Western History
 An American in California: The Biography of William Heath Davis 1822–1909
by Andrew Rolle
This carefully researched biography is the story of one of several American pre–Gold Rush pioneers who embraced aspects of the Spanish culture but modified it by Yankee enterprise. Davis' career as ship- and land-owner, trader, civic official, town founder, and ranchero faithfully mirrors the role he and his contemporaries played in paving the way for California's transition from frontier province to modern state.
156 pages, 6 x 9, illus., paper
ISBN: 978-0-87328-120-1, $9.95
Henry Mayo Newhall and His Times: A California Legacy
by Andrew Rolle
Newhall came to California in search of gold in 1850. This biographical study tells how he established what would become San Francisco's leading auction house, began the first financially successful railroad in California, and with his five sons made real estate investments that developed into one of California's leading farming and ranching empires.
"This biographical study is also a cultural and economic history of California, covering…over a hundred years from oil boom to suburban development."—Books of the Southwest
"In this engagingly written, well-illustrated book, Andrew Rolle tells the story of the Newhall family from 1850 to 1989, making the narrative one of the present as well as the past. . . . He chronicles how each succeeding generation adapted to changing conditions and assured the survival of the Newhall Land and Farming Company."—Pacific Northwest Quarterly
"In tracing the life of Newhall, Rolle takes us through the pioneer years of California's economic development."—Journal of the West
"Andrew Rolle's biography of the California land baron Henry Mayo Newhall proves that sometimes nice guys do prosper. Newhall, who lived from 1825 to 1882, enjoyed an unusual and varied career. Amid the wild speculation of Gold Rush San Francisco he founded California's leading auction house and was known for his honesty and reliability. In a time when railroad developers rose through ruthlessness and deception, he managed to build a successful rail line without defrauding its investors or exploiting its patrons. And in a period of merciless squatting and ferocious land swindles, Henry Newhall created a sprawling landed empire without destroying the previous owners. And he conducted honest farming and ranching activities on his properties. These accomplishments were performed by a man who was restless, lucky, smart, and a decent family man. . . . This biography will undoubtedly and deservedly be considered the 'definitive' biography of Henry Mayo Newhall."—Pacific Historical Quarterly
"The author skillfully blends family, business and regional history into a tableau covering nearly two hundred years of California, and in the process, returns to the limelight a person who virtually has been forgotten."—Southern California Quarterly
176 pages, 6-1/4 x 9-1/4, illus., cloth
ISBN: 978-0-87328-136-2, $29.95
 The Irvine Ranch
by Robert Glass Cleland
The colorful history of the Irvine Ranch -- from the days of the Gabrielino Indians, through the rule by Spain and Mexico, to the ownership and administration by four generations of the Irvine family. The ranch was a combination of three large land grants that went, wholly or in part, into the making of the Irvine property. Dr. Cleland tells the history of these grants and provides reproductions of old maps and portraits of early owners. An Epilogue by Robert V. Hine describes the changes that have taken place since the book was first published.
180 pages, 6 x 9, black and white illus., paper
ISBN: 978-0-87328-015-0, $11.95
 Land of Golden Dreams: California in the Gold Rush Decade, 1848-1849
by Peter J. Blodgett
Click here to see sample illustrations
This book, a companion piece to the Huntington exhibit of the same title, brings the Gold Rush era to life through vivid anecdotes taken from actual journal entries, newspaper articles, and letters of the period. Lavishly illustrated and well-researched, Land of Golden Dreams is accessible to both historian and lay reader alike.
"The scholarship is of very high quality…the writing clear and direct."—Malcolm J. Rohrbough, University of Iowa
"One Gold Rush book that stands out and should meet with a great deal of interest among booksellers, collectors, and readers is...Land of Golden Dreams."—AB Bookman's Weekly
"A very good recapitulation-in-brief of California's history from just before the discovery of gold (1848) till the end of the antebellum period. . . . After first setting the scene for a sleepy, neglected Mexican province that was soon to be utterly transformed, Peter Blodgett explores the dreams and aspirations of '49ers; then considers their impact on California, the U.S. and the world in the 1850s, and even what we might call their residual influence into the 1990s." —Southern California Quarterly
"The text is well researched and written, but the reproduction quality of the illustrations—more than 150 are included—and their novelty are tough competition for the words."—The Bloomsbury Review
"The narrative is enlivened with quotes from diaries, letters, and newspapers and stunningly illustrated with drawings, maps, paintings, photographs, and objects. A concluding chapter reflects upon what the Gold Rush decade meant to California's future."—Nebraska History
"Gems from the Huntington holdings that vividly bring the Gold Rush to life include several of the watercolors of William Rich Hutton, the pencil sketches of J. Goldsborough Bruff, and haunting photographs and engravings depicting the wholesale assault on nature by the gold seekers. . . . The book is a model for exhibit catalogs and confirms that there is much material fresh and engaging for the interpretation of a familiar event."—Journal of the West
144 pages, 9 x 10-1/2, illus.
