The topic of my book is about The Donner Party, a group of families who decided to leave their everything they had behind in Springfield, Illinois and migrate to California. Marian Calabro, the author of the book, is a writer, editor, and history enthusiast. Calabro also received her B.A. from Rutgers College, with an English major and theater minor, she had become the first woman to be admitted into what was an all-male college 206 years. I chose this book because I knew that The Donner Party did eventually resort to cannibalism and thought it might be interesting to learn more about what harsh conditions drove them to do so. The Donner Party is a group of three extended families, organized by George Donner and James Reed. In the book, Calabro …show more content…
The Reed family was the wealthiest on the trip. Each family had three wagons for their expedition, one to live in, one for daily supplies, and one for items they will eventually need one they have arrived in California. Although everyone on the trip had wagons, the Reeds had the most luxurious. Virginia Reed, wife to James Reed, brought many of her luxuries aboard the trip. Besides having a wagon with built-in beds and a second story loft, she brought many pieces of silk, gold, and laces to bargain with if needed. With heavily loaded wagons and a team of oxen, The Donner Party began their trip in April 1846. By May, The Donner Party had reached Independence, Missouri. Missouri was almost like a haven for pioneers wishing to travel to California, water was easily accessible and the trail was so deeply carved by ruts, that moving the wagon did not require as much labor. Just before reaching Independence Rock in Wyoming, James Reed was confronted by James Clyman, a very well-known Wester explorer. Clyman warned Reed that the “shortcut” that had been recommended to him by Hastings, was unsafe and not a reliable route to …show more content…
Hasting’s book stated that in order to save time, the shortcut would consist of “leaving the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east from Fort Hall; then bearing west southwest, to the Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of San Francisco. The only part that The Donner Party was unaware of, was that Hastings had never taken the shortcut himself. Hastings was as delusional as he was egotistical and thought that he should be seen as a president or important figure by all, therefore the book was a way to form his “empire” and lure people to California. Due to doubts about the safety of continuing on the trail, The Donner Party had split the train, with one taking the safer route. October 31, the first group reach Truckee Lake where of the course of the next week days, they noticed dramatic weather patterns. Some days there would be a heavy rain and thick smokey grey clouds, the next day would have a light snowfall, though there was little to no concern that it may interfere with the trip until later on. A few days later, heavy snow hit. No oxen could move and when their surrounding were drenched in the feet of snow, the first party came to realization that they would be stranded in the Sierra Nevada with painfully cold air and minimal food to last them through the unexpectedly harsh
Mary Eugenia Surratt, née Jenkins, was born to Samuel Isaac Jenkins and his wife near Waterloo, Maryland. After her father died when she was young, her mother and older siblings kept the family and the farm together. After attending a Catholic girls’ school for a few years, she met and married John Surratt at age fifteen. They had three children: Isaac, John, and Anna. After a fire at their first farm, John Surratt Sr. began jumping from occupation to occupation. Surratt worked briefly in Virginia as a railroad contractor before he was able to purchase land in Maryland and eventually establish a store and tavern that became known as Surrattsville. However, the family’s fina...
For historians, the colonial period holds many mysteries. In Written in Bone, Sally Walker tells the story of America's earliest settlers in an interesting way, by studying human remains and bones. Sally walker works alongside historians as they uncover the secrets of colonial era gravesites. Written in Bone covers the entire process, from excavating human remains to studying the burial methods and how scientists, historians and archeologists go about this. Readers will be amazed by how much detail these processes uncover, such as gender, race, diets and the lifestyles of many different people. The reader will began to see the colonial era in a new way.
The Party is Over by Mike Lofgren goes undercover to reveal what politics is like behind the screen. I believe this book was more for criticizing the GOP and Republicans that the Democrats. The GOP and Republicans are a lot different in politics now than they were decades ago. The book talks about how the Republicans are against the government, how Republicans are anti-science and anti-intellectual, and also how they view religious rights. All of these lead to problems with politics. The Democrats were brought up than the Republicans, but were still mentioned. They too did some damage in today’s politics. This book informs us on how the Republicans went crazy and Democrats became useless, and how it’s become a problem.
When their journey began in 1846, the members of the Donner and Reed families had high hopes of reaching California, and they would settle at nothing less. Their dream of making a new life for themselves represented great determination. When their packed wagons rolled out of Springfield, Missouri, they thought of their future lives in California. The Reed family’s two-story wagon was actually called the “pioneer palace car”, because it was full of everything imaginable including an iron stove and cushioned seats and bunks for sleeping. They didn’t want to leave their materialistic way of life at home.
