The Shirley Letters: Life in a Mining Camp through the Eyes of a Protected Wife - Essay Example

The Shirley Letters: Life in a Mining Camp through the Eyes of a Protected Wife. Life in California in the mid nineteenth century was hard, especially for a delicately nurtured, upper class girl from New England.. There were prospectors and miners, and people who were pouring into the area to find gold. California, especially the mining area, was a male dominated zone at the time. Many of the sources for the history of California are based on the chronicles of men, as it was an era dominated by men. One rare exception is “The Shirley Letters, “which is a collection of twenty three letters written by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe during 1851 to 1852 to her sister Molly in Massachusetts. Clappe came to California from Massachusetts with her physician husband in 1850. Using the pen-name of Dame Shirley, she writes about the life among the gold mining community to her sister. The letters were later published in The Pioneer, a literary magazine of California .Although many critics have eulogized Clappe’s account as very “trustworthy” and “valuable”, some others are skeptical about the veracity of her account. As one critic says, “A delicate, educated woman living in a community of rough miners, Dame Shirley was too atypical to be a reliable source on the Gold Rush Society. Her status as a protected wife prevented her from seeing the realities of the mining camp life.” Louise Amelia Knapp Smith was born in New Jersey in 1819. She lost her parents early, but her guardian educated her at Amherst and Charlestown, Massachusetts. Coming from a cultured family, she was fond of writing letters, which was in fashion in those days. In appearance, Louise was small built, fair, and not physically strong., but she liked adventure. She married Dr. Fayette Clappe and in 1849 the young couple went to California. When Dr. Clappe repeatedly fell sick in San Francisco, he was advised to go to the Feather River in the mountains. His health improved in the high altitudes of the mountains, and Louise came to join him at “Rich Bar”. The letters are mainly her account of her life there among the miners there.. Clappe’s style is full of gentle, wry humor. In one letter she mentions visiting the “Office”,which was “the only one on the river”.As soon as she set foot inside, she burst out laughing as the full shabbiness of the “office” hit her. Writing about her husband’s partner, she says,that his face looked “prussic acid”, because for him the office was “something sacred”. She writes about a young man who was one of the finders of Rich Bar, who had” not spoken to a woman in two years, and , in the elation of his heart at the joyful event”, opened a bottle of champagne because “ nothing can be done in California without the sanctifying influence of the spirit.”(Clappe 43) Although some nineteenth century historians like Josiah Royce have praised the Shirley Letters, we can see that she had her own prejudices. Speaking about the native Indian women as “degraded wretches”, she describes the Indian women who were gathering flower seeds , which , mixed with acorns and grasshoppers ,” form the bread of these miserable people.”(Clappe 4) In the male dominated mining community of Rich Bar, there were only four women. One was Mrs. B, the wife of the owner of the Empire Hotel, which was meant to be a brothel, but the women were “driven away by public opinion” (Clappe 33). Mrs.B, had left behind her infant and two children to accompany her husband here. Another woman was the “Indiana Girl”, who was a “gigantic piece of humanity” who performed Herculean feats That Shirley fails to understand the needs of the miners who undergo great personal hardships to earn some money is evidenced by her superior attitude towards Mrs. R, another woman who lived in Rich Bar. Mrs. R, according to a miner, “earnt her old man nine hundred dollars in nine weeks, clear of all expenses, by washing!”(Clappe. 67) Shirley, coming as she was from a different background, admits,” as I toiled not, neither did I wash. Alas! I hung my diminished head, particularly when I remembered the eight dollars a dozen which I had been in the habit of paying for the washing of linen-cambric pocket-handkerchiefs” Obviously, Shirley was too different from the other women in the camp as well. In the sixth letter Shirley makes her abhorance of the profanity which was common in the mining district, quite clear. “To live thus, in constant danger of being hushed to ones rosy rest by a ghastly lullaby of oaths, is revolting in the extreme.” (Clappe 78) She also disapproves of the bowling alley, a favourite amusement of the miners.”The rolling on the bowling-alley never leaves off for ten consecutive minutes at any time during the entire twenty-four hours”(Clappe 77) With all these prejudices, it is hard to believe that Shirley wrote a true and unbiased account of the miners’ life in the camp. Her descriptions are very colorful and vivid..” The river, in hue of a vivid emerald, as if it reflected the hue of the fir-trees above, bordered with a band of dark red, caused by the streams flowing into it from the different sluices, ditches, long-toms, etc., which meander from the hill just back of the Bar, wanders musically along.”(letter 7) “The Humboldt” was the only hotel there, which the miners patronized., “But the clinking of glasses, and the swaggering air of some of the drinkers, remind us that it is no place for a lady”. (Clappe 88) This shows that she avoids the Humboldt because of the drinking crowd . Since the miners were notoriously hard drinkers, Shirley could hardy give a correct picture of their lives, if she avoided them.. In her tenth letter, Shirley graccefully acknowledges the erroneous impression she had of gold washing. “Since I have been here I have discovered my mistake,”she says, giving a description of the actual gold washing process. Delicately nurtured as she was, Shirley disapproved of women asking for their right to vote. “How can they wish to soil the delicate texture of their airy fancies by pondering over the wearying stupidities of Presidential elections?” she says, showing her narrow minded prejudices. (Clappe 145) Shirley describes the celebrations of the miners during Christmas at second hand. “I believe that the company danced all night. At any rate, they were dancing when I went to sleep, and they were dancing when I woke the next morning. The revel was kept up in this mad way for three days, growing wilder every hour.”(Clappe. 164) Shirley has this to say about the miners,” The class of men who rule society(?) in the mines are the gamblers, who, for the most part, are reckless, bad men, although, no doubt, there are many among them whose only vice is that fatal love of play. The rest of the people are afraid of these daring, unprincipled persons.”(Clappe. 250) “The Shirley Letters” are no doubt a valuable source of information on the California gold rush and the life of the people in the remote areas in those times. The author writes some of the most descriptive passages about the vanished flora of the area. Writing with a good deal of humor, she describes life in a gold mining area, the hardships faced by the miners and others, the law and order problems they faced, their instant justice, and the drinking and gambling habits of the woman-starved miners of the nineteenth century. While the account of the miners’ lives is interesting, it could hardly be called reliable as the author did not even visit the tavern frequented by the miners, let alone their homes. References Clappe, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith. The Shirley Letters : From the California Mines, 1851-1852 www.gutenberg.org/etext/23280 viewed on 22 March 2009. Read More