Libby: The Alaskan Diaries and Letters of Libby Beaman 1879-1880

by Libby Beaman, Betty John

Libby Beaman was the first American woman to travel to the Alaskan Pribilof Islands. Based on her diary, the tale of Libby, her husband, and the powerful first officer is told in all its passion. 20 line drawings.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, History

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 28, 1989

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book during a speed dating project and decided to try to finish all those books I dated and decided to keep and finish before the end of 2015.

This is a fascinating account of one year in a life of the first white American woman to travel to the Pribilof Islands. Her granddaughter created this book through her diary, letters, and some artifacts (there are drawings, paper, and ephemera pictured throughout the book.)

The only reason Libby even travels to these islands is to accompany her husband, who after struggling to make ends meet accepts a government position to oversee the seal industry; the United States having only recently purchased Alaska from Russia. Libby gives the best overview in a letter to her parents:

"The poor dear ladies of Czar Alexander II's court must be weeping in their caviar because they no longer can have so easily the sealskin coats they loved so much and must content themselves with the lowly mink and sable. But old Alexander needed money for his impoverished treasury after the Crimean War, so he sold us Alaska, and these islands came with the purchase, as you remember - $7,200,000!"

The journey TO the Bribiliof Islands in 1879 was harrowing enough, leaving from San Francisco and stopping only once in the long chain of what was then called the Onalaska Islands. Libby was a woman who rarely took ill, but was completely out of commission with seasickness (along with most of the people traveling.)

"I have... begun to question whether those who have written so beautifully of the sea were ever on it."

But the journey was just the beginning. Life on St. Paul's Island was incredibly isolated, with a diet primarily of seal and whatever else they transported in. Entire chunks of the year would not allow shipments in and the winter of 1880 is quite harrowing.

"The sea is frozen for miles. The ice holds the surf in bondage so that there is no longer the boom and wash of waves breaking below us. The silence, except for the keening of the winds, is ominous. It is the silence of death."

It was interesting to read her diary and her letters side by side because often she is leaving out the greatest challenges when she writes home - those of survival and problems in her marriage. She was honest in her diary in a way that really gives an insight into how she was feeling and what was really going on.

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! I couldn't put this book down! This is a true story based on a diary that was kept by Libby Beaman. I believe it wasn't published for many years after the family moved back to the states... Who doesn't love a story about a strong and fearless woman!

[andrea treon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a somewhat historical memoir of my great grandmother Libby and includes her sketches when she accompanied my great grandfather to the pribilof Islands...she was a woman ahead of her times.

[Joanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite books. This journal chronicles the time Libby Beaman spent with her husband in the Aleutian Islands in the 1800s. Girl power all the way to the arctic and back.

[Renee Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libby: The Alaskan Diaries and Letters of Libby Beaman (1879-1880) by Betty John was a delightful, educational, and feminist-inspiring read. Thank you, Betty John, for taking the time to write about your grandmother, Libby Beaman, who truly was an awe-inspiring and courageous woman.

I loved discovering Libby’s character, her passion at such a young age for her later-to-be husband, John Beaman, her goal for them to be independent, and her journey to push the establishment to let her use her mind and work. Libby, born in 1844 in Washington as Elizabeth Gertrude DuBois, was alive in the age when women quite literally could do very little except keep a house and be mothers, and lo and behold any woman who had a mind and wanted to earn her own money, be employed, or further her education.

As happenstance, she met John, 19, while nursing him to health, as being a nurse was considered an acceptable ministration for a young lady at that time. John had been taken prisoner and was recovering in the prison ward at Hallowell General Hospital. Recognizing her family would never accept John, she urged the young man to pursue engineering, which would later place him in a position to approach her father for her hand in marriage. Reading Libby’s diaries, her aspirations, her yearnings for John, and the many years they had to wait to be together, I have a feeling no young person today could understand the commitment of the heart.

Libby describes the postwar period of poverty and hopelessness in the US, and it is during this time when financial ruin is taking its toll on her and John that Libby secretly visits President Hayes, an old family friend, asking for his help. President Hayes needs someone to go to the Aleutian Islands to help oversee the harvest of seals at The Seal Islands. This is when Libby’s diaries provide an insurmountable amount of detailed information: from the harrowing passage by sail to S’Paul and S’George islands in the Bering Sea, and meeting the Senior Agent who was her husband’s supervisor.

