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Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier
Complete with actual advertisements from both women seeking husbands and males seeking brides, Hearts West includes twelve stories of courageous mail order brides and their exploits. Some were fortunate enough to marry good men and live happily ever after; still others found themselves in desperate situations that robbed them of their youth and sometimes their lives. Desperate to strike it rich during the Gold Rush, men sacrificed many creature comforts. Only after they arrived did some of them realize how much they missed female companionship. One way for men living on the frontier to meet women was through subscriptions to heart-and-hand clubs. The men received newspapers with information, and sometimes photographs, about women, with whom they corresponded. Eventually, a man might convince a woman to join him in the West, and in matrimony. Social status, political connections, money, companionship, or security were often considered more than love in these arrangements.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 171 reviews
July 3, 2011
First Line: The promise of boundless acres of land in the West lured hundreds of men away from farms, businesses, and homes in the eastern states as tales of early explorers and fur trappers filtered back from the frontier.
When all those men wound up on the frontier working gold claims, building businesses, and starting farms and ranches, the one thing that was in very short supply was women. It wasn't long until weekly newspapers like the Matrimonial News began circulation in an attempt to match men and women in marital bliss.
The strength in Hearts West lies in the stories of the mail-order brides as they came west to start new lives with total strangers. Some lucky couples found their soul mates. Some found the exact opposite, as in the story of the unlucky young woman who discovered the man she'd come hundreds of miles to marry was one of the men who'd just robbed the stagecoach on which she was traveling.
I've loved reading this author's books in the past, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. There weren't enough actual stories of the mail-order brides and the men they married. There were way too many ads from the Matrimonial News-- to the point where they felt like filler instead of a glimpse into the precursor of online dating. Worst of all, the book needed much closer editing. One chapter had me grinding my teeth due to the nautical errors. (The type of ship referred to is a "scow" not a "scowl"; and a ship only has one "bow"-- not multiple "boughs".) Add those errors to the one in which the character was wearing a skirt that wasn't going to be designed for another sixty years, and I almost stopped reading the book.
However, it's a small book, and I would have missed some excellent history about the brave women who traveled hundreds and thousands of miles to make new lives for themselves.
When all those men wound up on the frontier working gold claims, building businesses, and starting farms and ranches, the one thing that was in very short supply was women. It wasn't long until weekly newspapers like the Matrimonial News began circulation in an attempt to match men and women in marital bliss.
The strength in Hearts West lies in the stories of the mail-order brides as they came west to start new lives with total strangers. Some lucky couples found their soul mates. Some found the exact opposite, as in the story of the unlucky young woman who discovered the man she'd come hundreds of miles to marry was one of the men who'd just robbed the stagecoach on which she was traveling.
I've loved reading this author's books in the past, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. There weren't enough actual stories of the mail-order brides and the men they married. There were way too many ads from the Matrimonial News-- to the point where they felt like filler instead of a glimpse into the precursor of online dating. Worst of all, the book needed much closer editing. One chapter had me grinding my teeth due to the nautical errors. (The type of ship referred to is a "scow" not a "scowl"; and a ship only has one "bow"-- not multiple "boughs".) Add those errors to the one in which the character was wearing a skirt that wasn't going to be designed for another sixty years, and I almost stopped reading the book.
However, it's a small book, and I would have missed some excellent history about the brave women who traveled hundreds and thousands of miles to make new lives for themselves.
March 26, 2014
I would give this an almost four. this is pretty interesting. It is about mail-order brides. I remember watching a TV show way back in the late 1960s called "Here come The Brides" it was about a logging City of Seattle Washington that had way more males than females so a ship full of perspective brides came to Seattle in the 1800s to meet the men. This book touches on real life stories of men living on the west coast and western states who send for Women usually living on the east coast to come and marry them.in some of those states men out numbered women by about 12 - 1. this book writes of real life cases of women who answer those ads and start a life with men they had never met.
Some women even crossed the Atlantic ocean to travel to meet possible husbands. Some had happy endings other were either tragic our unhappy. It was fun to read some of the advertisements from both men and women. this was a quick interesting read. I had heard about mail-order brides before and this book offered some interesting stories.
Some women even crossed the Atlantic ocean to travel to meet possible husbands. Some had happy endings other were either tragic our unhappy. It was fun to read some of the advertisements from both men and women. this was a quick interesting read. I had heard about mail-order brides before and this book offered some interesting stories.
