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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 978.02
EAN num: 9781890591014
ISBN number: 1890591017
Label: Nevada Humanities Committee
Manufacturer: Nevada Humanities Committee
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 380
Printing Date: 1997-09
Publishing house: Nevada Humanities Committee
Sale Popularity Level: 411700
Studio: Nevada Humanities Committee
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Brief Book Summary:
A commemorative volume published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Donner Party's travels across the continent.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
What a great account of a tragic historical event. I felt like i was right there with them. The day -by-day account made for easy reading and let you understand the exact timeline of what the Donner party went through. Frank Mullen and the Reno-Gazette did a great job and should be very proud to keep this history alive.
Rated by buyers -
Yesterday I flew to California from Charlotte,NC. I spent my time in a jetliner, sipping a cool beverage, watching a movie on my laptop and towards the end of my journey, occasionally pertaking the beauty of snow-capped jagged mountain tops of the Sierra Nevada.
But, it was so different a mere 150 years ago. One had to travel in animal driven wagons carrying enough food and other necessities for the long and perilous journey, which could be brutally and tragically cut short by wild animals, unfriendly Indians or any natural calamity. No maps, no rest areas or highways or motels. Luck was the chief ingredient of sucess those days. This book tells the story of one such journey, where the travellers ran out of luck when they chose to use a shortcut and got snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas. What followed was a struggle for survival with human emotions running raw.
This book narrates this story on a day by day basis and is adorned with a lavish collection of colour as well as grey and white photographs of the trail and artifacts from those days. It takes one back all those years when one almost feels like a member of the doomed party. I recommend it highly for anyone with or without any interest in the events described!
On a personal note, I found one photograph especially poignant where the proven and the shortcut trails clearly branched. I could feel the indecision in the minds of the emigrants which sealed their fate.
Rated by buyers -
If you only read one book about the Donner Party, make it this one! The Donner Chronicles tells the story of doomed pioneers and their struggle to survive. It keeps the reader at the edge of his seat and provides great detail of the period and the people. Highly recommended for history buffs who want to read history as though it's a novel instead of a dry textbook. Great photos, maps and graphics add to the text.
Rated by buyers -
Frank Mullen has added an important book to the history of Donner Party. The tragedy has been the focus of writing since the spring of 1847, but Mullen has found a fresh way to make the story understandable and, perhaps more importantly, human.
The book is a daily chronolgy of the year that it took the party to travel from Illinois to California, and each two-page spread of this large book is carefully laid out and presents a mix of graphics and text. It is rewarding if read straight through, yet very accessible if your reading style is more "grazing" than linear.
Mullen clearly has done his homework. The sheer volume of detail and complexity in the story can be overwhelming, and Mullen includes the details that are needed to clarify and develop the people in the story. He includes wonderful quotes from diaries and supporting material, and drawings of interesting side issues such as an analysis of the probable shape of the "Pioneer Palace Car." Additionally, Marilyn Newton's photographs of the trail as seen yesterday make it real for a modern reader.
When I have given this book as a gift to anyone with an interest in American History, it has been very well received. A truly great book.
Rated by buyers -
The full-color, glossy photographs of major landmarks and points of interest along the Emigrant Trail from Springfield, MO to Johnson's Ranch in Bear Valley are stunning. The colour photos, all taken by Marilyn Newton, are grouped together in the beginning of the book, comprising 20 slick pages of almost 50 photos. It's hard to believe that wagon ruts from over 150 years ago still exist in places; happily, our continuous farming, building and paving haven't obliterated all traces of the route that so many people rode--and walked--in order to reach California.
Portraits, maps, drawings and sketches from the period are interspersed with sepia-toned contemporary photographs, some taken by Newton and some by other photographers, and appear on every page of the book. "The Donner Party Chronicles" is visually rich and stimulating. The area around Donner Lake and the route the relief parties followed are depicted in all seasons of the year. Even in black-and-white, the photos of Donner Lake and the surrounding mountains demonstrate the ruggedness of the terrain and deeply impress upon the reader the hopelessness the members of the Donner Party must have felt upon being snowed-in at the lake.
The book reads like a journal that would have been kept by one of the emigrants traveling with the Donner Party. The text is reprinted from installments journalist Frank Mullen, Jr. published in the weekly newspaper "The Reno Gazette-Journal" over the course of an entire year. The daily routine followed, problems encountered, and decisions made by the Donner Party are chronicled in a concise manner. The entries are short, most three or four paragraphs in length.
One very interesting feature of "The Donner Party Chronicles" is the map of the Emigrant Trail that appears on every left-hand page of the book, with the progress of the doomed emigrants clearly marked with a blue dot. As you read along through the book, you see on every other page exactly where the emigrants were as the day's events took place. I found this map extremely helpful and fascinating. Watching the movement of the Donner Party as they traveled on foot at the pace of slow, plodding oxen made me better able to understand how great an undertaking their overland journey was. I shared this book with my husband, my Dad and my father-in-law, and they enjoyed it almost as much as I did!
This book is well worth the price, for the interesting text as well as the terrific photos; you can easily find what you're looking for in the pages, as each page is dated and the day's entry fairly short.
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