ISBN (cloth): 978-0-87328-183-6, $20.95
ISBN (paper): 978-0-87328-182-9, $14.95
 Law for the Elephant: Property and Social Behavior on the Overland Trail
by John Phillip Reid
In this volume, first published in 1980, Reid demonstrates how seriously overland travelers regarded the rights of property and personal ownership.
“Belongs on the 'must read' list for anyone interested in the westward movement.”—Utah Historical Quarterly
“Reid's research makes it clear from a cultural, political, and legal standpoint that respect for property and law was deep-seated for Americans . . . A masterful example of the application of behavioral perspectives and legal analysis to a historical problem.”—Reviews in American History
"Reid has been incredibly imaginative in discovering the sources for law on the overland trail, and his pioneering work is likely to open up an entirely new field in the study of the American legal experience. This is a splendid and marvelously readable book."—Stanley N. Katz, Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty, Princeton University
437 pages, 6 x 9, illus., paper
ISBN: 978-0-87328-164-5, $15.00
 Uncle Sam's Camels
The Journal of May Humphreys Stacey Supplemented by the Report of Edward Fitzgerald Beale
Lewis Burt Lesley, editor
With a New Foreword by Paul Andrew Hutton
In 1855, at the urging of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, the U.S. Congress funded an unusual experiment: the importation of camels in order to test their fitness for military purposes in the Southwest. Camels, it was presumed, would fare much better than horses and mules in the desert’s punishing climate and terrain, and therefore could be used to transport supplies to frontier forts more quickly.
Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale led the nation’s first and only “camel corps” expedition from Texas to California in 1857. Joining him was nineteen-year-old May Humphreys Stacey, who kept a detailed journal of their harrowing adventures. In Uncle Sam’s Camels, Lesley reproduces Stacey’s account as well as Lt. Beale’s glowing report on the expedition, in which he frequently comments on the camels’ remarkable endurance. Originally published in 1929, Lesley’s study was one of the first to treat this curiosity in U.S. military history, and it remains the definitive text on the subject.
"[Stacey’s] journal vividly portrays the trials and hardships of the expedition as it moved…to the land of the Mojave on the Colorado, which was its destination. In perusing the journal, one is forcibly impressed with the hazards of travel in the United States in the 1850s, especially in the largely unexplored regions of the Southwest."—Mississippi Valley Historical Review
Lewis Burt Lesley was a history professor at San Diego State University. Paul Andrew Hutton is a history professor at the University of New Mexico and Executive Director of the Western History Association. He is the author of Phil Sheridan and His Army and the editor of The Custer Reader, Frontier and Region, and Ten Days on the Plains.
324 pages, 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches, 4 black-and-white illustrations, paperback
ISBN: 978-0-87328-220-8, $24.95
 Voyage to California: Written at Sea, 1852
The Journal of Lucy Kendall Herrick
edited by Amy Requa Russell, Marcia Russell Good, and Mary Good Lindgren with an introduction by Andrew Rolle
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In 1852, 24-year-old Lucy Kendall was a passenger on the Josephine, traveling from New York City around Cape Horn to San Francisco, where her father, one of California's"forty-niners," awaited the arrival of Lucy, her mother, and her younger sister. In this diary, one of only a few by women recounting such a voyage, she describes the hardships and dangers she and her fellow passengers endured. This book has twenty-six black and white illustrations including charming sketches by Lucy and her father, Joseph Kendall.
"An informative introduction by historian Andrew Rolle places the journal in its historical context."—Bookwatch
"This volume belongs in the library of every person who has an interest in the California gold rush or in the voyages and journeys of the 19th century."—Richard Hitchcock, California Historian
"The rarity of Lucy [Herrick]'s diary is manifold: It is lively, literate, observant, heartfelt and intimate, a small and tasty bite out of the large, long life of a woman whose adulthood was bookended by two of the chief events in Americanized California: the Gold Rush that brought her west, and the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, which struck two months before she died."—Los Angeles Times
"Lucy Kendall Herrick's account of her voyage from New York around the horn of South America to California is presented in a beautifully appointed publication by the Huntington Library." —Montana: The Magazine of Western History
"From her perspective as a well-bred young woman who had crossed the Atlantic several times, Lucy Kendall's written impressions of the long voyage to California form a sensitive, articulate, and accurate account of life aboard a sailing ship, as well as provide insights into the sea as a harsh physical as well as social milieu. Neither of these themes are commonly explored in the diaries of women. . . . the diary is a significant contribution to our understanding of the long and uncomfortable experience that rounding Cape Horn represented to those who opted for the all-sea route to the gold rush. Similarly, the accompanying notes are a useful commentary on the fortunes of a family whose new life in California more than justified the hardships endured along the way." —Southern California Quarterly
148 pages, 7-3/4 x 10, illus., cloth
ISBN: 978-0-87328-165-2, $24.95
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