Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $17.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Christina Delaine
About this listen
More than a quarter of a million Americans crossed the continental United States between 1840 and 1870, going west in one of the greatest migrations of modern times. The frontiersmen have become an integral part of our history and folklore, but the Westering experiences of American women are equally central to an accurate picture of what life was like on the frontier.
Through the diaries, letters, and reminiscences of women who participated in this migration, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey gives us primary source material on the lives of these women, who kept campfires burning with buffalo chips and dried weeds, gave birth to and cared for children along primitive and dangerous roads, drove teams of oxen, picked berries, milked cows, and cooked meals in the middle of a wilderness that was a far cry from the homes they had left back east. Still (and often under the disapproving eyes of their husbands) they found time to write brave letters home or to jot a few weary lines at night into the diaries that continue to enthrall us.
In her new foreword, Professor Mary Clearman Blew explores the enduring fascination with this subject among both historians and the general public, and places Schlissel's groundbreaking work into an intriguing historical and cultural context.
©1982, 1992, 2004 Schocken Books; Foreword copyright 2004 by Mary Clearman Blew (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
My Life as an Indian
- By: James Willard Schultz
- Narrated by: Brian V. Hunt
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beautiful, tender, haunting, and full of excitement, this is the memoir of famed author, explorer, Glacier Park guide, trader, and historian of the Blackfoot Indians, James Willard Schultz. With the Blackfoot woman, whom he deeply loved, from 1880 to 1903, Schultz lived the life of a Blackfoot Indian with Nat-ah-ki and her people. During this time, he began writing for magazines, at times running a trading post, and working as a guide in the West.
-
-
Compassionate Story
- By Ann Holmes on 09-13-18
-
Days on the Road
- Crossing the Plains in 1865
- By: Sarah Raymond Herndon
- Narrated by: Brian V. Hunt, Claire Dayton
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Can you visualize today what it meant to cross America's Great Plains in the mid-19th century? It was a wondrous, perilous, often fatal journey without assurance of a successful life at the other end. Yet tens of thousands made the journey and lucky for us, many set aside modesty, often at the request of children or grandchildren, to put the account of their travels into words.
-
-
Trials
- By Carol Partridge on 08-17-24
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
Where Coyotes Howl
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Stephanie Németh-Parker
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year’s time she’s fallen in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. But Ellen and Charlie face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success, and each deeply felt tragedy.
-
-
Horrible ending
- By lisa campbell on 04-24-23
By: Sandra Dallas
-
Killing Jesus
- A History
- By: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Bill O'Reilly
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of people have thrilled to best-selling authors Bill O'Reilly and historian Martin Dugard's Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln, works of nonfiction that have changed the way we view history. Now the anchor of The O'Reilly Factor details the events leading up to the murder of the most influential man in history: Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly 2,000 years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe he is God.
-
-
The Jesus story in context
- By Kimberly on 10-01-13
By: Bill O'Reilly, and others
-
Westering Women
- A Novel
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's February, 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins 43 other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind.
-
-
history adventure and a good dose of women empower
- By Stephanie on 09-16-20
By: Sandra Dallas
-
My Life as an Indian
- By: James Willard Schultz
- Narrated by: Brian V. Hunt
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beautiful, tender, haunting, and full of excitement, this is the memoir of famed author, explorer, Glacier Park guide, trader, and historian of the Blackfoot Indians, James Willard Schultz. With the Blackfoot woman, whom he deeply loved, from 1880 to 1903, Schultz lived the life of a Blackfoot Indian with Nat-ah-ki and her people. During this time, he began writing for magazines, at times running a trading post, and working as a guide in the West.
-
-
Compassionate Story
- By Ann Holmes on 09-13-18
-
Days on the Road
- Crossing the Plains in 1865
- By: Sarah Raymond Herndon
- Narrated by: Brian V. Hunt, Claire Dayton
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Can you visualize today what it meant to cross America's Great Plains in the mid-19th century? It was a wondrous, perilous, often fatal journey without assurance of a successful life at the other end. Yet tens of thousands made the journey and lucky for us, many set aside modesty, often at the request of children or grandchildren, to put the account of their travels into words.
