Study Guide
Study Guide Contents
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Beginner's Guide to Opera
- Who's Who At the Opera
- The Lyric Opera House
- BOC Education Programs
- A Bibliography of Selected Readings
- Education Resources
2007-2008 SEASON
2006-2007 SEASON
2005-2006 SEASON
2004-2005 SEASON
2003-2004 SEASON
2002-2003 SEASON
PREVIOUS OPERAS
La Fanciulla del West
The Girl of the Golden West
Dame Shirley
James J. Rawls
Women were a rarity in most gold-rush communities. They represented about one-twelfth of the state's non-native population in 1850, and increased only to one-third by 1880.
One of the most remarkable women in gold-rush California was Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe. She lived for over a year in a rough-and-tumble mining camp along the Feather River. She's known to us today by a marvelous series of letters she published under the pen name Dame Shirley.
The letters are a valuable resource because they provide a woman's perspective on life in the gold rush. They contain a wealth of detail on the interior furnishings of miners' cabins, the clothing worn by the forty-niners, and their typical daily fare.
Dame Shirley also records the miners' unusual figures of speech. "Seeing the elephant," for instance, meant having a truly remarkable experience, something as unusual and unexpected as encountering an elephant in the mines.
Reprinted courtesy of the California Historical Society.