Pioneers in Petticoats; Yosemite's Early Women 1856-1900

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Happy Idiot

Trad climber

Santa Fe

Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 11, 2014 - 10:51am PT

I recently found this book in a local thrift store.

It's a slim volume (80 pp.), staple-bound with paper covers. Copyright 1966, by Flying Spur Press. A google search suggests that you may be able to download a pdf from certain sources.

As suggested by the title, the book presents a series of brief portraits of early Yosemite women. Mainly, these are stories of wives, mothers, and daughters who worked as schoolmarms, or as cooks or hostesses at some of the earliest hotels.
There is a chapter titled "Ladies of the Trails." In that chapter, and scattered through the rest of the book, there are noted brief accounts of pre-1900 ascents of Mount Dana, Mount Lyell, Half Dome, Mt. Starr King, Mt. Conness, Clouds Rest, etc.

All well and fine, you may say.
But here's the mystery: the frontispiece.

So, my question to you old moms and dads is: Who is Annie? And, who was her climbing chum? Who's book do I now hold?

The available evidence:
1. The 1966 copyright date (and, it's anyone's guess how long this book was stocked on the bookstore shelves. A decade?). [edit, from Nita: book was sold through early 1990's].
2. Presumably a team of two women climbers, presumably in the valley anytime from the late 60's to early 90's. [that's quite a time range, I know].
3. Somehow, this book found its way to a Santa Fe, NM thrift store in the early 2010's.

Anyone?

nita

Social climber

chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.

Feb 11, 2014 - 11:18am PT

Happy idiot,
I know we sold ~Pioneers in Petticoats, at the Tuolumne lodge store in the early 90's...
It is possible they still sell it at the Visitors center.

The author, Shirley Sargent was a Yosemite historian who lived in Foresta.
Her house and Flying Spur Press burned down in the Foresta fire of 1990... Her family still owns the property.

another petticoats picture..
Picture published in 1919, from book ~ Yosemite and it's High Sierra, by John H. Williams.