The Shirley Letters

Paper Summary:

This paper provides a brief overview of Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe's series of letters presented in booklet form entitled The Shirley Letters from the California Mines. In this article, the writer examines the central question of whether or not Shirley, given her esoteric education and background, is particularly well suited to the task of assessing the relative merits and demerits of rugged gold prospectors in 1850s Rich Bar California.

From the Paper:

"There is little doubt that Dame Shirley is far too removed socially, culturally, educationally, from the proletarian male miners surrounding her to be an accurate chronicler of them or their world. This becomes immediately apparent on only the third page of the text when Shirley writes rhetorically, "How did such a shivering, frail, home-loving little thistle ever float safely to that far away spot, and take root....in that barbarous soil?". She describes her impecunious husband's office as being a "perfect marvel" to the ragged miners. Making little - if any - effort to understand the depressed socio-economic realities of her new world, she notes with disdain that, "you have no idea of the hand to mouth sort of style in which most men in this country are in the habit of living"."

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