The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier

The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier PDF Author: Elliott West
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803297845
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
Elliott West’s careful analysis of the role and development of the saloon as an institution on the mining frontier provides unique insights into the social and economic history of the American West. Drawing on contemporaneous newspapers and many unpublished firsthand accounts, West shows that the physical evolution of the saloon, from crude tents and shanties into elegant establishments for drinking and gaming, reflected the growth and maturity of the surrounding community.

The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier

The Saloon on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier PDF Author: Elliott West
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803297845
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Get Book Here

Book Description
Elliott West’s careful analysis of the role and development of the saloon as an institution on the mining frontier provides unique insights into the social and economic history of the American West. Drawing on contemporaneous newspapers and many unpublished firsthand accounts, West shows that the physical evolution of the saloon, from crude tents and shanties into elegant establishments for drinking and gaming, reflected the growth and maturity of the surrounding community.

Boomtown Saloons

Boomtown Saloons PDF Author: Kelly J. Dixon
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
ISBN: 0874176395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
The image of Old West saloons as sites of violence and raucous entertainment has been perpetuated by film and legend, but the true story of such establishments is far more complex. In Boomtown Saloons, archaeologist Kelly J. Dixon recounts the excavation of four historic saloon sites in Nevada’s Virginia City, one of the West’s most important boomtowns, and shows how the physical traces of this handful of disparate drinking places offer a new perspective on authentic life in the mining West. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Comstock Lode’s mineral wealth attracted people from all over the world. At its peak, Virginia City had a cosmopolitan population of over 20,000 people. Like people everywhere, they sought to pass their leisure time in congenial company, often in one or another of the four saloons studied here. Dixon’s account of the role these four establishments played in the social and economic life of Virginia City offers keen insight into the businesses and people who made up the backdrop of a mining boomtown. The saloons in this study were quieter than legend would have us believe; they served relatively distinct groups and offered their customers a place of refuge, solidarity, and social contact with peers in a city where few people had longtime ties or initially any close contacts. Boomtown Saloons also offers an equally vivid portrait of the modern historical archaeologist who combines time-honored digging, reconstruction, and analysis methods with such cutting-edge technology as DNA analysis of saliva traces on a 150-year-old pipestem and chemical analysis of the residue in discarded condiment bottles. The book is illustrated with historical photographs and maps, as well as photographs of artifacts uncovered during the excavations of the four sites. Dixon’s sparkling text and thoughtful interpretation of evidence reveal an unknown aspect of daily life in one of the West’s most storied boomtowns and demonstrate that, contrary to legend, the traditional western saloon served an vital and complex social role in its community.Available in hardcover and paperback.

Alcohol and Opium in the Old West

Alcohol and Opium in the Old West PDF Author: Jeremy Agnew
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476612552
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores the role and influence of drink and drugs (primarily opium) in the Old West, which for this book is considered to be America west of the Mississippi from the California gold rush of the 1840s to the closing of the Western Frontier in roughly 1900. This period was the first time in American history that heavy drinking and drug abuse became a major social concern. Drinking was considered to be an accepted pursuit for men at the time. Smoking opium was considered to be deviant and associated with groups on the fringes of mainstream society, but opium use and addiction by women was commonplace. This book presents the background of both substances and how their use spread across the West, at first for medicinal purposes--but how overuse and abuse led to the Temperance Movement and eventually to National Prohibition. This book reports the historical reality of alcohol and opium use in the Old West without bias.

Mining Cultures

Mining Cultures PDF Author: Mary Murphy
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252054679
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book Here

Book Description
Butte, Montana, long deserved its reputation as a wide-open town. Mining Cultures shows how the fabled Montana city evolved from a male-dominated mining enclave to a community in which men and women participated on a more equal basis as leisure patterns changed and consumer culture grew. Mary Murphy looks at how women worked and spent their leisure time in a city dominated by the quintessential example of "men's work": mining. Bringing Butte to life, she adds in-depth research on church weeklies, high school yearbooks, holiday rituals, movie plots, and news of local fashion to archival material and interviews. A richly illustrated jaunt through western history, Mining Cultures is the never-told chronicle of how women transformed the richest hill on earth.

