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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