Calamity Jane

Young Martha Jane Cannary began life as a camp follower and street urchin. Parentless by the age of twelve she morphed into the mother of two who just as often took employment as a waitress laundress or dance hall girl as she did an Indian scout or bullwhacker. Just as likely to wear a dress as she was buckskins she was impossible to ignore no matter what she wore particularly after she’d had a few drinks! And she shamelessly parlayed into a legend the aura of fame that Edward L. Wheeler’s dime novels crafted around her.Perhaps most amazing of all in an era where women had few options in life Calamity Jane had the audacity to carve them out for herself. The gun-toting tough-talking hard-drinking woman was all Western America come to life. Flowing across the untamed small towns and empty spaces of South Dakota Wyoming and Montana like the wild running rivers of the American West she helped create the legend of Calamity Jane from scratch. Part carnie barker part actor part sexually alluring siren part drunken lout--she was all of these and much more.