Growing Up with the Country

Growing Up with the Country PDF Author: Elliott West
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826311559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
This illustrated study shows how frontier life shaped children's character.

Red Light Women of the Rocky Mountains

Red Light Women of the Rocky Mountains PDF Author: Jan MacKell
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 082634612X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book Here

Book Description
Throughout the development of the American West, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of the nineteenth-century Rocky Mountains. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the hazards of disease, drug addiction, physical abuse, pregnancy, and abortion. They dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today. Expanding on the research she did for Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls (UNM Press), historian Jan MacKell moves beyond the mining towns of Colorado to explore the history of prostitution in the Rocky Mountain states of Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Each state had its share of working girls and madams like Big Nose Kate or Calamity Jane who remain celebrities in the annals of history, but MacKell also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose role in this illicit trade nonetheless shaped our understanding of the American West.

The Making of Urban America

The Making of Urban America PDF Author: Raymond A. Mohl
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493083627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Get Book Here

Book Description
The revised and updated third edition of The Making of Urban America includes seven new articles and a richly detailed historiographical essay that discusses the vast urban history literature added to the canon since the publication of the second edition. The authors’ extensively revised introductions and the fifteen reprinted articles trace urban development from the preindustrial city to the twentieth-century city. With emphasis on the social, economic, political, commercial, and cultural aspects of urban history, these essays illustrate the growth and change that created modern-day urban life. Dynamic topics such as technology, immigration and ethnicity, suburbanization, sunbelt cities, urban political history, and planning and housing are examined. The Making of Urban America is the only reader available that covers all of U.S. urban history and that also includes the most recent interpretive scholarship on the subject.

Writing the Range

Writing the Range PDF Author: Elizabeth Jameson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806129525
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 676

Get Book Here

Book Description
In mythic sagas of the American West, the wide western range offers boundless opportunity to profile a limited cast of white men. In this pathbreaking anthology, Jameson and Armitage brings together 29 essays which present the story of women from that era. Clearly written and accessible, "Writing the Range" makes a major contribution to ethnic history, women's history, and interpretations of the American West. 27 illustrations. 3 maps.

Faces Along the Bar

Faces Along the Bar PDF Author: Madelon Powers
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226677699
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description
List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction Pt. I: The Criteria for Comradeship1: The Importance of Being Regular 2: Gender, Age, and Marital Status 3: Occupation, Ethnicity, and Neighborhood Pt. II: The Gentle Art of Clubbing4: Drinking Folkways 5: Clubbing by Treat 6: Clubbing by CollectionPt. III: More Lore of the Barroom7: Games and Gambling 8: Talk and Storytelling 9: Songs and Singing 10: The Free Lunch ConclusionNotesIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Prohibition and Bootlegging in the American West

Prohibition and Bootlegging in the American West PDF Author: Jeremy Agnew
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476648123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Get Book Here

Book Description
Prohibition was imposed by eager temperance movements organizers who sought to shape public behavior through alcoholic beverage control in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The success of reformers' efforts resulted in National Prohibition in America from 1920 to 1933, but it also resulted in a thriving illegal business in the manufacture and distribution of illegal liquor. The history of Prohibition and the resulting illegal drinking is frequently told through the lens of crime and violence in Chicago and other major East Coast cities. Often neglected are the effects of Prohibition on the Western part of the United States and how Westerners rose to the challenge of avoiding the consequences of illegal drinking. Illegal liquor was imported from abroad, made in stills using strange ingredients that were sometimes poisonous to the unlucky drinker. This history includes stories ranging from serious to quirky, and provides an entertaining account of how misguided efforts resulted in numerous unintended consequences.