November 27, 2018
Hearts West is a collection of letters and newspaper articles of mail-order brides in the United States between the mid nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. I love history, and I’m a huge fan of biographies and autobiographies, so I thought this would be an interesting read: I was mistaken. There is a lot of speculation and filler found in most stories, and some stories were not cited in the bibliography, which I found a little dubious. Honestly can’t recommend.
September 10, 2013
Interesting bits of jounals and letter from men and women searching for their 'soul mates' in the old west. Some had good luck, but not always. A fun & quick read.
January 5, 2011
If you're a fan of western romance or "marriage of convenience" type stories this is a great little read. It covers the history of mail order brides in the old west and details some of the true life accounts of women who put everything on the line in a bid to find marital happiness, or at the very least, a roof over their heads and the opportunity for children. Its about 120 pages and you can easily read this in one sitting.
February 23, 2018
A quick, enjoyable read, but fairly lightweight, too. I wasn't looking for anything heavy, but some of the chapters ended with statements like, "Historians speculated he never married." DO THEY REALLY?
June 7, 2018
Such an interesting part of our nations history. I loved the excerpts from journals, letters and newspapers. Fascinating to hear both the success and failures with mail order marriages.
March 26, 2020
I needed to do some research for my next novel. My female main character is going to be a mail-order bride. The problem was I didn't know anything about them other than what I've read in fiction. There's always some truth in fiction, but I needed something from the gut. I needed hard facts. I got them in this book.
The book is a fascinating account of women traveling West by ship or stagecoach and the men who asked them to come. But it was much more than that. Some women came on their own in search of a husband. They had to pay their own passages and make their own accommodations. Other women were instrumental in the process, which made this even more interesting.
There aren't any horrific stories told, but there are instances of great sadness, especially when these women had to bury their children. The people of this time kept records and journals of almost everything and these stories are in this book.
There are reprints of ads placed in the personal columns of matrimonial newspapers from San Francisco and Kansas City, Missouri. People were brutally honest back then with what they wanted and what they had to offer. People wanted to marry for money and for assets. Fortunately, a lot of these relationships worked out and many couples got their happily-ever-afters. Some didn't.
I got the information I needed in this great little book. It didn't take long to get through it. I enjoyed reading the personal ads and the playbills that were included (Hellooo online dating 150 years later) and reading the abbreviated stories of these strong, fearless women that made their way to a wild country they knew nothing about in an effort to do their part in attempting to tame it, seek companionship, and if they were lucky, they would find love.
Fantastic, interesting read.
Oh, one more thing. It was risky business doing something like this back then--it is now--but I want to quote this part of the book: Often, when a pair met, the groom-to-be signed an agreement, witnessed by three upstanding members of the territory, not to abuse or mistreat the bride-to-be. The prospective bride then signed a paper (also witnessed) not to nag or try to change the intended.
The book is a fascinating account of women traveling West by ship or stagecoach and the men who asked them to come. But it was much more than that. Some women came on their own in search of a husband. They had to pay their own passages and make their own accommodations. Other women were instrumental in the process, which made this even more interesting.
There aren't any horrific stories told, but there are instances of great sadness, especially when these women had to bury their children. The people of this time kept records and journals of almost everything and these stories are in this book.
There are reprints of ads placed in the personal columns of matrimonial newspapers from San Francisco and Kansas City, Missouri. People were brutally honest back then with what they wanted and what they had to offer. People wanted to marry for money and for assets. Fortunately, a lot of these relationships worked out and many couples got their happily-ever-afters. Some didn't.
I got the information I needed in this great little book. It didn't take long to get through it. I enjoyed reading the personal ads and the playbills that were included (Hellooo online dating 150 years later) and reading the abbreviated stories of these strong, fearless women that made their way to a wild country they knew nothing about in an effort to do their part in attempting to tame it, seek companionship, and if they were lucky, they would find love.
Fantastic, interesting read.
Oh, one more thing. It was risky business doing something like this back then--it is now--but I want to quote this part of the book: Often, when a pair met, the groom-to-be signed an agreement, witnessed by three upstanding members of the territory, not to abuse or mistreat the bride-to-be. The prospective bride then signed a paper (also witnessed) not to nag or try to change the intended.
June 8, 2019
Enjoyable, and there are novels waiting to be written and movies waiting to be made about some of these ladies. One of those books, Kelly O'Connor McNees' In Need of a Good Wife was what routed me to this book in the first place.
I would have liked some more clarification on a few of the stories, a couple of which seemed more the stuff of melodrama than actual history.
I would have liked some more clarification on a few of the stories, a couple of which seemed more the stuff of melodrama than actual history.
