Pioneer Children on the Journey West

by Emmy E. Werner

Book Overview

Between 1841 and 1865, some forty thousand children participated in the great overland journeys from the banks of the Missouri River to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In this engaging book, Emmy Werner gives 120 of these young emigrants, ranging from ages four to seventeen, a chance to tell the stories of their journeys west.Incorporating primary materials in the form of diaries, letters, journals, and reminiscences that are by turns humorous and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813320275
• ISBN13: 9780813320274
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

It was impossible to put the book down

The short stories told by young people who did the long journey to the west with an incredible optimism, through all the difficulties on this trip. Very understandable written. The Comments by the author are on the point and important to hold the whole book together. The "Pioneer Children on the Journey" is a recommendation for everybody who lives somewhere between the east and the west coast. Thank you for writing it.

Another view of the Journey West

Many of us with family histories in the west have visited Sutter's Fort or visited the Donner Historic Monument and read about Patty Reed's doll. But this book, with its first-person accounts of the journey west from the children's perspective, is altogether a different story. The incredible resiliency of the children who made the trip still haunts me. The children had no choice but to make the journey; their parents had a dream and the children had to follow. One entry tells the story of two young brothers who are left in the mountains, with a rifle, to fend for themselves for several weeks while their father takes the rest of the family down to Lassen Ranch and safety. The boys had to hunt for food, worry about Grizzly bears and wonder how long it would be before their father returned. It presents such a stark contrast to today's children who need videos to survive a trip to the grocery store in the family SUV that it's almost a social commentary without actually being one. Each story is unique and poignant and Werner does a fine job of linking the stories by adding historic contexts and narratives. An awesome amount of research must have gone into finding long faded documents and scraps of writings that became the heart of this book. This book helps "round out" the exciting history of the west and will remain a permanent resident on my bookshelf along with other notable "western" books like, Up and Down California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer, Fourth Edition, with Maps and McPhee's Assembling California.