Morgan offers an authentic and deliciously humorous account of the prostitutes and other "disreputable" women who were the earliest female pioneers of the Far North. At the turn of the century, tens of thousands of Americans left their homes, escaping a worldwide depression & the restraints of the Victorian Era, to stampede to Alaska & the Yukon, where millions of dollars in gold was being discovered in remote, subartic mining camps. Women accompanied the men on the long journey to the Far North--more often prostitutes, dance hall girls & entertainers than respectful wives & schoolteachers. These are the girls of the demimonde, that "half world" of disreputable women who lived on the outskirts of society. Meet "Dutch Kate" Wilson, who pioneered many areas long before the "respectable" women who received credit for getting there first; ruthless heartbreakers Cad Wilson & Rose Blumkin; "French Marie" Larose, who auctioned herself off as a wife to the highest bidder; & Edith Neile, called the "Oregon Mare," famous for both her outlandish behavior & her soft-hearted generosity. These "good time girls" crossed geographic & social frontiers, finding freedom, independence, hardship, heartbreak & sometimes astonishing wealth. They were an important part of this key chapter in the history of the West, which holds a special place in the American imagination.

Throughout the development of the American West, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of the nineteenth-century Pacific Northwest. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the hazards of disease, drug addiction, physical abuse, and pregnancy. They dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today.

A gripping and wholly original account of the epic human tragedy that was the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-98. One hundred thousand men and women rushed heedlessly north to make their fortunes; very few did, but many thousands of them died in the attempt. In 1897, the United States was mired in the worst economic depression that the country had yet endured. So when all the newspapers announced gold was to be found in wildly enriching quantities at the Klondike River region of the Yukon, a mob of economically desperate Americans swarmed north. Within weeks tens of thousands of them were embarking from western ports to throw themselves at some of the harshest terrain on the planet--in winter yet--woefully unprepared, with no experience at all in mining or mountaineering. It was a mass delusion that quickly proved deadly: avalanches, shipwrecks, starvation, murder. Upon this stage, author Brian Castner tells a relentlessly driving story of the gold rush through the individual experiences of the iconic characters who endured it. A young Jack London, who would make his fortune but not in gold. Colonel Samuel Steele, who tried to save the stampeders from themselves. The notorious gangster Soapy Smith, goodtime girls and desperate miners, Skookum Jim, and the hotel entrepreneur Belinda Mulrooney. The unvarnished tale of this mass migration is always striking, revealing the amazing truth of what people will do for a chance to be rich.

Alexander Pantages was 13 when he arrived in the U.S. in the 1880s, after contracting malaria in Panama. He opened his first motion picture theater in 1902 and went on to build one of the largest and most important independently-owned theater chains in the country. At the height of the Pantages Theaters' reach, he owned or operated 78 theaters across the U.S. and Canada. He amassed a fortune, yet he could not read or write English. In 1929 he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old dancer--a scandal that destroyed his empire and reduced him to a pariah. The day his grandest theater, the Pantages Hollywood, opened in 1930, he lay sick in a jailhouse infirmary. His conviction was overturned a year later after an appeal to the California State Supreme Court, but the question remains: How should history judge this theater pioneer, wealthy magnate and embodiment of the American Dream?

Alaska often looms large as a remote, wild place with endless resources and endlessly independent, resourceful people. Yet it has always been part of larger stories: the movement of Indigenous peoples from Asia into the Americas and their contact with and accommodation to Western culture; the spread of European political economy to the New World; the expansion of American capitalism and culture; and the impacts of climate change. In this updated classic, distinguished historian Stephen Haycox surveys the state’s cultural, political, economic, and environmental past, examining its contemporary landscape and setting the region in a broader, global context. Tracing Alaska’s transformation from the early postcontact period through the modern era, Haycox explores the ever-evolving relationship between Native Alaskans and the settlers and institutions that have dominated the area, highlighting Native agency, advocacy, and resilience. Throughout, he emphasizes the region’s systemic dependence on both federal support and outside corporate investment in natural resources—furs, gold, copper, salmon, oil—and offers a less romantic, more complex history that acknowledges the broader national and international contexts of Alaska’s past.

Marvin W. Falk offers a systemic and select listing of just over 3,000 publications on the history of Alaska, published from the 18th century to early 2004. Early explorations were conducted by nationals from several nations, and the results were published in Russian, German, French, Spanish, and English. Many of these foreign language accounts have been published in translation and are included in the bibliography. This bibliography covers a wide span of Alaskan history including historical literature from: Discovery in 1741 The Russian period ending in 1867 The U.S. territorial period ending with statehood in 1959 The oil boom

Offers information on finding female ancestors in each state, highlighting those laws, both federal and state, that indicate when a woman could own real estate in her own name, devise a will, and enter into contracts. In addition, entries contain information on marriage and divorce law, immigration, citizenship, passports, suffrage, and slave manumission. Material is included on African American, Native American, and Asian American women, as well as patterns of European immigration. Period covered is from the 1600s to the outbreak of WWII. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Book Two of the Klondike Mystery Series by Vicki Delany! A newcomer to town has secrets Fiona doesn’t want revealed... Its the spring of 1898, and thousands of people, from all corners of the globe, are flooding into the Yukon Territory in the pursuit of gold, the town of Dawson welcomes them all. The beautiful Fiona MacGillivray, the owner of the very successful Savoy dance hall, is happy to make as much money as possible in as short a time as possible. When her twelve-year-old son Angus saves the life of a Native woman intent on suicide, he inadvertently sets off a chain of events that offers his mothers arch-enemy Joey LeBlanc, the madam with a heart of coal, the opportunity to destroy the Savoy Dance Hall once and for all. Unaware of impending danger, Fiona has other concerns: among the new arrivals are a would-be writer with far more tenacity than talent, and her nervous companion. There’s something familiar about the newcomers cut-glass accent, and Fiona MacGillivray is determined to keep her as far away from Angus as possible. Then a killer strikes, and the Mounties are determined to get their man...or woman. If you loved Gold Fever, check out the next two books of the series, Gold Mountain, and Gold Web

It's the spring of 1898 and Dawson, Yukon Territory, is the most exciting town in North America. The great Klondike Gold Rush is in full swing, and Fiona MacGillivray has crawled over the Chilkoot Pass, determined to make her fortune as the owner of the Savoy dance hall. But Fiona has many obstacles to overcome, including her 12-year-old son, who is growing up much too fast for her liking. As well, she must cope with a former Glasgow street fighter who is now her business partner; a stern, handsome North West Mounted Police constable named Richard Sterling; and a wild assortment of headstrong dancers, croupiers, gamblers, madams without hearts of gold, bar hangers-on, and sourdoughs. Not to mention Fiona's own nimble-fingered past, which just might get to her first. And then there's the dead body on center stage.Gold Digger is a light-hearted historical mystery, peopled with an array of intrepid characters, the kind of characters who flooded into the Klondike to make Dawson, in its very short heyday, the most exciting town in the world. At the center of the hullabaloo is Fiona MacGillivray: resourceful, unscrupulous, ambitious, and (as she says herself) the most beautiful woman in Dawson. Gold Digger is the first in a new series featuring Fiona MacGillivray, her son Angus, NWMP Constable Richard Sterling, and the town at the heart of the Last Great Gold Rush, Dawson, Yukon Territory.