Calamity Jane

Rating:
Summary: Scholarship suffers from extreme prejudice
Review: History is full of contradictions and ironies. This book is one of them.

How else can you explain how the one book historians claim is the most historically authentic Calamity Jane narrative, appears to have been written by the one scholar who despises her the most?

After years of exhaustive scholarly research, what does Roberta Beed Sollid have to say about Calamity Jane? In the introduction, Ms. Sollid calls..."the much publiciz-ed Calamity Jane, a well-meaning but good-for-nothing frontierswoman."

And, Calamity Jane is not the only one insulted in this book. A number of individuals and whole categories of human beings are described in negative terms. Even tourists visting the historic town of Deadwood, South Dakota, are described as "gullible".

Now, I do not mind that Ms. Sollid attempts to debunk the Calamity Jane myth and bring the real life of Martha Jane Cannary into the light of history. She does give the world new primary source material from her interviews of Deadwood citizens, and overall, she collects a considerable amount of authentic material.

But, Ms. Sollid cannot seem to keep her negative feelings out of what should have been a scholarly work, and I believe that this predjudices the text in both content and conclusion. Calamity Jane deserves better.

Rating:
Summary: Dated De-Mythologizing
Review: In 1949 when this work was being researched, it was a major focus for historians of the American West to correct the exaggerated romantic legends that had grown up around many memorable frontier figures. In our skeptical day and age that focus is far less helpful. Roberta Sollid did an excellent job of debunking the many unsubstantiated stories that surround "Calamity Jane". Unfortunately, this work totally fails to help us understand the real person and how she came to survive as a frontier woman who frequently fulfilled roles usually reserved for men.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Factual Investigation
Review: This was a source for my term paper in college. The author is somewhat confusing as she consistently identifies several lies about Calamity Jane before telling the facts. Some of the time I couldn't figure out if what she was currently discussing was fact or fiction. However, after sorting through her analysis I was able to put together an exceptional list of facts that lead to an A on the paper. I would recommend this as a reference tool because it is the one book on Jane that I have found to actually assist in disproving the fictions of her life.