“WANTED. YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS. NOT OVER 18. MUST BE EXPERT RIDERS. WILLING TO RISK DEATH DAILY. ORPHANS PREFERRED.” —California newspaper help-wanted ad, 1860 The Pony Express is one of the most celebrated and enduring chapters in the history of the United States, a story of the all-American traits of bravery, bravado, and entrepreneurial risk that are part of the very fabric of the Old West. No image of the American West in the mid-1800s is more familiar, more beloved, and more powerful than that of the lone rider galloping the mail across hostile Indian territory. No image is more revered. And none is less understood. Orphans Preferred is both a revisionist history of this magnificent and ill-fated adventure and an entertaining look at the often larger-than-life individuals who created and perpetuated the myth of “the Pony,” as it is known along the Pony Express trail that runs from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. The Pony Express is a story that exists in the annals of Americana where fact and fable collide, a story as heroic as the journey of Lewis and Clark, as complex and revealing as the legacy of Custer’s Last Stand, and as muddled and freighted with yarns as Paul Revere’s midnight ride. Orphans Preferred is a fresh and exuberant reexamination of this great American story.
This true story of a concubine and the Gold Rush years “delves deep into the soul of the real old west” (Erik Larson). “Once the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill launched our ‘national madness,’ the population of California exploded. Tens of thousands of Chinese, lured by tales of a ‘golden mountain,’ took passage across the Pacific. Among this massive influx were many young concubines who were expected to serve in the brothels sprouting up near the goldfields. One of them adopted the name of Polly Bemis, after an Idaho saloonkeeper, Charlie Bemis, won her in a poker game and married her. For decades the couple lived on an isolated, self-sufficient farm near the Salmon River in central Idaho. After her husband’s death, Polly came down to a nearby town and gradually spoke of her experiences. Journalist Christopher Corbett movingly recounts Polly’s story, integrating Polly’s personal history into the broader picture of the history of the mass immigration of Chinese. As both a personal and social history, this is an admirable book.” —Booklist “A gorgeously written and brilliantly researched saga of America during the mad flush of its biggest Gold Rush. Christopher Corbett’s genius is to anchor his larger story of Chinese immigration around a poor concubine named Polly. A tremendous achievement.” —Douglas Brinkley “Uses Bemis’s story as a platform for a larger discussion about the hardships of the Chinese experience in the American West.” —The Washington Post
This book offers an in-depth analysis of the case of Corbett v Corbett, a landmark in terms of law’s engagement with sexual identity, marriage, and transgender rights. The judgement was handed down in 1970, but the decision has shaped decades of debate about the law’s control and recognition of non-normative gender identities. The decision in this case – that the marriage between the Hon. Arthur Corbett and April Ashley was void on the grounds that April Ashley had been born male – has been profoundly influential across the common law world, and came as a dramatic and intolerant intervention in developing discussions about the relationships between medicine, law, questions of sex versus gender, and personal identity. The case raises fundamental questions concerning law in its historical and intellectual context, in particular relating to the centrality of ordinary language for legal interpretation, and this book will be of interest to students and scholars of language and law, legal history, gender and sexuality.
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