Calamity jane biography pictures

Martha Canary, aka Calamity Jane, wasn’t who you think she was.

Excerpted from Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend by James D. McLaird.

“A complete and true biography of the life of Calamity Jane would make a large book, more interesting and blood-curdling than all the fictitious stories that have been written of her,” remarked the editor of the Livingston (Montana) Enterprise in 1887, “but it would never find its way into a Sunday school library.” He added that Calamity Jane at that moment “was on a ranch down in Wyoming trying to sober up after a 30 years’ drunk.”

More than one hundred years have passed since the editor made these observations, and although numerous accounts of Martha Canary, better known as Calamity Jane, have been produced, none can be considered a “complete and true biography.” Most popular accounts make Calamity Jane a gun-toting heroine, claiming she was an associate of Wild Bill Hickok and served as a frontier mascot, stagecoach driver, and pony express rider. Conversely, most scholars debunk her purported legendary achievements and depict her as little more than a drunken prostitute. “With Calamity Jane we have the problem of the hero who performed no heroic deeds,” said biographer J. Leonard Jennewein. Since “we must not destroy our heroes, we manufacture deeds as needed.”

Favorably disposed writers did indeed invent adventurous tales about Calamity Jane. And, in order to overcome her seedy reputation, they emphasized her acts of charity and lack of hypocrisy. This produced a quandary: “Was she a frontier Florence Nightingale, Indian fighter, army scout, gold miner, pony express rider, bull-whacker, and stagecoach driver,” asked Merrit Cross in his essay for Notable American Women, “or merely a camp follower, prostitute, and alcoholic.” It also became a perplexing problem to explain Calamity Jane’s fame if she did nothing to deserve her reputation. The common response, that dime novels made her

Calamity Jane (born Martha Jane Cannary; 1852–August 1, 1903) was a controversial figure in the Wild West whose adventures and exploits are shrouded in mystery, legend, and self-promotion. She is known to have dressed and worked as a man, to have been a hard drinker, and to been skilled with guns and horses. The details of her life are mostly unproven, given the amount of fabrication and hearsay that inform her story.

Early Life

Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Cannary around 1852 in Princeton, Missouri—although she sometimes claimed Illinois or Wyoming as her birthplace. She was the oldest of five siblings. Her father Robert Cannary (or Canary) was a farmer who took the family to Montana during an 1865 Gold Rush. Jane relayed the story of their journey in her later biography with considerable relish, describing how she hunted with the men and learned to drive the wagons herself. Her mother Charlotte died the year after their move and the family then moved to Salt Lake City. Her father died the following year.

Wyoming

After the death of her parents, young Jane moved to Wyoming and began her independent adventures, moving around mining towns and railroad camps and the occasional military fort. Far from the ideal of the delicate Victorian wom

American frontierswoman

For other uses, see Calamity Jane (disambiguation).

Martha Jane Canary (May 1, 1852 – August 1, 1903), better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman, sharpshooter, and storyteller. In addition to many exploits, she was known for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. Late in her life, she appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. She is said to have exhibited compassion to others, especially to the sick and needy. This facet of her character contrasted with her daredevil ways and helped to make her a noted frontier figure. She was also known for her habit of wearing men's attire.

Early life

Much of the information about the early years of Calamity Jane's life comes from an autobiographical booklet that she dictated in 1896, written for publicity purposes. It was intended to help attract audiences to a tour she was about to begin, in which she appeared in dime museums around the United States. Some of the information in the pamphlet is exaggerated or even completely inaccurate.

Calamity Jane was born on May 1, 1852, as Martha Jane Canary (or Cannary) in Princeton, within Mercer County, Missouri. Her parents were listed in the 1860 census as living about 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Princeton in Ravanna. Her father Robert Wilson Canary had a gambling problem, and little is known about her mother Charlotte M. Canary. Jane was the eldest of six children, with two brothers and three s

(1852-1903)

Who Was Calamity Jane?

By the time she was 12, Calamity Jane's parents had died and she had to make a living by any means necessary. She traveled to South Dakota and met Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood where her legend as a hard-drinking woman was born. Her reputation was advanced with stories of heroism and charity in an autobiography and western dime novels. She performed in Wild West shows immortalizing her as one of the more colorful characters of the West. Eventually, the hard life caught up with her and she died at age 51, in 1903.

Early Life

Few substantiated facts are known about Calamity Jane’s life, but much is known about the legend. It seems her biography is a mix of wild tales — many promoted by Jane herself — and plausibly accurate events. What is generally believed to be true is that she was born Martha Jane Cannary, possibly on May 1, 1852, in Princeton, Missouri. She was the eldest of as many as six children born to Robert and Charlotte (Burch) Cannary. Both parents were reputed to be unsavory, involved in petty crimes and often financially destitute. The family moved to Virginia City, Montana, in 1863, perhaps to find their fortune in the gold fields. Charlotte died along the route, most likely of pneumonia, and soon after Robert took the family to Salt Lake City in the Utah territory. Becoming Calamity Jane

Jane’s father died soon after arriving in Salt Lake City, making her an orphan at twelve and the head of the family. She had grown up tall and powerfully built with many male characteristics. Illiterate and poor, she was forced to move from one place to another, taking any work available to survive. She was surrounded by desperate people, also scrapping out a living, and not providing a nurturing environment for a young impressionable girl. Martha Jane began to find her way in a man’s world taking on men’s work and a male persona. It is also believed that as a teenager she occasionally engaged in prostituti