-
-
Trials
- By Carol Partridge on 08-17-24
-
Travels with Charley in Search of America
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Gary Sinise
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1960, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America, from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Travels with Charley is animated by Steinbeck’s attention to the specific details of the natural world and his sense of how the lives of people are intimately connected to the rhythms of nature—to weather, geography, the cycles of the seasons. His keen ear for the transactions among people is evident, too, as he records the interests and obsessions that preoccupy the Americans he encounters along the way.
-
-
Gary Sinise is fantastic!
- By C. Wilson on 01-11-17
By: John Steinbeck
-
Where Coyotes Howl
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Stephanie Németh-Parker
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1916. The two-street town of Wallace is not exactly what Ellen Webster had in mind when she accepted a teaching position in Wyoming, but within a year’s time she’s fallen in love—both with the High Plains and with a handsome cowboy named Charlie Bacon. Life is not easy in the flat, brown corner of the state where winter blizzards are unforgiving and the summer heat relentless. But Ellen and Charlie face it all together, their relationship growing stronger with each shared success, and each deeply felt tragedy.
-
-
Horrible ending
- By lisa campbell on 04-24-23
By: Sandra Dallas
-
Killing Jesus
- A History
- By: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Bill O'Reilly
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions of people have thrilled to best-selling authors Bill O'Reilly and historian Martin Dugard's Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln, works of nonfiction that have changed the way we view history. Now the anchor of The O'Reilly Factor details the events leading up to the murder of the most influential man in history: Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly 2,000 years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe he is God.
-
-
The Jesus story in context
- By Kimberly on 10-01-13
By: Bill O'Reilly, and others
-
Westering Women
- A Novel
- By: Sandra Dallas
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's February, 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins 43 other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind.
-
-
history adventure and a good dose of women empower
- By Stephanie on 09-16-20
By: Sandra Dallas
-
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Storybook Life
- By: Janet Benge, Geoff Benge
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gallagher
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the big woods of Wisconsin to the Indian country of the Great Plains, new adventures and landscapes filled the rich childhood of Laura Ingalls Wilder. On a frontier steeped in both danger and great possibility, Laura would grow up to witness firsthand the rapid transformation of the West as pioneers and covered wagons gave way to farms, towns, and railroads. A pioneer, teacher, farmer's wife, and storyteller, Laura Ingalls Wilder experienced one of the most exciting times in American history.
-
-
A must have for any little house fan.
- By YHWHsHesed on 05-08-15
By: Janet Benge, and others
-
The Murmur of Bees
- By: Sofia Segovia, Simon Bruni - translator
- Narrated by: Xe Sands, Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can - visions of all that’s yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous.
-
-
One of the best books I listened to ever!
- By Vmcg on 05-11-19
By: Sofia Segovia, and others
-
Brave Hearted
- The Women of the American West
- By: Katie Hickman
- Narrated by: Katie Hickman, Nerissa Bradley
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers traveling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys, some of them so poor they walked the entire route; African-American women in search of freedom from slavery; Chinese sex-workers sold openly on the docks of San Francisco; Native American women brutally displaced by the unstoppable tide of white settlers–these were the women who settled the American West, whose stories until now have remained mostly untold.
-
-
Wonderful book intolerable narrator
- By Marilla on 01-14-23
By: Katie Hickman
-
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume I, Fort Sumter to Perryville
- By: Shelby Foote
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 42 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac.
-
-
OUTSTANDING! I'M PROUD TO BE A BLACK AMERICAN!!
- By The Louligan on 08-22-13
By: Shelby Foote
-
The Oregon Trail
- A New American Journey
- By: Rinker Buck
- Narrated by: Rinker Buck
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling tradition of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, Rinker Buck's The Oregon Trail is a major work of participatory history: an epic account of traveling the entire 2,000-mile length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way, in a covered wagon with a team of mules - which hasn't been done in a century - that also tells the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country.
-
-
An author does not a good narrator make
- By C. Davis on 07-03-15
By: Rinker Buck
-
Jim Bridger
- Trailblazer of the American West
- By: Jerry Enzler
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. Fremont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of. Here, in a biography that finally gives this outsize character his due, Jerry Enzler takes this frontiersman's full measure for the first time—and tells a story that would do Jim Bridger proud.
-
-
Interesting
- By Jon Evans on 07-19-23
By: Jerry Enzler
-
The Pioneers
- The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The number one New York Times best seller by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that's "as resonant today as ever" (The Wall Street Journal) - the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would define our country.
