Colorado Mountain Women
Surviving in the uncivilized mining camps was a day-to-day struggle for most of the women living in those makeshift communities of the late 1890s and early 1900s. The stories included in Colorado Mountain Women: Tales From the Mining Camps by Sherie Schmauder convey many of their experiences. One of the stories relates a woman’s trek from China with her husband, her work on the railroad disguised as a boy, and her flight to a mining camp deep in the mountains after she had killed the man who murdered her husband. There in a laundry she had discovered how to glean gold from miners’ dirty pant pockets. All of the stories are fictional, but are based on the actual experiences of women who lived during that time period in the “Old West.” They battled extreme weather conditions, isolation that could drive a person mad, disease that often took their children from them, poverty and starvation, and primitive living conditions. Yet the West could not have progressed and prospered without the strength, courage, and determination of such women. Sherie Fox Schmauder received a New Jersey Council for the Arts grant for prose in 1994. Her work has appeared in various magazines, with a focus on the effect of landscape on women, particularly those who persevere in difficult situations. Colorado Mountain Women will instill a deeper respect for the women who helped settle the West, but whose stories have not been heard.
- Published
- 2003
- ISBN
- 1-890437-80-8
- Pages
- 176
- Place
- Colorado
- Publisher
- Western Reflections Pub. Co.
- Listed at
- $14.95
Publication details from Open Library. The price shown is the last one on record and is historic, not a current offer.
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About this book
Colorado Mountain Women: Tales From the Mining Camps is a book of stories by Sherie Schmauder about the women who lived in the makeshift mining communities of the late 1890s and early 1900s. Its description says that surviving in those camps was a day to day struggle for most of the women there, and that the stories convey many of their experiences.
The catalogue lists the book under American historical fiction and fiction, with the subject headings mining camps, social life and customs, and women pioneers. Our catalogue gives 2003 as the first-edition year. The description says all of the stories are fictional but based on the actual experiences of women of that period, who battled extreme weather, isolation, disease, poverty and primitive living conditions. One story follows a woman who trekked from China with her husband, worked on the railroad disguised as a boy and fled to a mining camp.
We found no outside review or biography of the author that we could read, so this page rests on the catalogue record and the book's own description.
Who it is for
The subject headings place Colorado Mountain Women with readers of women pioneers, mining camp life and social history in historical fiction form. The period in the description is the late 1890s and early 1900s. Because the catalogue labels the book as fiction, it should be read as stories shaped around the experience of camp women, not as a set of documented biographies.
Ways to use this book
Reading fiction beside the photographs
If you want a picture to go with the stories, open the state's mining town photo set and look at the Telluride, Cripple Creek and Creede images first. Then read a story and note what the photographs show that the page doesn't, such as schools, burros and tents.
Planning a classroom or book club session
The Colorado Department of Education set was built for teachers, so a book club or class can borrow its photographs and the PBS documentary link as a shared starting point. Browse our other fiction and history books in /library/ to build a short reading list around the camps.
Go deeper
The stories in this book belong to the mining camps of Colorado in the late 1890s and early 1900s. These three Colorado sources cover how women lived and worked in that era, and give you a way to read around the book.
Women in Early Colorado
A Colorado Encyclopedia article on how women's labor held families and early communities together across the state in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Lives of Women and Children in Colorado's Mining Towns
A Colorado Department of Education resource set with period photographs from towns such as Telluride, Cripple Creek and Creede, plus a link to the Rocky Mountain PBS documentary Ladies of the Mines.
History Colorado
The state historical society's home page, which points to its museums across Colorado and its programs on the state's past.
Good to know
Is Colorado Mountain Women fiction or history?
What period do the stories cover?
Who wrote it?
Where can I buy it?
Have a book of your own?
This is the kind of book the house publishes: regional history, biography, memoir and the stories that belong to a place. Send us yours and a person will read it.