Kirjahaku

Award-winning historian Paula Mitchell Marks reconfirms her status as one of the foremost contemporary chroniclers of the American West with this often appalling, yet always engrossing, account of American Indian cultures under siege from 1607 to the present. In a dazzling synthesis of the latest research with masterful storytelling, Marks portrays the systematic dispossession of America's original inhabitants over centuries of broken promises and bloody persecutions. Well-known events and personalities -- the Battle of Little Big Horn, the Trail of Tears, Geronimo, to name a few -- are juxtaposed with lesser-known but equally pivotal episodes such as the Navajos' Long Walk, the Snake Indian resistance, and more.

The boom era began with the discovery of gold in California in 1848 and extended over fifty years to include the rushes in the Pikes Peak region in Colorado, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Alder Gulch in Montana, and the Yukon. Precious Dust humanizes the mad rush to these remote places.

The gunfight at the OK Corral has excited the imaginations of Western enthusiasts ever since that chilly October afternoon in 1881 when Doc Holliday and the three fighting Earps strode along a Tombstone, Arizona, street to confront the Clanton and McLaury brothers. When they met, Billy Clanton and the two McLaurys were shot to death; the popular image of the Wild West was reinforced; and fuel was provided for countless arguments over the characters, motives and actions of those involved. "And Die in the West" presents an objective narrative of the celebrated gunfight, of the tensions leading up to it, and of the bitter, bloody events that followed. Paula Mitchell Marks places the events surrounding the gunfight against a larger backdrop of a booming Tombstone and the fluid, frontier environment of greed, factions and violence. In the process, Marks strips away many of the myths associated with the famous gunfight and of the West in general.

It is said one piece of fabric can tell of the hardships, blessings, and realities of a woman’s life, as well as her community’s life. In nineteenth-century Texas women’s hands created most of the clothes their families wore, the blankets used to cover their tired bodies, and the textiles that furnished their homes. Spinning, weaving, dyeing, and knitting of clothing and linens gave them the [palette] to display their abilities and their dreams of a better future. These day-to-day activities of Texas women spinners and weavers come to life in the award-winning author Paula Mitchell Marks’ Hands to the Spindle. The hum of the spinning wheel and the clatter of the loom provided regular accompaniment to the lives of many Texas women and their families. Producing much-needed garments and cloth also provided an escape from the worries and isolation of frontier life. One charming early chronicler, Mary Crownover Rabb, kept her spinning wheel whistling all day and most of the night because the spinning kept her “from hearing the Indians walking around hunting mischief.” Through the stories of real women and an overview of their textile crafts, Paula Mitchell Marks introduces readers to a functional art rarely practiced in our more hurried times. Photographs of some of their actual handiwork and evocative pen sketches of women at work and the tools and dye plants they used, skillfully drawn by artist Walle Conoly, bring the words to life. Written in an interesting and informative style, this study, the will be valuable for western history buffs, specialists in the field of spinning and weaving, and readers interested in adding another dimension to their knowledge of women’s studies.

From Sam Maverick’s arrival in Texas to his death in 1870, he participated in many of the most momentous events of the state’s early history, including the Siege of Bexar and the defense of the Alamo. He accumulated a fabled land empire and inspired the term “maverick” to denote an unbranded calf or an independent person. Sam’s wife, Mary—by some accounts the first AngloAmerican woman to settle in San Antonio—lived through the stresses and tragedies of pioneer family life, chronicling them with emotional intensity and immediacy of detail. Together Sam and Mary founded a Texas family dynasty and contributed immeasurably to the cultural development of San Antonio. Using a profusion of letters, journals, and business materials as well as Mary Maverick’s published Memoirs , the author culls the dramatic story of these two Texas forebears, whose public and private lives were played out against the backdrop of the Mexican nation, the Republic, and early statehood.