-
-
i would prefer david reading it
- By hooterwah on 05-07-19
By: David McCullough
-
Life on the Mississippi
- An Epic American Adventure
- By: Rinker Buck
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seven years ago, readers and listeners around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.
-
-
Too Political and Divisive
- By Bill on 08-29-22
By: Rinker Buck
-
Centennial
- A Novel
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 50 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener's magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America's past, the story of Colorado - the Centennial State - is manifested through its people: Lame Beaver, the Arapaho chieftain and warrior, and his Comanche and Pawnee enemies; Levi Zendt, fleeing with his child bride from the Amish country; and the cowboy, Jim Lloyd, who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe.
-
-
One Credit, 14 Great Books
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 08-19-16
-
Grandma Gatewood's Walk
- The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail
- By: Ben Montgomery
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than $200. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, atop Maine's Mount Katahdin, she sang the first verse of "America, the Beautiful" and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it."
-
-
Inspiring story about a strong amazing woman
- By David Shear on 12-22-14
By: Ben Montgomery
-
The Indifferent Stars Above
- The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party
- By: Daniel James Brown
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April of 1846, 21-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and 14 others set out for California on snowshoes and over the next 32 days endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.
-
-
Absolutely enthralling
- By Sasha Anscum on 06-07-19
-
Alaska Challenge
- A Journey Through Uncharted Wilderness Leading to a New Life in a New Land
- By: Ruth Albee, Bill Albee, Lyman Anson
- Narrated by: Lyle Blaker
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having grown disillusioned with the miserable existence that is expected of young college students, the newlyweds Bill and Ruth Albee dream of heading to Alaska, on foot, by way of a vast blank space on the map that is modern day Western British Columbia. Like most most dreams, it dug into their body, mind, and soul until nothing could satisfy it until they had given it a try. So, in 1930, they started off, ignoring all warnings and leaving from Vancouver on foot up through western B.C.
-
-
An Epic Adventure in the North
- By Daniel on 07-02-21
By: Ruth Albee, and others
Related to this topic
-
The Best Land Under Heaven
- The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny
- By: Michael Wallis
- Narrated by: Michael Wallis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cutting through 160 years of mythmaking, best-selling historian Michael Wallis presents the ultimate cautionary tale of America's westward expansion.
-
-
Well researched but performance is just mediocre
- By T. Redwood on 07-14-17
By: Michael Wallis
-
The Indifferent Stars Above
- The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party
- By: Daniel James Brown
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April of 1846, 21-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and 14 others set out for California on snowshoes and over the next 32 days endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.
-
-
Absolutely enthralling
- By Sasha Anscum on 06-07-19
-
Ordeal by Hunger
- By: George R. Stewart
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tragedy of the Donner party constitutes one of the most amazing stories of the American West. In 1846, 87 people, men, women, and children, set out for California, persuaded to attempt a new overland route. After struggling across the desert, losing many oxen, and nearly dying of thirst, they reached the very summit of the Sierras, only to be trapped by blinding snow and bitter storms. Many perished; some survived by resorting to cannibalism; all were subjected to unbearable suffering.
-
-
Life Changing
- By Gyropilot on 06-03-08
-
Desperate Passage
- The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West
- By: Ethan Rarick
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival.
-
-
I REALLY enjoyed this book
- By Roger on 02-09-10
By: Ethan Rarick
-
Big Bend
- A Homesteader's Story
- By: J.O. Langford
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the wild and fabulous country where the Rio Grande makes its big bend, J. O. Langford came in 1909 with his wife and daughter in search of health and a home. High on a bluff overlooking the spot where Tornillo Creek pours its waters into the turbulent Rio Grande, the Langfords built their home, a rude structure of adobe blocks in a land reputed to be inhabited only by bandits and rattlesnakes. Big Bend is the story of the Langfords' life in the rugged and spectacularly beautiful country which they came to call their own.
-
-
Great historical read!!
- By chaoticangel38 on 06-03-19
By: J.O. Langford
-
Letters of a Woman Homesteader
- By: Elinore Pruitt Stewart
- Narrated by: Gwen Hughes
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Letters of a Woman Homesteader is a frontier classic by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, a widowed young mother who accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming. In Stewart's delightful collection of letters, she describes her homesteading experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.
-
-
Every woman in the US should read this book.