November 7, 2022
I couldn't imagine what the women went through, just in hopes for a better life and to find a good husband.
August 3, 2016
As I read this little book the jingle " you don't have to be lonely at Farmers only dot com" began to play in my mind. This led me to think about Christian Mingle and other on-line dating services and also took me back to personals in the classified section of the newspaper. Are they still there, I wondered, so went in search of today's copy of our local paper--nope, no personals ads anymore. Things change so much is such a short time, I thought, and yet, other things do not.
There continues to be that longing for a special someone in our life and the methods of finding the person may change but the human desire for companionship does not. In Hearts West the primary people longing for someone were the many young and not so young men who made their way to the wide open spaces of the American West, some rushing for gold after the 1849 discovery at Sutter's Mill, or in the Pacific Northwest working in lumber or fishing industries, some ranching in Idaho and the Dakotas or even others in the Midwest who farming. These found themselves in an almost all male environment and before too long they found they wanted wives to share the building of their homes and lives.
Some groups in the West gathered money together and sent emissaries back East to advertise for young women to move to the West and marry. Others merely sent advertisements to papers in the East asking for women to correspond with them with the idea of eventual marriage. For their parts, young women who found themselves in the unenviable position of spinster or orphan or widow responded to the call and packing a bag set out alone or in groups to meet men with whom they may have exchanged a few letters and a picture or two. Many arrived and within hours became the wives of these men.
In this little book, we read short entries of the people who organized the search for the women, and others of the couples who met, married and then made it for decades or managed for, in one case, an hour. All of the stories are interesting, some incredibly sad, others remarkably uplifting, all awe-inspiring in the strength and bravery of the women involved There is a section of actual ads submitted by the men seeking wives, but also ads submitted by women seeking a husband. In a short ad the personalities of the seekers come through--some obviously witty, lighthearted and others more serious and dour. Some, as one man, not interested in Irish women, others, as one woman desiring a Catholic gentleman. It is interesting to see with what bravado or modesty they describe themselves--age, height, weight, hair and eye color, financial status, hope for a compatible mate.
It would seem, then as now, the seeking of a partner required taking a risk of failure but hope, then as now, springs eternal and for some, then as now, there is success and happy ever after.
There continues to be that longing for a special someone in our life and the methods of finding the person may change but the human desire for companionship does not. In Hearts West the primary people longing for someone were the many young and not so young men who made their way to the wide open spaces of the American West, some rushing for gold after the 1849 discovery at Sutter's Mill, or in the Pacific Northwest working in lumber or fishing industries, some ranching in Idaho and the Dakotas or even others in the Midwest who farming. These found themselves in an almost all male environment and before too long they found they wanted wives to share the building of their homes and lives.
Some groups in the West gathered money together and sent emissaries back East to advertise for young women to move to the West and marry. Others merely sent advertisements to papers in the East asking for women to correspond with them with the idea of eventual marriage. For their parts, young women who found themselves in the unenviable position of spinster or orphan or widow responded to the call and packing a bag set out alone or in groups to meet men with whom they may have exchanged a few letters and a picture or two. Many arrived and within hours became the wives of these men.
In this little book, we read short entries of the people who organized the search for the women, and others of the couples who met, married and then made it for decades or managed for, in one case, an hour. All of the stories are interesting, some incredibly sad, others remarkably uplifting, all awe-inspiring in the strength and bravery of the women involved There is a section of actual ads submitted by the men seeking wives, but also ads submitted by women seeking a husband. In a short ad the personalities of the seekers come through--some obviously witty, lighthearted and others more serious and dour. Some, as one man, not interested in Irish women, others, as one woman desiring a Catholic gentleman. It is interesting to see with what bravado or modesty they describe themselves--age, height, weight, hair and eye color, financial status, hope for a compatible mate.
It would seem, then as now, the seeking of a partner required taking a risk of failure but hope, then as now, springs eternal and for some, then as now, there is success and happy ever after.
November 27, 2015
Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier
by Chris Enss
Fans of Western Historical Romance, particularly Mail Order Bride-themed romances will find this nonfiction volume by Chris Enss an enlightening and entertaining read.
I purchased and read Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier in paperback, specifically for research for my fiction writing. I read the book expecting a lesson in history and this book definitely delivered (including a bibliography citing sources). I quickly found myself immersed in the nonfiction accounts of women who left hearth and home and traveled great distances to marry a man they’d fallen in love with through letters… or simply banked on as a good prospect.
