Purple Mountains & Wilderness: True Stories of the Great American West

Between 1840 and 1910, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children from all over the world traveled deep into the underdeveloped American West, lured by the prospects of adventure, freedom, and opportunity all galvanized by the spirit of Manifest Destiny. Alongside this rapid expansion of the United States, a second, overlapping social shift was taking place: the rising status of women. In a settler society busy building itself from scratch, women and children had to compromise prior sensibilities and take on many of the same responsibilities as their husbands and fathers who were often away from them for extended periods of time.

In Purple Mountains & Wilderness: True Stories of the Great American West, consummate storyteller George Hubbard continues his tradition of bringing to life riveting histories of courageous little-known men and women—the settlers, and the Native Americans and Hispanics they displaced—who played monumental roles in one of America’s most transformative periods.