Table Of ContentThe Life and Legends 
of Calamity Jane
The Oklahoma Western Biographies
Richard W. Etulain, General Editor
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Also by Richard W. Etulain (a selective listing)
author
Owen Wister
Ernest Haycox
Re-imagining the Modern American West: A Century of Fiction, 
History, and Art
Telling Western Stories: From Buffalo Bill to Larry McMurtry
Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West
Seeking First the Kingdom: Northwest Nazarene University, 
A Centennial History
Abraham Lincoln and Oregon Country Politics in the Civil 
War Era
coauthor
Conversations with Wallace Stegner on Western History and 
Literature
The American West: A Twentieth-Century History
editor
Writing Western History: Essays on Major Western Historians
Does the Frontier Experience Make America Exceptional?
César Chávez: A Brief Biography with Documents
New Mexican Lives: Profi les and Historical Stories
Western Lives: A Biographical History of the American West
Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacifi c
coeditor
Basque Americans
Fifty Western Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Guide
A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Western American 
Literature
The Twentieth-Century West: Historical Interpretations
Researching Western History: Topics in the Twentieth Century
By Grit and Grace: Eleven Women Who Shaped the American West
Portraits of Basques in the New World
With Badges and Bullets: Lawmen and Outlaws in the Old West
The Hollywood West
The American West in 2000: Essays in Honor of Gerald D. Nash
Wild Women of the Old West
Chiefs and Generals
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The Life and Legends 
of Calamity Jane
By Richard W. Etulain
University of Oklahoma Press : Norman
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Etulain, Richard W.
  The life and legends of Calamity Jane / by Richard W. Etulain.
    pages cm. — (Oklahoma western biographies ; volume 29)
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
  ISBN 978-0-8061-4632-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)  1. Calamity 
Jane, 1856–1903.  2. Women pioneers—West (U.S—Biography. 
3. West (U.S—Biography.  4. Frontier and pioneer life—West (U.S.) 
I. Title.
  F594.C2E88 2014
  978'.02092—dc23
  [B]
  2014012696
The Life and Legends of Calamity Jane is Volume 29 in The Oklahoma 
Western Biographies.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durabil-
ity of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of 
the Council on Library Resources, Inc. 
Copyright © 2014 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Pub-
lishing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored 
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, elec-
tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except as 
permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act—
without the prior written permission of the University of Oklahoma 
Press. To request permission to reproduce selections from this book, 
write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive, 
Norman OK 73069, or email [email protected].
1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10
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For Glenda Riley,
splendid western historian,
wonderful colleague
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Contents
List of Illustrations  viii
Series Editor’s Preface  xi
Preface  xiii
 1. Foundations, Stable and Broken  3
 2. Finding Her Way  26
 3. Negotiating Deadwood  52
 4. Overnight Fame: A Dime Novel Heroine  78
 5. On the Road Again  115
 6. The Decline of a Life  149
 7. Imagining Calamity: Launching a Legendary 
Heroine, 1903–1930  200
 8. The Search for a Coherent Calamity, 1930–1960  233
 9. A New Gray Calamity, 1960–1990  272
10. A Complex Calamity, 1990–Present  302
Conclusion: Pondering a Life and Legends  339
Essay on Sources  345
Bibliography  357
Index  373
vii
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Illustrations
Figures
The U.S. Census of 1860, Mercer County, Missouri  11
The Canary farm  14
Virginia City, Montana  21
Wyoming Census, Carter County, 1869  28
Early Cheyenne  37
First photograph of Calamity Jane  43
Calamity Jane as General Crook’s Scout  49
James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok  55
Booming Deadwood, 1876–77  62
Gem Theater, Deadwood  64
Three Calamity Jane portraits from Drama of Life in the 
Black Hills (1878)  70
Mapping Calamity Jane’s Deadwood  73
Horatio N. Maguire, journalist and historian  80
Deadwood Dick dime novel series  86
Calamity Jane as a dime novel heroine  97
Thomas N. Newson’s dramatic Calamity Jane  105
“Miss Martha Canary (‘Calamity Jane’), The Female 
Scout.”  110
viii
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Illustrations
Martha Canary, late 1870s or early 1880s  113
“One and Original ‘Calamity Jane.’”  119
Calamity Jane in stylish buckskins  127
In Wyoming in the 1880s  132
Martha Canary–William P. Steers marriage certifi cate, 1888  138
Calamity Jane among the railroad men  144
Clinton E. Burke, one of Calamity Jane’s “husbands”  146
Calamity Jane on the road  157
Calamity Jane’s autobiography  158
Calamity Jane, the Wildest Woman of the West  163
In Utica, Montana  174
With Teddy Blue Abbott  175
In Livingston, Montana, 1901  180
At the Pan-American Exposition  184
Calamity Jane returns west  188
Near death  195
In repose  197
In the Mount Moriah Cemetery  198
As Pioneer Woman  203
Wild Woman of the Old West, Calamity Jane  210
First Calamity Jane fi lm  219
Wild Bill Hickok (Paramount), 1923  221
The fi rst nonfi ction account of Calamity Jane  229
Calamity Jane’s daughter, Jessie Oakes Murray 
(1887–1980)  238
Jean Hickok McCormick  241
Calamity Jane, by Roberta Beed Sollid  255
The Plainsman, 1936  264
Calamity Jane, 1953  267
Calamity, Mark and Belle, by J. T. Edson  279
Trouble Trail, by J. T. Edson  279
Leather and Lace, by Dorothy Dixon  282
Dead Man’s Hand, by Jake Logan  282
Stagecoach, Station 11: Deadwood, by Hank Mitchum  282
Pete Dexter, Deadwood, 1986  287
Larry McMurtry, Buffalo Girls, 1990  290
ix
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