The role of the Alaska Commercial Company as an integral part of US sovereignty can’t be understated. I learned that for $7 million, the US bought Alaska from Russia; it makes me wonder if Russia is wishing they hadn’t given up Alaska today. Libby describes meeting the Aleuts and the company men, many of whom at that time still had Russian ties when they finally landed at S’Paul. In fact, most still spoke Russian. As a reader, you learn how essential seals were to the world economy: from their fur pelts to their oil and meat. When winter sets in, you finally get the feel of this desolate island, but through it all, Libby kept up a positive spirit, even when faced with such extreme weather. I can’t even begin to imagine being holed up in a one-bedroom for seven weeks, but through it all, Libby’s love for her husband, John, never wavered.

I think this book should be on the reading list for all high schools interested in learning about American culture from a woman’s perspective. It's very hard to find diaries written by women who decided to take destiny into their own hands. I highly recommend this read.

[Corinne Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libby Beaman is the daughter of a well-connected Washington DC family. After her youth is disrupted by the horrors of the Civil War, finding work in the aftermath proves to be another challenge. Thus, when there is a chance for Libby's husband to have a stable job, she encourages him to take it, even though that job is on the unthinkably remote Alaskan Pribilof Islands, newly acquired by the United States from Russia. Not only that but she packs up her skirts and joins him, despite everyone's insistence that she stay home. This book is a collection of her diary and letters, a memoir of place never before seen by an American woman.

It is amazing, the books I find at the thrift store. What a story! Libby Beaman is a fiercely independent woman who also, you can see in her writing, knows she is a pawn in a man's game. With society's expectations in her mind of what a good Victorian lady ought to be, she can look the part but she has a hard time playing it! The things she experiences in Alaska are fascinating and harrowing. I hadn't anticipated learning so much about the life cycle of seals but if you are an animal lover, this book might be hard to read. The job her husband is there to do, overseeing the seal pelt harvesting, is such a bloody, stinking job. And there's really nowhere that Libby can go to escape it - or her husband's boss - who is his own problem.

She definitely sees herself as a proper American and that the indigenous people whose island she now lived on are backwards natives who not only were "uncivilized" but also had been influenced by the Russians for years. Her feelings of cultural superiority are sometimes very glaring, which is not surprising. But you can see her learning and trying too. I like how this book is both her diary and her letters - you get her brutal honesty in the diary and then you can see how she tells family back home, making it all so much more smooth and chill than real life. I try to imagine BEING her. She was a real woman, living in this real place where you are iced in for MONTHS. She was a witness to a changeover in national loyalty, with old customs slowly being meshed into new.

This is one of the best memoirs/diaries I have read. Libby had an incredibly unique experience and I'm so glad she took the time to write it down.

[Brandie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating memoir about the journey of Libby Beaman and her husband to the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George in the Bering Sea. The memoir starts with Libby's background and how she met and married her husband. Name drops abound! Growing up, she knew 3 presidents and was even called daughter by Lincoln. Her father took the vision for Mt. Vernon and made it a reality. Mt. Vernon was her playground for several years. I was amazed at how long Libby and her husband waited until getting married. He had to be first introduced to her by someone before they were supposed to even consider one another. They met when Libby volunteered to go into rebel controlled territory each day to take care of injured, captured Union soldiers. He was one of the injured. It was nearly 10 years before they would be properly introduced! Incredible!

Libby was also a feminist and did things her own way. Gotta love her for that!

This book is written by one of Libby's granddaughters', Betty John, and is based on Libby's personal diary she kept for the two years in Alaska. This is the only part that bothered me because you don't exactly know what came from the diary and what John added. The book reads like a novel. Was that because of Libby's writing or was that due to John's writing/editing ability (she is a published author)?

Overall, it is a fantastic read and I highly recommend it!

[Madalene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fascinating! And also the first book I've ever read where the author name drops Abraham Lincoln and explains in her secret journal how she orchestrated her husband's entire career.
This is definitely some interesting arctic exploration and proto-feminism somewhat in the vein of Isak Denisen.
The author kept her diaries very secret and it becomes clear why - there's some serious danger and secret revealing throughout the book, and it contains illustrations by a contemporary who also spent time on the Pribilof Islands. Thoroughly recommend this for a 19th century arctic adventures read.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This accounting of Libby Beaman’s travels to the Pribilof Islands off the gulf of Alaska was a mix of love story and female independence during a time when few women were allowed on sea voyages. It also detailed in a naturalist tone the observations of seals and seal killings during the years she spent on the island with her husband giving us a concrete image of the Aleutians and their way of life. Reading the book I felt I was transported into her world. It was a grand adventure!

[Hadley A Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating story and woman, from so many perspectives (not the least of which being an awareness of how narrow-minded/racist was her perspective of the people from the indigenous community there). Interesting text and subtext. I strongly recommend for anyone with an interest in the area or the era.