- By Dolly Jane Prenzel on 03-17-15
-
The Best Land Under Heaven
- The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny
- By: Michael Wallis
- Narrated by: Michael Wallis
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cutting through 160 years of mythmaking, best-selling historian Michael Wallis presents the ultimate cautionary tale of America's westward expansion.
-
-
Well researched but performance is just mediocre
- By T. Redwood on 07-14-17
By: Michael Wallis
-
The Indifferent Stars Above
- The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party
- By: Daniel James Brown
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April of 1846, 21-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and 14 others set out for California on snowshoes and over the next 32 days endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.
-
-
Absolutely enthralling
- By Sasha Anscum on 06-07-19
-
Ordeal by Hunger
- By: George R. Stewart
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The tragedy of the Donner party constitutes one of the most amazing stories of the American West. In 1846, 87 people, men, women, and children, set out for California, persuaded to attempt a new overland route. After struggling across the desert, losing many oxen, and nearly dying of thirst, they reached the very summit of the Sierras, only to be trapped by blinding snow and bitter storms. Many perished; some survived by resorting to cannibalism; all were subjected to unbearable suffering.
-
-
Life Changing
- By Gyropilot on 06-03-08
-
Desperate Passage
- The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West
- By: Ethan Rarick
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival.
-
-
I REALLY enjoyed this book
- By Roger on 02-09-10
By: Ethan Rarick
-
Big Bend
- A Homesteader's Story
- By: J.O. Langford
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the wild and fabulous country where the Rio Grande makes its big bend, J. O. Langford came in 1909 with his wife and daughter in search of health and a home. High on a bluff overlooking the spot where Tornillo Creek pours its waters into the turbulent Rio Grande, the Langfords built their home, a rude structure of adobe blocks in a land reputed to be inhabited only by bandits and rattlesnakes. Big Bend is the story of the Langfords' life in the rugged and spectacularly beautiful country which they came to call their own.
-
-
Great historical read!!
- By chaoticangel38 on 06-03-19
By: J.O. Langford
-
Letters of a Woman Homesteader
- By: Elinore Pruitt Stewart
- Narrated by: Gwen Hughes
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Letters of a Woman Homesteader is a frontier classic by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, a widowed young mother who accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming. In Stewart's delightful collection of letters, she describes her homesteading experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.
-
-
Every woman in the US should read this book.
- By Dolly Jane Prenzel on 03-17-15
-
Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands
- A Young Politician's Quest for Recovery in the American West
- By: Roger L. Di Silvestro
- Narrated by: Tristan Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands chronicles the turbulent years Roosevelt spent as a rancher in the Badlands of Dakota Territory, following the sudden deaths on February 14, 1884, of his wife, two days after giving birth, and of his mother. Grief-stricken - and driven by doubts about his career after failed attempts as a reformer fighting political corruption -the young, Harvard-educated New York politician left his infant daughter in his sister's care and went to live on a Badlands ranch he had bought a year earlier.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Buyce Consulting on 04-26-15
-
The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman
- Women in the West, Book 1
- By: Margot Mifflin
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1851, Olive Oatman was a 13-year-old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own.
-
-
Mispronunciations
- By R. Brown on 06-07-18
By: Margot Mifflin
-
Nothing Daunted
- The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West
- By: Dorothy Wickenden
- Narrated by: Dorothy Wickenden, Margaret Nichols
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, close friends from childhood and graduates of Smith College, left home in Auburn, New York, for the wilds of northwestern Colorado. Bored by their soci-ety luncheons, charity work, and the effete young men who courted them, they learned that two teach-ing jobs were available in a remote mountaintop schoolhouse and applied—shocking their families and friends.
-
-
Not as Described
- By Sara on 08-10-14
-
Stampede
- Gold Fever and Disaster in the Klondike
- By: Brian Castner
- Narrated by: Brian Castner
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gripping and wholly original account of the epic human tragedy that was the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-98. One hundred thousand men and women rushed heedlessly north to make their fortunes; very few did, but many thousands of them died in the attempt. The unvarnished tale of this mass migration is always striking, revealing the amazing truth of what people will do for a chance to be rich.
