California Life Illustrated (Inscribed by the author to massacre and captivity survivor Olive Oatman)
- SIGNED Hardcover
- New York: Published for the Author by Carlton & Porter, 1858
New York: Published for the Author by Carlton & Porter, 1858. First edition. Hardcover. Fair. SIGNED. 348; 2pp. Duodecimo [19 cm] Brown pebbled cloth over boards with decorative embossed patterns on the boards. Two pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear. With sixteen engravings. Two thirds of the backstrip completely torn away (the torn piece has been tucked inside the book); text block cracked at p. 213; previous owner's address label on the front pastedown. The illustration at p. 105 is detached, but present. All plates present. Written by a Methodist minister who specialized in "street preaching" in Baltimore and Washington D.C. He was sent to California as a missionary evangelist in 1849. "California Life Illustrated" is an expansion of his reminiscences in "Seven Years' Street Preaching in San Francisco." The book contains interesting views of San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento.
Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to massacre and captivity survivor Olive Oatman: "To / Miss Olive Oatman / with regards of author / May 12th, 1858." The following is written in pen below the author's inscription: "Miss Olive Oatman / Menlove / Whiteside Co / Illinois."
Olive Ann Oatman (c. 1838 - 1903) was one of seven children who grew up in the Mormon religion.
Olive Oatman was 14 years old when her family was killed by Native Americans in 1851 in present-day Arizona. She and her sister, Mary, were captured and enslaved. A year later the two sisters were traded to the Mohave Indians. She was with the Mohave for four years, during which time her sister died of starvation. At the age of 19, Olive was ransomed back to white society.
The story of the Oatman girls was the most dramatic captivity story of the 19th century. Their story was the subject of “Life Among the Indians; Being an Interesting Narrative of the Captivity of the Oatman Girls” by Rev. Royal B. Stratton (1857). Olive Oatman, assisted by Stratton, went on to undertake a nearly decade-long series of lectures which were very popular.
Interestingly, in the book, "The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman," author Margot Mifflin refers to Stratton's work as "lurid," and maintains he "stripped her Mormonism from her narrative and portrayed the caring Mohave Indians who raised her as 'degraded bipeds.'" Mifflin goes on to state, "For all its recycling, the only constant about the Oatman story is that no two authors agree on what happened. It's as if the minute she stepped back into the white world and rinsed the mesquite dye from her hair, the truth was washed away and fiction would forever infest her biography."
Whatever the case, Oatman continues to be regarded as a mysterious figure surrounded by fascination. In addition, she can be viewed as what Mifflin refers to as an "accidental ethnographer" who recorded her memories of the Mohaves in their last decade of sovereignty.
This book, inscribed to Olive Oatman, and with her name additionally written within, is significant as one does not come across Oatman artifacts.
Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to massacre and captivity survivor Olive Oatman: "To / Miss Olive Oatman / with regards of author / May 12th, 1858." The following is written in pen below the author's inscription: "Miss Olive Oatman / Menlove / Whiteside Co / Illinois."
Olive Ann Oatman (c. 1838 - 1903) was one of seven children who grew up in the Mormon religion.
Olive Oatman was 14 years old when her family was killed by Native Americans in 1851 in present-day Arizona. She and her sister, Mary, were captured and enslaved. A year later the two sisters were traded to the Mohave Indians. She was with the Mohave for four years, during which time her sister died of starvation. At the age of 19, Olive was ransomed back to white society.
The story of the Oatman girls was the most dramatic captivity story of the 19th century. Their story was the subject of “Life Among the Indians; Being an Interesting Narrative of the Captivity of the Oatman Girls” by Rev. Royal B. Stratton (1857). Olive Oatman, assisted by Stratton, went on to undertake a nearly decade-long series of lectures which were very popular.
Interestingly, in the book, "The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman," author Margot Mifflin refers to Stratton's work as "lurid," and maintains he "stripped her Mormonism from her narrative and portrayed the caring Mohave Indians who raised her as 'degraded bipeds.'" Mifflin goes on to state, "For all its recycling, the only constant about the Oatman story is that no two authors agree on what happened. It's as if the minute she stepped back into the white world and rinsed the mesquite dye from her hair, the truth was washed away and fiction would forever infest her biography."
Whatever the case, Oatman continues to be regarded as a mysterious figure surrounded by fascination. In addition, she can be viewed as what Mifflin refers to as an "accidental ethnographer" who recorded her memories of the Mohaves in their last decade of sovereignty.
This book, inscribed to Olive Oatman, and with her name additionally written within, is significant as one does not come across Oatman artifacts.