Jim J. 616 Post for Tombstone and Roaring Camp
I love this western history stuff. I might have been a convert if I’d taken this course earlier in my graduate career. It has given me a direction for a dissertation. All in all one of the best course choices I’ve made at GMU. Yes, Paula, I will tell Professors Censer and Holt that too.
Going to school in northern California in the 1950s and 60s, the gold rush was one of the “important events” of state history. Even sports fans couldn’t get away from it as the San Francisco 49ers was/is our local professional football team. And if you didn’t go camping in the “gold country” you would probably at least would have taken a school field trip to Sutter’s Mill, Oroville or Placerville or some other such place and panned for gold. I greatly enjoyed all these activities. I think I've been to most of the towns that appeared in this book. And everybody in Northern California thinks of the 49er’s sourdough bread as the California “state bread.” But it was fascinating and "educational" to learn that Gold Rush society was even more complex, interesting and exotic than I had realized. I agree with Johnson that most probably think of the 49ers (the gold miners) as white men with a few Chinese and some prostitutes added as leaven. And if you live in California you might well guess that Hispanic people were there too. But Johnson beautifully describes a much more varied social landscape. I was also very impressed that she could tell an interesting social story AND an economic one. It seems often when an author does one well in a single book other dimensions are slighted. All in all the book truly FELT like California. The story that I didn’t know at all, to my chagrin, was that of the Indians of that area. Johnson did a superb job to that too. Calloway would be pleased. There is also alot of Limerick in Johnson’s story: the “West” as a place where cultures and nationalities clash and sometimes cooperate.
As I commented about Roaring Camp, Murder in Tombstone just FEELS right. I am in awe of the detail that the author has presented in such an engaging way. If I had been reading the book to really understand and make a judgment about the gunfight I would have to draw a diagram from myself listing the various stories side-by-side. Unfortunately the pace of a course like this and the need to do things other than study make that impossible. It is a book that I will recommend to my grandchildren though. Before they see too much Hollywood western “history.” This story also brings home to me the difficulty a person experiences when he or she has been exposed to so many different and bowdlerized versions of the OK Corral story, and so many and different characterizations of the Earp brothers by Hollywood stars and television. For a long time I have been unable to bring myself to watch dramatizations of historical events or persons just because they are often so dismissive of the “facts” of the real events, but it strikes me that a movie of the story of the OK Corral that was faithful to this book might very well be interesting, if in the end ambiguous.
Going to school in northern California in the 1950s and 60s, the gold rush was one of the “important events” of state history. Even sports fans couldn’t get away from it as the San Francisco 49ers was/is our local professional football team. And if you didn’t go camping in the “gold country” you would probably at least would have taken a school field trip to Sutter’s Mill, Oroville or Placerville or some other such place and panned for gold. I greatly enjoyed all these activities. I think I've been to most of the towns that appeared in this book. And everybody in Northern California thinks of the 49er’s sourdough bread as the California “state bread.” But it was fascinating and "educational" to learn that Gold Rush society was even more complex, interesting and exotic than I had realized. I agree with Johnson that most probably think of the 49ers (the gold miners) as white men with a few Chinese and some prostitutes added as leaven. And if you live in California you might well guess that Hispanic people were there too. But Johnson beautifully describes a much more varied social landscape. I was also very impressed that she could tell an interesting social story AND an economic one. It seems often when an author does one well in a single book other dimensions are slighted. All in all the book truly FELT like California. The story that I didn’t know at all, to my chagrin, was that of the Indians of that area. Johnson did a superb job to that too. Calloway would be pleased. There is also alot of Limerick in Johnson’s story: the “West” as a place where cultures and nationalities clash and sometimes cooperate.
As I commented about Roaring Camp, Murder in Tombstone just FEELS right. I am in awe of the detail that the author has presented in such an engaging way. If I had been reading the book to really understand and make a judgment about the gunfight I would have to draw a diagram from myself listing the various stories side-by-side. Unfortunately the pace of a course like this and the need to do things other than study make that impossible. It is a book that I will recommend to my grandchildren though. Before they see too much Hollywood western “history.” This story also brings home to me the difficulty a person experiences when he or she has been exposed to so many different and bowdlerized versions of the OK Corral story, and so many and different characterizations of the Earp brothers by Hollywood stars and television. For a long time I have been unable to bring myself to watch dramatizations of historical events or persons just because they are often so dismissive of the “facts” of the real events, but it strikes me that a movie of the story of the OK Corral that was faithful to this book might very well be interesting, if in the end ambiguous.
posted by Jim Johnson at 10:27 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Jim. I always enjoy your personalized blogs and insights. I agree with you: the Indian factor in the gold camps was a surprise. And I, too, approach Hollywood "versions" of history gingerly now, most often with dread. On the flip side, I have a greater appreciation for filmmakers who attempt to give an accurate portrayal of history--they are few and far between (I'm currently in love with one I discovered this summer via Netflix: Ric Burns' "New York: A Documentary.")
Jim,
I was also impressed by how both authors complicated stories that have been simplified by popular myth and popular film. Johnson shows that the Gold Rush was far from an Anglo-only affair and Lubet shows quite a different Wyatt Earp than traditional Westerns give us. Because West has been so much more mythologized than other areas of America and American history (only the antebellum South is comparable) the burden of Western historians is great.
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