The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52

THE SHIRLEY LETTERS FROM CALIFORNIA MINES

CLAPPE

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

THE SHIRLEY LETTERS FROM
CALIFORNIA MINES IN 1851-52

The Shirley Letters
from California Mines in 1851-52

by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe (1819 - 1906)

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe moved to California from
Massachusetts during the Gold Rush of the mid-1800’s. During her travels,
Louise was offered the opportunity to write for The Herald about her travel
adventures. It was at this point that Louise chose the name “Shirley” as her
pen name. Dame Shirley wrote a series of 23 letters to her sister in
Massachusetts in 1851 and 1852. The “Shirley Letters”, as the collected
whole later became known, gave true accounts of life in two gold mining
camps on the Feather River in the 1850s. She described these camps in
northern California with vividness in portraying the wildness of Gold Rush
life. The letters give detailed accounts of the vast and beautiful landscape
that was the background to the hustle and bustle of mining life. Louise’s
perspective as a woman provided a contrast to the typically all-male mining
camps that she occupied. The letters were later published in the Pioneer, a
California literary magazine based out of San Francisco. (Wikipedia)

Total running time: 6:07:57
Read by rachelellen Lj briVox

Cover design by Kathryn Delaney
Painting by Charles Christian Nahl & Frederick
August Wenderoth, Miners in the Sierras, (1851-52)

acoustical liberation of books
in the public domain

JddY19

SANIW VINYOSITVS NOdsA SYALLAT ASA THIHS AHL