Enss organized this roughly 100-page volume into chapters containing seventeen individual historical accounts spanning the Victorian Era. Each chapter shares the tales through journal entries, newspaper advertisements, photographs, firsthand accounts, segments of letters, and stylistic cartoons (advertisements) supporting the material. Enss writes in a conversational tone that makes for easy, informative reading. It’s far less about historical facts than about the living, breathing reality of men and women seeking matrimony through less-traditional means.
I enjoyed the diversity of each couple’s story. Some knew one another well, and had courted prior to a separation wherein they continued associating by letters prior to reuniting on the frontier. Others simply answered advertisements with a brief letter, whereupon the couple agreed to marry. Others enjoyed a lengthy courtship through letters. Some involved family members assisting with the selection of a bride. Some matches ended in significant disaster while others yielded lasting contentment and happiness.
I wholeheartedly recommend this nonfiction title to fans of Mail Order Bride romantic fiction. This book sets the historical stage through all seventeen vignettes, paints vivid pictures of circumstances in the nineteenth century (and early twentieth), and enhances the enjoyment of Mail Order Bride Romantic Fiction.
The 116 page paperback edition, published by Globe Perquot Press, is currently $10.24 on Amazon and the Kindle edition is $9.59. It’s also available from Barnes & Noble.
http://www.kristinholt.com/archives/998 on 6-1-15.
by Chris Enss
Fans of Western Historical Romance, particularly Mail Order Bride-themed romances will find this nonfiction volume by Chris Enss an enlightening and entertaining read.
I purchased and read Hearts West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier in paperback, specifically for research for my fiction writing. I read the book expecting a lesson in history and this book definitely delivered (including a bibliography citing sources). I quickly found myself immersed in the nonfiction accounts of women who left hearth and home and traveled great distances to marry a man they’d fallen in love with through letters… or simply banked on as a good prospect.
Enss organized this roughly 100-page volume into chapters containing seventeen individual historical accounts spanning the Victorian Era. Each chapter shares the tales through journal entries, newspaper advertisements, photographs, firsthand accounts, segments of letters, and stylistic cartoons (advertisements) supporting the material. Enss writes in a conversational tone that makes for easy, informative reading. It’s far less about historical facts than about the living, breathing reality of men and women seeking matrimony through less-traditional means.
I enjoyed the diversity of each couple’s story. Some knew one another well, and had courted prior to a separation wherein they continued associating by letters prior to reuniting on the frontier. Others simply answered advertisements with a brief letter, whereupon the couple agreed to marry. Others enjoyed a lengthy courtship through letters. Some involved family members assisting with the selection of a bride. Some matches ended in significant disaster while others yielded lasting contentment and happiness.
I wholeheartedly recommend this nonfiction title to fans of Mail Order Bride romantic fiction. This book sets the historical stage through all seventeen vignettes, paints vivid pictures of circumstances in the nineteenth century (and early twentieth), and enhances the enjoyment of Mail Order Bride Romantic Fiction.
The 116 page paperback edition, published by Globe Perquot Press, is currently $10.24 on Amazon and the Kindle edition is $9.59. It’s also available from Barnes & Noble.
http://www.kristinholt.com/archives/998 on 6-1-15.
March 14, 2012
This is a subject I have always been interested in! The 1800's is my favorite time period to read about. My daughter thinks I was born about 100 years too late. This book was very interesting. It isn't about just one woman or man, it is short stories telling the outcome of several "Mail-order brides" or the Gentlemen who received them. Excerpts were taken from diaries and letters to make the stories authentic. Some of the arrangements worked out and the couple stayed happily married for years, but some of them never did get married or the marriage was very short lived.
This kind of reminds me of an 1800's version of e-harmony. Here is a sample of a couple of the adds that were placed -
A Gentleman of 25 years old, 5 feet 3 inches, doing a good business in the city, desires the acquaintance of a young intelligent and refined lady possessed of some means, of a loving disposition from 18 to 23 and one who could make home a paradise.
A widow of 28. 5 feet 2 inches tall, black eyes and hair, weighing 125 pounds, wishes to make the acquaintance of some dark complexioned gentleman of 25 to 45, am a first rate housekeeper.
If you are unfamiliar with "mail-order brides" during this time period - it came about because of the gold rush taking all the men out west. The west was predominantly men. At the same time, because of the civil war many of the women of the east were left widows. So some different people came up with the idea of sending the women out west to join with the men, get married, start families and make the west a more civilized place to live.
This was a very interesting book. Anyone who is interested in American history or the settlement of the west would love this book. This is a very short book - only 115 pages, but with lots of pictures!