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A white woman was a novelty when she accompanied her husband to remote islands near the Aleutians for fur seal harvesting. The landscape, the weather and a contentious supervisor provide plenty of real life drama.

[Leslie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this first hand account of life on the Pribilof Islands. The cold and hardship of winters there makes me marvel that anyone can live in that kind of climate. A totally worthwhile read.

[Theresa Lange]

Wonderful

[Kelly Chester · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and fascinating. Thanks, Mom!

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth [Libby] Beaman is the first non-Aleut woman to arrive in the Pribilof Islands off the coast of Alaska in 1879, and causes a HUGE stir in the primitive village of St. Paul. The book is an edited compilation of her [very] private journal, sketches and letters home to her family. From the perspective of a woman in the middle of a man's world this book is interesting. But from the historical perspective of the United States' new acquisition of Alaska and the multimillion dollar fur industry that had been begun on these islands by the Russians in the 1700's, this is utterly fascinating. Libby records thoughts and events that would never have been revealed in the polite society she was from in Washington D.C., unless she was sure that her journal would never be shared with others, or until after their deaths. Having just moved to Unalaska/Ounalaska [where Libby landed on her journey to the Pribilof's in May 1879, and was also the first non-native woman to visit Unalaska Island], it has been an vivid peak into the hardships encountered living here 134 years ago.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up for a dollar at a library sale, not expecting much. I definitely got my dollar's worth - this is one of the strangest, most oddly compelling memoirs I've read in a while. It helps that I've been reading everything I can find about the Arctic lately, and Libby Beaman seems to share my weird obsession. The book is a collection of her journal writings, compiled by her granddaughter and reprinted. Certainly the author shares many of the assumptions of a wealthy white American about the Inuit she encounters on the Pribilofs. I'm afraid most of the interest in reading this was a bit on the prurient side for me - Libby and her husband are forced to share a small home with his director, and her attitudes towards the sexual tension are, shall we say, curious. And where else will you find a Victorian woman unabashedly describe herself watching and, erm, enjoying, seals mating? Very weird, very fascinating little book.

[Deborah Pries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though I read this book a while ago, I wanted to include it because I enjoyed it so much. It is a very interesting book/journal written during an interesting time. This woman actually goes to speak to the President of the United States and gets her husband a government job(unbeknown to him of course) in the sealing industry in the Pribilof Islands off the coast of Alaska. Her adventure begins on the boat as it was considered unlucky to have women on a sailing vessel and her details of the culture of the crew, the natives of the Pribilof's, how she and her husband survived the harsh conditions of the land, her observations of her natural surroundings and of the sealing industry itself are all interesting to read.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

While in Alaska I bought a book about a woman who travels to Pribilof Island in the Bering Sea during the late nineteenth century around the time of the Civil War. It was/is true story of her life growing up in Washington D.C. and falling in love with a wounded soldier. They aren't properly "introduced" so their love affair remains a secret. For years they wait and contrive a way for him to be introduced. They almost die during the winter. A riveting story with lots of descriptions of the wildlife and environment in Alaska. Lots of drama with them having to share a company house with the man supervisor who is dead set against her being there. She is the 1st white woman in the area. A great story.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book/journal written during an interesting time. This woman actually goes to speak to the President of the United States and gets her husband a government job(unbeknown to him of course) in the sealing industry in the Pribilof Islands off the coast of Alaska. Her adventure begins on the boat itself as it was considered unlucky to have women on a sailing vessel. Her details of the culture of the crew, the natives of the Pribilof's, how she and her husband survived the harsh conditions of the land, her observations of her natural surroundings and of the sealing industry itself are all quite interesting to read.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Libby Beaman was a woman who knew what she wanted and let nothing stand in her way. She did it with grace, tact, and passion. Her courage and bravery are amazing. The sketches of her journey to the Pribilof Islands are treasures. So talented and skilled in her observations, it's a beautiful journal that I'm glad was retrieved and published!

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great sections in this "diary". The trouble is that there are some sections which seem embellished (likely by the granddaughter). It is an interesting peak into a random piece of history in which the greed surrounding seal pelts sent all sorts of people into all sorts of hardship.

[Jeanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story about a woman who has to go up to alaska and live with her new husband during seal season.

[Lynn Richter · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I read this book a number of years ago, it was the catalyst that sparked my interest in true stories based on journals. It is a great read.

[Debbie Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

a surprisingly great read. Could not put it down.

[Jen]

A little overly wrought and histrionic, but interesting descriptions of the Pribilofs right after Seward.

[Tamhack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed her description of life on the Pribilof Islands. She had courage and a positive outlook.