Description
When it comes to Nevada history, men get most of the ink. Comstock Women is a collection of 14 historical studies that helps to rectify that reality. The authors of these essays, who include some of Nevada’s most prominent historians, demographers, and archaeologists, explore such topics as women and politics, jobs, and ethnic groups. Their work goes far in refuting the exaggerated popular images of women in early mining towns as dance hall girls or prostitutes. Relying primarily on newspapers, court decisions, census records, as well as sparse personal diaries and records left by the woman, the essayists have resurrected the lives of the women who lived on the Comstock during the boom years.

Reviews
"Comstock Women is a thoughtfully conceived, solid contribution to the growing body of work on gender and western mining communities and an excellent book to teach students how to research and write community history." —Mary Murphy, Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 1999

"This book goes far in refuting the exaggerated popular images of women in early mining towns as dance hall girls or prostitutes. James and Raymond have written and collected a number of essays offering a much richer portrait of women and their activities in Virginia City, Nevada." —Patricia A. Beaber, Library Journal

"The book is full of details so savory you must read it." —Laurie Schon, Virginia City Register, September 8, 2000

"Collectively, the essays resurrect a wide spectrum of Comstock female society, which, through diligent scholarship, emerges from the shadows of time to regain, if not the essence of its once-vibrant vitality, at least a rich intimation of it. We see those women in their homes, at work, attending charity balls, church, temperance society meetings, and woman's suffrage lectures. . . . The editors and contributors are to be applauded for this pioneering work that firmly substantiates women as part and parcel of the male-dominated event/place/time that was the Comstock—and simultaneously debunks the myth of who those women were." —JoAnn Levy, California History Action, Summer 1998

"Comstock Women is an engaging and highly informative book that not only illuminates the lives of women on the mining frontier, but also offers a picture of daily life in one of the West's best-known mining towns." —Woodland Democrat, January 15, 1998

"This interdisciplinary collection of essays uses techniques from anthropology, archaeology, and history to prove that women were not on the fringes of society in the West—they were at the heart of it. . . . The authors demonstrate the women's experiences in the West were significant, complicated and diverse; women's lives depended upon their class, ethnicity, skills, and adaptability. . . . Comstock Women offers this wonderful diversity of experiences to taunt future scholars to explore further." —Clare V. McKanna, The Journal of San Diego History, Fall 1998

Contents
Contents
Introduction

1. "I Am Afraid We Will Lose All We Have Made": Women's Lives in a Nineteenth-Century Mining Town, by C. Elizabeth Raymond

2. Women of the Mining West: Virginia City Revisited, by Ronald M. James and Kenneth H. Fliess

At Home in a Mining Town
3. Redefining Domesticity: Women and Lodging Houses on the Comstock, by Julie Nicoletta

4. "They Are Doing So to a Liberal Extent Here Now": Women and Divorce on the Comstock, 1859-1880, by Kathryn Dunn Totton

5. The "Secret Friend": Opium in Comstock Society, 1860-1887, by Sharon Lowe

Occupations and Pursuits
6. Creating a Fashionable Society: Comstock Needleworkers from 1860 to 1880, by Janet I. Loverin and Robert A. Nylen

7. Mission in the Mountains: The Daughters of Charity in Virginia City, by Anne M. Butler

8. Divination on Mount Davidson: An Overview of Women Spiritualists and Fortunetellers on the Comstock, by Bernadette S. Francke

9. "The Advantage of Ladies' Society": The Public Sphere of Women on the Comstock, by Anita Ernst Watson, Jean E. Ford, and Linda White

Ethnicities
10. Their Changing World: Chinese Women on the Comstock, 1860-1910, by Sue Fawn Chung

11. "And Some of Them Swear Like Pirates": Acculturation of American Indian Women in Nineteenth-Century Virginia City, by Eugene M. Hattori

12. Erin's Daughters on the Comstock: Building Community, by Ronald M. James

Image and Reality
13. Girls of the Golden West, by Andria Daley Taylor

14. Gender and Archaeology on the Comstock, by Donald L. Hardesty

Appendix: Statistical Profile of Women on the Comstock
Appendix: Birthplace of Females in Storey County, 1860-1910
Appendix: Occupations of Women on the Comstock, 1860-1910
Notes
Selected References
Contributors
Index