This kind of reminds me of an 1800's version of e-harmony. Here is a sample of a couple of the adds that were placed -
A Gentleman of 25 years old, 5 feet 3 inches, doing a good business in the city, desires the acquaintance of a young intelligent and refined lady possessed of some means, of a loving disposition from 18 to 23 and one who could make home a paradise.
A widow of 28. 5 feet 2 inches tall, black eyes and hair, weighing 125 pounds, wishes to make the acquaintance of some dark complexioned gentleman of 25 to 45, am a first rate housekeeper.
If you are unfamiliar with "mail-order brides" during this time period - it came about because of the gold rush taking all the men out west. The west was predominantly men. At the same time, because of the civil war many of the women of the east were left widows. So some different people came up with the idea of sending the women out west to join with the men, get married, start families and make the west a more civilized place to live.
This was a very interesting book. Anyone who is interested in American history or the settlement of the west would love this book. This is a very short book - only 115 pages, but with lots of pictures!
April 27, 2015
This book is a simple and short to read, and was a nice change up to the more emotionally intense reads I'm currently involved in. The author reminded me of the typical book you pick up on road trips when you make stops at different offshoots and sightseeing spectacles. This was clearly focused upon the town of Nevada City, and I can see that the mining town/gold rush roots of this California town were not lost in this author's stories. Hearts West had a nice inclusion of many different aspects of reasons why women would often marry through mail-order advertisements, similar to that of online dating these days (but with more early-on commitment!), and I appreciated seeing how not all these women had happy endings, and some even became their own professionals and entrepreneurs. However, I give this quick read 3.5 stars. I liked it, I liked how fast it went by, but my mind wasn't significantly impacted, nor did I gain any amazing knowledge or insight into the lives of these ladies. Nonfiction is much harder to rate because of its commitment to not only entertain the reader, but provide some factual knowledge that was not there before. I think it was interesting to learn of the different stories of these ladies and see firsthand some of their advertisements (which definitely rang true with the lingo of the day), but this book just made me say, "eh, nothing special" when I finished it.
January 7, 2015
The settlement of the western United States was largely done by men who were trying to make their fortunes in the California Gold Rush, the silver mines of Colorado or as farmers or ranchers in the vast expanse of the great plains of the United States. y the end of the Civil War there was a predicament of too many me in the west where men could out-number women by a ratio of 12:1, and too many women in the east where the male population had been depleted due to the war. To solve this problem a newspaper called Matrimonial News was born. It ran advertisements from both men and women looking for spouses and was in existence from 1970 until the turn of the Twentieth Century, and was clearly the precursor of such modern dating web sites as match.com. The book tell the story of almost two dozen couples who met and married though the mail.
One has to admire the women who took their future into their own hands and took off from the comfortable eastern United States to the wilds of California or the Pacific Northwest. They were resourceful, practically fearless and always up for a good adventure. The book, based on the letters and diaries of these pioneer women, tells their stories with great compassion and affection.
To read this book i to find new admiration for the women who came before us and new appreciation for our own forebears.
One has to admire the women who took their future into their own hands and took off from the comfortable eastern United States to the wilds of California or the Pacific Northwest. They were resourceful, practically fearless and always up for a good adventure. The book, based on the letters and diaries of these pioneer women, tells their stories with great compassion and affection.
To read this book i to find new admiration for the women who came before us and new appreciation for our own forebears.
August 13, 2010
I really enjoyed this book. I bought it as research for a future project, but ended up losing myself completely in its pages.
As the subtitle states, the book is composed of several stories of women and men who met through correspondance during the second half of the XIXth century and the first two decades of the XXth. Each chapter tells a different story with a few of them dedicated not to specific couples, but to people or institutions that helped bring those couples together. There's a good selection of stories, they cover people in different situations and not all of them have happy outcomes.
I loved that the book includes a lot of material from the time: journal and letters excerpts; personal ads; newspaper articles; photographs and prints. It also includes a rather detailed bibliography (which non-fiction books don't always seem to do anymore) that I think will be of good use to me when I'm in full research mode for the project I mentioned.
Also, the book really opened my eyes to how many preconceived ideas I still held about life in the West and the role of women in the expansion.
As the subtitle states, the book is composed of several stories of women and men who met through correspondance during the second half of the XIXth century and the first two decades of the XXth. Each chapter tells a different story with a few of them dedicated not to specific couples, but to people or institutions that helped bring those couples together. There's a good selection of stories, they cover people in different situations and not all of them have happy outcomes.
