking collection of essays, noted scholars from several disciplines examine the lives of the women, from all social classes and many ethnicities, who settled on the Comstock Lode and struggled to create a stable community in that transient boomtown setting. The contributors to Comstock Women consider the complexity of women's experiences on the Comstock Lode, combining traditional historical research with demography, ethnic studies, architectural history, material culture, and literary studies, using as many tools as possible to arrive at insights not addressed by earlier histories and the limited primary records. Their conclusions change the way we view the position of Chinese women, the history of prostitution in the district, the economic roles played by women in the mining West, the wide-ranging social impact of such anodynes as opium, and the idea of community in a boomtown environment. A final essay on gender archaeology suggests yet another way to examine the lives of women who left few written records of their lives
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 373-380) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Print version record
Subject Women -- Nevada -- Virginia City -- Social conditions
Mines and mineral resources -- Nevada -- Virginia City -- History
HISTORY -- State & Local -- General.
Mines and mineral resources
Women -- Social conditions
Mijnbouw.
Steden.
Vrouwen.
Sociaal-economische situatie.
Virginia City (Nev.) -- History
Comstock Lode (Nev.)
Nevada -- Comstock Lode
Nevada -- Virginia City
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
Author James, Ronald M. (Ronald Michael), 1955-
Raymond, C. Elizabeth
LC no. 97011958
ISBN 0874174481
9780874174489