"Puccini's wild west opera, based on Belasco's play The girl of the golden west, has the California gold rush as its dramatic backdrop for a story in which Minnie, the only woman in a mining camp, gambles on her one chance of happiness."--Container.

"In 1898, Alaska is an untamed wilderness with an unforgiving climate. At the tail end of a world-wide depression, thousands of destitute people are drawn north by rumors of easy wealth coming out of the remote claims of the Gold Rush. Many of the pilgrims are unprepared for the hardships that await them and find nothing but a desolate landscape already pillaged of its riches by those who came before. Hannah Nelson, a beautiful young Englishwoman,...

"The story of Harriet Smith Pullen's early life, from her childhood journeys by covered wagon to her family's subsistence in sod houses on the Dakota prairie where they survived grasshopper plagues, floods, fires, blizzards, and droughts is a narrative of American migration and adventure that still resonates today. But there is much more to the legendary woman's life, revealed here for the first time by Eleanor Phillips Brackbill, her great-granddaughter,...

Describes the lure of gold that drew both men and women west and discusses how they lived, the difficulties they faced, the impact of the gold rush on Native Americans, and more.

The story of a goldmining boom town centering on the work-and-play partnership of two miners and the wife they share.