-
-
Get-Rich-Quick Schemes Still Don't Work
- By Renee Quistorf on 10-29-21
By: Brian Castner
-
The Rush
- America's Fevered Quest for Fortune, 1848-1853
- By: Edward Dolnick
- Narrated by: Bernard Setaro Clark
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1848, rumors began to spread that gold had been discovered in a remote spot in the Sacramento Valley. A year later, newspaper headlines declared "Gold Fever!" as hundreds of thousands of men and women borrowed money, quit their jobs, and allowed themselves - for the first time ever - to imagine a future of ease and splendor.
-
-
Loved it. Want to hear more of Clarks work.
- By Carlos on 01-11-16
By: Edward Dolnick
-
Dreams of El Dorado
- A History of the American West
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Matt Kugler
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame - and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East.
-
-
Dreadful narration
- By Fredmo on 12-09-19
By: H. W. Brands
-
My India
- By: Jim Corbett
- Narrated by: Sandeep Pillai
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book talks about the experiences of hunter and conservationist Jim Corbett, during his years in the United Provinces, or what is now known as Uttarakhand. Here we see a different side to Corbett, not as the intrepid hunter of big cats but a man who blends seamlessly with the mountain folk of Northern India. Join him in his adventures and feel the thrills of hunting; follow him into dense forests as he encounters a dreaded dacoit who has a heart of gold; and enjoy the tales of love, loyalty, and resilience of simple villagers.
-
-
Unbearable Narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 11-21-24
By: Jim Corbett
-
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
- By: Isabella L. Bird
- Narrated by: Flo Gibson
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These are the valiant and lyrically descriptive letters, written in 1873, by Isabella Bird, a courageous and spirited Englishwoman, telling her sister of her adventures on horseback over 800 miles of American wilderness.
-
-
The Solution to the Indian Problem
- By Samar on 09-26-16
By: Isabella L. Bird
-
Death Comes to the Village
- Kurland St. Mary Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: Catherine Lloyd
- Narrated by: Susannah Tyrrell
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Major Robert Kurland has returned to the quiet vistas of Kurland St. Mary to recuperate from the horrors of Waterloo. However injured his body may be, his mind is as active as ever. Too active, perhaps. When he glimpses a shadowy figure from his bedroom window struggling with a heavy load, the tranquil façade of the village begins to loom sinister....
-
-
Starts slowly, gets better
- By TabithaD on 02-16-24
By: Catherine Lloyd
-
Slave Life in Georgia
- A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Now in England
- By: John Brown
- Narrated by: Damian Salandy
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This account of the life, sufferings, and escape of a fugitive slave was published in London in 1855 by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. It is the autobiography of a simple, sturdy man who spent 30 years as a slave in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia.
-
-
Slave Life in Georgia
- By Deedra on 03-27-19
By: John Brown
-
Trials of the Earth
- The True Story of a Pioneer Woman
- By: Mary Mann Hamilton
- Narrated by: Barbara Benjamin Creel
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Near the end of her life, Mary Mann Hamilton (1866-c.1936) was encouraged to record her experiences as a female pioneer. The result is the only known firsthand account of a remarkable woman thrust into the center of taming the American South - surviving floods, tornadoes, and fires; facing bears, panthers, and snakes; managing a boardinghouse in Arkansas that was home to an eccentric group of settlers; and running a logging camp in Mississippi that blazed a trail for development in the Mississippi Delta.
-
-
Long and slow.
- By Ren on 10-31-17
-
On the Border with Crook
- By: John Gregory Bourke
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Gregory Bourke served General George Crook for 15 years and was his right-hand man. This work is an account of his time with the legendary US Army officer in the post-Civil War West. On the Border with Crook is a written recollection of Crook’s campaigns during the American Indian Wars. Bourke makes the American frontier come alive with his description. He also included descriptions not only of Crook and his fellow cavalrymen, but also of legendary Native American leaders. Bourke argues that Crook etched his name into the annals of American history.
-
-
Fantastic Review of the Late Indian Wars
- By Ian K O'Malley on 08-07-20
What listeners say about Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karen D
- 10-28-23
The second half of the book was the best
The first half of the book was bits and pieces of different peoples stories which isn’t as interesting . The second half were whole diaries which is what I prefer. Other than that I found the book interesting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 08-16-24
Interesting history
It is impressive to learn the history of (WASP) women making their journey westward. I was disappointed by the authors multiple inclusions of racial slurs that added nothing to the story but made me cringe to keep listening. It’s certainly a very one sided version of traveling westward.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!