Kathryn Jacob’s begins with background on Lizzie Borden; how she was favored by her father as the youngest daughter, how she “had evidently given up hope of marriage, but she led a more active life, centered around good works,” and how “she taught Sunday school class of Chinese children, (and) was active in the Ladies Fruit and Flower Mission, the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, and the Good Samaritan Charity Hospital” (p.53).The Women’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) was a popular social movement that focused on a “do everything policy” to fix the problems of the community, including problems deeper than just alcohol (Brady Class Lecture,2014). The WCTU was seen as a positive movement for women to maintain their woma...
A little over 100 years ago, a gruesome double murder was committed at the Borden residence. For example, Lizzie Borden and her sister Emma’s childhoods were awful. Their mom died when Lizzie was just three years old (Allard, 2013). Their father got remarried, but Lizzie and Emma did not like their step-mother, Abby Borden, because they thought she was just using their father for his wealth. Furthermore, people think Lizzie did it because she hates Abby. Both, Emma and Lizzie greeted her as Mrs. Borden (Biography, 2017). Abby was also very mean to
on a research trip for an article I am writing for the State Historical Society of Iowa. I hope to visit the home of a Robert Butler, a murderer and slavecatcher, who has featured prominently in months of my research since the house is owned by the Butler family, this will require me to interact with his descendants who have a very different perspective on how he should be remembered. I hope to apply the skills discussed in this class to writing a non-academic reflection on this journey. From this course, I know this essay will fail without my personal story. I have learned I must allow my experiences to shape this “journey of discovery,” to challenge my preconceived notions rather than adhere to
Frizzell, Lodisa. Across the Plains to California in 1852. New York: New York Public Library, 1915.
...atly, was undoubtedly ruined by the diet and stress she experienced as a result of forcible removal by welfare workers not dissimilar to myself. Yet, this inescapable dilemma only reinforces my striving to achieve the ideals demonstrated by my profession. These ethics, complex and often at conflict with the reality of welfare are the light that guides my professional practice through the perils of historic white shame.
He fig-ured that the normal half hour walk home might take as long as two hours in snow this deep. And then there was the wind and the cold to contend with. The wind was blowing across the river and up over the embankment making the snow it carried colder and wetter than the snow blanketing the ground. He would have to use every skill he’d learned, living in these hills, to complete the journey without getting lost, freezing to death, or at the very least ending up with a severe case of frostbite be-fore he made it back to Ruby.
Many people thought that Chris had no idea what he was doing and that he was very unprepared. In an article, written by Peter Christian, an Alaska Park Ranger, he talks about how Chris was unprepared for his trip: “First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament using one of several routes that could have been successful. …A bag of rice and a sleeping bag do not constitute adequate gear and provisions for a long stay in the wilderness.” Christian believed that Chris was very unprepared and if he would have had a map, he could have made it out of the wild alive. No one really knows if Chris could have, indeed, made it out using the map. But it could have helped him find one of three cabins located within a few miles of the bus. Christian also points out that a bag o...
To start with, McCandless was not someone who gave up. Despite others trying to scare him out of continuing with his journey into the Alaskan wilderness, nothing deterred McCandless. He anxiously awaited to experience life off the land. The people McCandless encountered on his way to Alaska often commented on his determination. Jim Gallien, a man who drove McCandless into the Alaska interior, described McCandless as “real gung-ho”. McCandless's attempt to undertake such a risky endeavour is something to admire in itself. To travel two years, mostly on foot, is certainly not an easy task. However, McCandless still persevered through the hardships he faced throughout his journey. McCandles...
When the narrator introduced the main character of the story, the man, he made it clear that the man was in a perilous situation involving the elements. The man was faced with weather that was 75 degrees below zero and he was not physically or mentally prepared for survival. London wrote that the cold "did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold."(p.1745) At first when the man started his journey to the camp, he felt certain that he could make it back to camp before dinner. As the trip progressed, the man made mistake after mistake that sealed his fate. The man's first mistake was to step into a pool of water and soak his legs to the knees. This blunder forced the man to build a fire to dry his wet socks and shoes so his feet would not freeze and become frostbitten. When the man began to build a fire he failed to notice that he was doing so under a large, snow laden spruce tree where he was getting his firewood. When the man had a small fire that was beginning to smolder the disturbance to the tree caused the snow to tumble to the ground and extinguish the fire. "It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open."(1750).
O'Connor, Flannery. Good Country People. Literature an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Longman. 2002. (247-261)
Wilson, M. & Clark, R. (n.d.). Analyzing the Short Story. [online] Retrieved from: https://www.limcollege.edu/Analyzing_the_Short_Story.pdf [Accessed: 12 Apr 2014].