Download or read book They Saw the Elephant written by JoAnn Levy and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-07-10 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The phrase ’seeing the elephant’ symbolized for ’49 gold rushers the exotic, the mythical, the once-in-a-lifetime adventure, unequaled anywhere else but in the journey to the promised land of fortune: California. Most western myths . . . generally depict an exclusively male gold rush. Levy’s book debunks that myth. Here a variety of women travel, work, and write their way across the pages of western migrant history."-Choice "One of the best and most comprehensive accounts of gold rush life to date"ˆ–San Francisco Chronicle