wild woman wednesday

“The present school is a credit both to the teachers and the town.  It now numbers forty pupils, I should think, and is well and systematically conducted.” Reporter Mark Twain’s comments about the Carson City school Hannah Clapp founded – January 14, 1864 On a bright, sunshiny day in mid July 1859, a dusty, travel-worn,...

A strong gust of wind blew a pair of tumbleweeds into the path of a team of horses hitched to a wagon.  It spooked the animals, and they reared and bucked and then bolted.  The gray-haired woman holding the reins of the team screamed.  The wagon pitched and swayed as the horses jerked it around....

A well-traveled trail rests peacefully between the rich forested hillsides around the town of Cascade, Montana, and snakes seventeen miles west to St. Peter’s Mission.  The road, as well as the mission itself, was the hub of activity in 1895.  Back and forth along the route, Mary Fields, a former slave from Tennessee, drove a...

Say the name Annie Oakley and the image of a young woman who could shoot targets out of the sky without a miss and rode across the frontier with Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody comes to mind.  Annie Oakley was a champion rifle shot and did perform alongside well-known riders, ropers, and Indian chiefs...

The impact of women on the American frontier in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries should not be underestimated.  To a large degree women were responsible for taming the wilderness.  Under their influence churches were formed, schools, and libraries were established, and the importance of home and hearth was rediscovered.  The result was nothing short...

The newspaper ad that appeared in publications throughout the city of Chicago in 1861 highlighted the talents of a fortune teller named L. L. Lucille.  The remarkable soothsayer whose descendants were from Egypt was making her first appearance in the Midwest and invited residents to visit her at the Temple of Magic anytime between the...

Actress Jeanne Eagels was an attractive, petite entertainer with delicate features.  According to her friends and peers she was childish, adult, reasonable, unreasonable – usually one when she should be the other, but always unpredictable.  The Oscar nominated actress was born Amelia Jean Eagles on June 26, 1890, in Kansas City, Missouri.  She was the...

The Royal Aquarium in Westminster, England, was a hub of activity on April 6, 1876.  Many members of London’s wealthy aristocratic society were on hand for the gala opening of the magnificent structure built entirely underwater.   Dignitaries, barristers, popular sculptors, artists, and photographers were there to witness the occasion and to be inspired by...