I loved that the book includes a lot of material from the time: journal and letters excerpts; personal ads; newspaper articles; photographs and prints. It also includes a rather detailed bibliography (which non-fiction books don't always seem to do anymore) that I think will be of good use to me when I'm in full research mode for the project I mentioned.
Also, the book really opened my eyes to how many preconceived ideas I still held about life in the West and the role of women in the expansion.
December 25, 2024
This book isn't horrible, but the slim volume isn't really a book so much as it's a booklet. It could have used another round of editing to catch typos, and the writing style (and certain uses of language) are problematic. It's fine as a palate cleanser (which is how I used it) between heftier books, but this wasn't at all what I was expecting.
The book, itself, is only 108 pages, of which about 40 pages are lists of historical matrimonial ads, illustrations, or photographs. Most of the rest of the book is divided into ten chapters as case studies of real women who entered into matrimony (or, in the end, didn't) in the depicted era; some are as short as two pages, and the longest are only about 7 or eight pages.
There are also two chapters about people (one man, one woman) leading efforts to help make marriages between frontiersmen and women back East or European women, while trying to find matches for themselves, as well.
With the exception of a chapter with a sort of Twilight Zone/O. Henry twist, the women's stories were the same: good, earnest woman with a tough background (poverty, famine, widowhood, abuse) wants more, engages someone (or uses the matrimonial ads) to make an introduction. Once they meet, either the couple goes through years of hardships and things turn out OK (or they really don't) or the guy is a jerk (or a criminal) and the marriage doesn't (quite) happen.
The best I can say about the book is that most of the stories feel like the same cautionary tales you'd hear on TikTok when women report their dating app experiences. At least when these mail-order brides exchanged photos (who knew so many people exchanged photos in the late 1800s?), the men weren't sending dick-pics.
The problem is that the chapters felt like history books written for fourth graders. They're seemingly factual, but lacking in any depth of narrative or academic rigor. Lack of one or the other might be forgiven, but these lacked both.
Most of the stories were told with the same formatting — a fly-on-the-wall view of a woman on the day she makes the decision to engage in the endeavor or the day the couple will meet, a flashback to her backstory (and often the difficulties of travel across the ocean or the continent), and then a denouement without having reached much of a peak to begin with.
Yes, there are some scant twists. A nice guy turns into a jerk. A groom turns out to have been a criminal. One girl kills herself because her parents won't let her marry the older guy with whom she'd been secretly corresponding, and he actually turns out to be a good guy and heartbroken. But there's nothing meatier than what I've just listed; the stories aren't fleshed out. Everyone is two-dimensional.
If you've seen the popular Hallmark movies like Love Comes Softly with Katherine Heigl (or even The Magic of Ordinary Days with Keri Russell and Skeet Ulrich, taking place decades later than the frontier era, but thematically the same), then you know that such stories can be moving and compelling. But these are such short drive-by stories that each is popcorn rather than a meal.
It's not that the writing is bad, per se. But it's predictable and formulaic. And it's not that Enss did no research; the author includes her sources, but in most cases the stories feel like elementary or middle school book reports where she's rewritten first-person journal entries in the third person. Each person's story reflects two to four resources: a journal, a newspaper article, a dated archive record, etc. This is barely history, and so much is just speculation.
Had these been blog posts, or even short articles, then the anemic biographies would have just about sufficed, but the lack of depth took a lot of the joy and intrigue out of reading these brave women's life stories. Can you imagine trading brief correspondence and then moving a continent away from everyone you've ever known to make your life with a stranger? A hardscrabble life, at that. What could compel that bravery? Enss doesn't hazard a guess.
This book could have — and should have — been so much better and more inclusive. Every mail-order bride discussed is white, and with the exception of one Jewish bride from Russia, they all appear to be Protestant. (You might want to read Anna Soloman's Tablet Magazine piece about Jewish mail-order brides on the frontier, including the same Rachel Bella Calof Enss writes about.)
Enss could have written about the religious component of these kinds of marriages, but outside of the first story, about a woman who wanted to be a missionary, references to religion are left to the marriage ads — the woman who says Catholics need not reply and the various ads referring to their faith as "Golden Rule religion.")
But why did Enss limit the scope so narrowly? There were many Black brides in the post-Civil War era and past the turn of the century who met through matrimonial ads and similar correspondences, and frontiersmen of all faiths were "seeking similar" as they said. Had the author explored this topic with depth and breadth, cross-culturally and in terms of the economic and social effects of these kinds of marriages on American history, it could have been much more profound. But perhaps cross-cultural blinders are to be expected from an author who refers to "Indians" (not Native Americans or Indigenous Americans) disparagingly — and not ironically or in quoted material.
