Calamity Jane: The Life and Legend of Martha Jane Cannary

by D.J. Herda

Young Martha Jane Cannary began life as a camp follower and street urchin. Parentless by the age of twelve, she morphed into the mother of two who just as often took employment as a waitress, laundress, or dance hall girl as she did an Indian scout or bullwhacker. Just as likely to wear a dress as she was buckskins, she was impossible to ignore no matter what she wore, particularly after she’d had a few drinks! And she shamelessly parlayed into a legend the aura of fame that Edward L. Wheeler’s dime novels crafted around her.
Perhaps most amazing of all, in an era where women had few options in life, Calamity Jane had the audacity to carve them out for herself. The gun-toting, tough-talking, hard-drinking woman was all Western America come to life. Flowing across the untamed small towns and empty spaces of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana like the wild running rivers of the American West, she helped create the legend of Calamity Jane from scratch. Part carnie barker, part actor, part sexually alluring siren, part drunken lout--she was all of these and much more.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

Published April 15, 2018

Reviews

[Izzie Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, it got a little slow near the end it was a lot of "she was where, but maybe she wasn't," which was harder to follow and read. I felt it repeated itself a lot but with the information and facts there are out there about Calamity, i feel that the author did a wonderful job with what was available.
5 stars.

[Nancy McIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm confused with some of the dates. He doesn't give her date of birth ,except in the copyright page it's listed as 1856. That would put her at 20 years of age when she reached Deadwood, not the sixteen years as written. That would have put Elijah her brother who she had just finished traveling with at a much younger age than 15. Even if she was twenty in that year,1876. It still would have put her brother at about 11 years old, since she was about 9 when he was born maybe ten. Research has pulled up that she was born in 1852. This date seems more accurate it would put her brother at the correct age of 15 that would put Martha Jane at 24 years of age. I like the dialogue the author has given through the book, even though bit would be hard to say those are her exact words it was fun and brought her more to life. I do wonder about her speech and dialog being so close to the Deadwood series. It felt at times like that's what I was watching. Other than the age and years being a bit off I found this book to be the most informative of the biographys of Jane I have read.

[Jackie Gommess · Rating 2 out of 5]

I certainly learned a lot! But that's because I bought it knowing absolutely nothing about Calamity Jane. It was interesting reading about life in the Old West, and especially for a woman trying to rely on her own merits and not on a man's.

A lot of the book is "Jane went there, then she went there, then she went there" and that got a bit tiresome, though. Sadly, Martha Jane was an alcoholic and it showed throughout her life. So that wasn't super fun to read, either. And one of the chapters started with saying someone had done a "psychohistorical analysis" to give an idea what this part of her life might have looked like. To me, that sounds like historical fiction. Then the author proceeds to portray a conversation she had with her younger brother, and then a flashback to her childhood when she caught her parents having sex. That scene was needlessly graphic and prolonged. Not sure why the author decided to include that but I had to skip several pages to avoid reading it!

My overall conclusion is the book was okay.

[Gail Sacharski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit my interest in Calamity Jane stems from the Doris Day highly-Hollywood-ized movie which I saw when I was young & from the fact that someone I know named their daughter Calamity Jane (seriously). It was enlightening to discover the real woman behind the name & learn about the hard life she led in a time when women were not supposed to be equal to men (sadly, still true in many areas today). I enjoy reading about real history & this was an interesting book.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book as part of a professional development opportunity and it was terrible. I was glad for the opportunity to learn about this figure and the era but if the topic interests you, I recommend finding another text. This author flooded the reader with uninteresting details of Calamity Jane's comings and goings throughout the West, without focusing on the broader picture, implications, or making connections. Definitely skip this one.

[Lydia Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a faithful representation of her real life. Her life would have been a whole lot more interesting if the legends about her were actually true. Still, she made a name for herself when girls and woman were nothing and managed to survive in hostile environments. She actually did have a knack for nursing and must have had quite a personality.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of the book are, somewhat necessarily, repetitive, which is part of what brings it down for me. But I did appreciate the authors attempts to bring fact next to fiction, and never forget that Calamity Jane was first and foremost a human being

[Alicia Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

is this a series of essays?

It is written by a man who disapproves of her behavior and cannot decide whether to pity or condemn her. The author did enough research to write a great account, but cannot even get the dates of the Civil War correct.

[Craig Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Difficult to read, becomes uninteresting half way through.