My Tour of the Golden West

In 1910/1911 Effie May Johnson, aged 29, toured the Golden West. Her letters home were published in the Parkersburg (West Virginia) Sentinel, and are reproduced here. She reports her experiences in wonderful and unexpected detail, for example, when riding a train through the desert, she describes the sand blowing in through the open carriage windows. She gives us a female perspective on travelling alone in 1911.

She spent her whole life on the family farm in Boaz (West Virginia), and her knowledge of agriculture shines through in her letters. She asks in-depth questions about farm economics and tells day-to-day details of 1910 farm life in the West.

She visits Stanford University, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, still recovering from the Fire and writes about a lecture by Stanford University president Dr. David Starr Jordan.

This special color edition includes contemporaneous color vintage postcard views of some of the locations she visited.