If you like history, and especially if you are interested in the concept of mail-order brides from the Gold Rush through the pre-WWI era, Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches by Marcia A. Zug might be a better choice. However, if you'd just like to casually flip through mini-biographies and pages of 19th-century matrimonial ads, the equivalent of our 21st-century dating profiles, this will suffice.
The book, itself, is only 108 pages, of which about 40 pages are lists of historical matrimonial ads, illustrations, or photographs. Most of the rest of the book is divided into ten chapters as case studies of real women who entered into matrimony (or, in the end, didn't) in the depicted era; some are as short as two pages, and the longest are only about 7 or eight pages.
There are also two chapters about people (one man, one woman) leading efforts to help make marriages between frontiersmen and women back East or European women, while trying to find matches for themselves, as well.
With the exception of a chapter with a sort of Twilight Zone/O. Henry twist, the women's stories were the same: good, earnest woman with a tough background (poverty, famine, widowhood, abuse) wants more, engages someone (or uses the matrimonial ads) to make an introduction. Once they meet, either the couple goes through years of hardships and things turn out OK (or they really don't) or the guy is a jerk (or a criminal) and the marriage doesn't (quite) happen.
The best I can say about the book is that most of the stories feel like the same cautionary tales you'd hear on TikTok when women report their dating app experiences. At least when these mail-order brides exchanged photos (who knew so many people exchanged photos in the late 1800s?), the men weren't sending dick-pics.
The problem is that the chapters felt like history books written for fourth graders. They're seemingly factual, but lacking in any depth of narrative or academic rigor. Lack of one or the other might be forgiven, but these lacked both.
Most of the stories were told with the same formatting — a fly-on-the-wall view of a woman on the day she makes the decision to engage in the endeavor or the day the couple will meet, a flashback to her backstory (and often the difficulties of travel across the ocean or the continent), and then a denouement without having reached much of a peak to begin with.
Yes, there are some scant twists. A nice guy turns into a jerk. A groom turns out to have been a criminal. One girl kills herself because her parents won't let her marry the older guy with whom she'd been secretly corresponding, and he actually turns out to be a good guy and heartbroken. But there's nothing meatier than what I've just listed; the stories aren't fleshed out. Everyone is two-dimensional.
If you've seen the popular Hallmark movies like Love Comes Softly with Katherine Heigl (or even The Magic of Ordinary Days with Keri Russell and Skeet Ulrich, taking place decades later than the frontier era, but thematically the same), then you know that such stories can be moving and compelling. But these are such short drive-by stories that each is popcorn rather than a meal.
It's not that the writing is bad, per se. But it's predictable and formulaic. And it's not that Enss did no research; the author includes her sources, but in most cases the stories feel like elementary or middle school book reports where she's rewritten first-person journal entries in the third person. Each person's story reflects two to four resources: a journal, a newspaper article, a dated archive record, etc. This is barely history, and so much is just speculation.
Had these been blog posts, or even short articles, then the anemic biographies would have just about sufficed, but the lack of depth took a lot of the joy and intrigue out of reading these brave women's life stories. Can you imagine trading brief correspondence and then moving a continent away from everyone you've ever known to make your life with a stranger? A hardscrabble life, at that. What could compel that bravery? Enss doesn't hazard a guess.
This book could have — and should have — been so much better and more inclusive. Every mail-order bride discussed is white, and with the exception of one Jewish bride from Russia, they all appear to be Protestant. (You might want to read Anna Soloman's Tablet Magazine piece about Jewish mail-order brides on the frontier, including the same Rachel Bella Calof Enss writes about.)
Enss could have written about the religious component of these kinds of marriages, but outside of the first story, about a woman who wanted to be a missionary, references to religion are left to the marriage ads — the woman who says Catholics need not reply and the various ads referring to their faith as "Golden Rule religion.")
But why did Enss limit the scope so narrowly? There were many Black brides in the post-Civil War era and past the turn of the century who met through matrimonial ads and similar correspondences, and frontiersmen of all faiths were "seeking similar" as they said. Had the author explored this topic with depth and breadth, cross-culturally and in terms of the economic and social effects of these kinds of marriages on American history, it could have been much more profound. But perhaps cross-cultural blinders are to be expected from an author who refers to "Indians" (not Native Americans or Indigenous Americans) disparagingly — and not ironically or in quoted material.
