The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe was born July 28, 1819 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She was educated in Amherst, Massachusetts. Later, she married the five years younger Fayette Clappe whom she accompanied to West California. They first lived in mining camps where her husband practiced medicine and then moved to San Francisco, where she taught in the public schools.

The Shirley letters were written between September 1851 and November of 1852. She wrote twenty-three letters, all addressed to her sister Molly in Massachusetts. In the letters can be noticed her education and writing skills, because they were unique and very rich in details. In these letters Mrs. Clappe described her life in the West, the people and the vulgarity of men in California. She focuses on the experiences of women and children there, the crime and punishment and the relation between the native Hispanic residents and the Native Americans, and presents the true picture of mining life from a female perspective.

This book is an edition of the series of letters by Mrs. Clappe, containing all twenty-three letters.