If you like history, and especially if you are interested in the concept of mail-order brides from the Gold Rush through the pre-WWI era, Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of Mail-Order Matches by Marcia A. Zug might be a better choice. However, if you'd just like to casually flip through mini-biographies and pages of 19th-century matrimonial ads, the equivalent of our 21st-century dating profiles, this will suffice.
September 3, 2018
Hearts West!
I really enjoyed reading the personal journal excerpts and the actual ads that prospective brides and grooms placed in the days of the “Wild West”. They were much more candid and revealing than today’s ads on eHarmony and other such websites. So, even though we have instant access to others from all over the world today, we seem to have less access to the real person who is there. Deception and folly are rampant today, whereas most of the couples made lasting marriages in those days.
I gave the book three stars, because it seemed to be so poorly organized and edited. It is disjointed and appears to have been written by a number of authors who did not coordinate their efforts, which is disconcerting. I kept editing it in my head.
I really enjoyed reading the personal journal excerpts and the actual ads that prospective brides and grooms placed in the days of the “Wild West”. They were much more candid and revealing than today’s ads on eHarmony and other such websites. So, even though we have instant access to others from all over the world today, we seem to have less access to the real person who is there. Deception and folly are rampant today, whereas most of the couples made lasting marriages in those days.
I gave the book three stars, because it seemed to be so poorly organized and edited. It is disjointed and appears to have been written by a number of authors who did not coordinate their efforts, which is disconcerting. I kept editing it in my head.
June 27, 2008
I loved this book! It was a fun little book that I really enjoyed reading. It was fun to learn more about the social views on mail order brides in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I enjoyed reading about the happy endings and sympathized with the bad endings. I have often joked with my hubby that I was a "mail order bride sent by Heavenly Father" because of the events of our quick engagement and marriage. Because I understand what it's like to marry someone you don't know REALLY well, I found this book delightful! I'm just glad and grateful that my marriage story ended happy and not like some detailed in this book!
October 6, 2010
The stories were interesting but the writing was weak (and there were several editing errors -- weird issues with numbers that caught my attention several times).
The primary source materials were fascinating. The suppositions that made up some of the more fictionalized accounts made me wonder at the sources.
An interesting read.
The primary source materials were fascinating. The suppositions that made up some of the more fictionalized accounts made me wonder at the sources.
An interesting read.
June 25, 2017
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After taking a few courses about, "the West" , I became interested in the mail-order brides . This book has great stories of women who went west and started families and found satisfying lives. Some were luckier than others. The book has served as an appetizer, and now I want to learn more. I do recommend it.
After taking a few courses about, "the West" , I became interested in the mail-order brides . This book has great stories of women who went west and started families and found satisfying lives. Some were luckier than others. The book has served as an appetizer, and now I want to learn more. I do recommend it.
March 23, 2018
I liked learning about this history that's not covered in textbooks. Writing about the mail-order brides in short stories made the format more appealing. I really liked the copies of real advertisements. I'm sure mail-order brides still happen today, but it's crazy to think it was such a regular part of matrimony in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
May 19, 2007
This book features quick stories of mail-order brides and their outcomes, if known, in the 1800s in the west. All of the chapters were concise and told the characters' stories well. I also enjoyed reading the ads that were near the end of the book.
October 10, 2008
Hearts West includes more than a dozen true stories of courageous mail order brides and their exploits. Accompanying the text are actual advertisements placed by both women seeking husbands and men seeking brides.
March 2, 2009
Excellent short, true vignettes about American mail-order brides who hopped on trains with their trousseaus and headed west to California and Oregon in the 1840's - where the population of men to women was 20:1!
August 16, 2009
I am reading this now and it is a great little short story type book to take a break between novels! I have laughed and gotten a little teary with each story I read. It is pretty interesting too... makes me glad I am living now not then. Fun read!
February 16, 2011
It was interesting to read positive and negative Mail-order Bride stories. To think that now people do similar things but through the internet. It all started with mail order brides. I got to learn a little more about what life was like back then. Definitely not easy, but neither is it today.
April 12, 2011
This is a wonderful well-written life-affirming book. I read it with a huge smile of delight and amusement on my face. It is based on a very thorough and profound research with lots of quotes from the letters of that time and you get the true feeling of that era.
December 22, 2011
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have always been curious about the whole "mail order bride" thing and this was a great short (about 100 pgs) compilation of some of the stories, happy and sad, that came from that time period.
October 18, 2012
I love history, so it was interesting to read these accounts of women, who laid it all on the line to find love and new life in the west. It's lots of small stories, wish they could have been "fleshed" out more!
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