Primary Sources: The American West: Personal Narratives

Frank and Mary Clarke in the American West and the Civil War

being the MS. record of a trip from New York to Texas, and an overland journey through Mexico and Arizona to the gold-fields of California. With biographical memoir by his daughter, Maria R. Audubon. Introd., notes, and index by Frank Heywood Hodder.

Half a Century in War and Peace.

The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919

The Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper, First Black Graduate of West Point

Taken from the originals now on exhibit at the Western Trails Museum, Billings, Montana

Memoirs of a Childhood in the Frontier Army, 1878-1898
Edited by Thomas T. Smith

a series of annotated reprints of some of the best and rarest contemporary volumes of travel : descriptive of the Aborigines and social and economic conditions in the middle and far west, during the period of early American settlement / edited with notes, introduction, index, etc., by Reuben Gold Thwaites.

Covers pioneer life in Colorado.

A series of letters by Demas Barnes, describing a trip from New York to San Francisco, thence home, by Acapulco, and the isthmus of Panama.

Women's overland diaries from the Huntington Library
(Cover courtesy of Open Library http://openlibrary.org/isbn/0873281039)

Narrating an adventure from Arkansas through the Indian Territory : Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico to the sources of Rio Grande del Norte, 1821-22 / Edited, with notes by Elliott Coues.

Salt Lake to Los Angeles: with Diaries and Contemporary Records of Sheldon Young, James S. Brown, Jacob Y. Stover, Charles C. Rich, Addison Pratt, Howard Egan, Henry W. Bigler, and Others

""A faithful and unvarnished Record of a Settler’s Life" is how Isabel Randall described her letters when they were first published in 1887. Many foreign travelers published accounts of their visits to the American West, but Randall was one of the few European women to write about the western experience from the inside.

In 1884 Randall and her husband settled on a ranch in Montana hoping to make their fortune in the livestock boom. Randall’s letters home to England describe the practical affairs of daily life, rural social interactions, and the natural world around her. Her letters are cheerful, but they also suggest why the Randalls ultimately failed to achieve financial success.

In this new edition of A Lady’s Ranch Life in Montana, Richard L. Saunders supplements Randall’s letters with notes and an extensive introduction drawn from a wealth of primary sources. He sketches the Randalls’ lives before and after their western adventure, describes the stock industry that drew them to Montana, places Isabel’s letters in the context of English attitudes toward Americans, and discusses her neighbors’ reactions to her criticisms of local society." Description from publisher https://www.oupress.com/9780806136097/a-ladys-ranch-life-in-montana/

A Woman's View of Everyday Life in South Texas, 1873-1883

Correspondence of Tasker L. Oddie, 1898-1902

Containing sketches of scenery, manners, and customs

The Frederic Remington-Owen Wister Letters

Edited, and with notes and an introd. by Charles T. Duncan

: The True Wild West of New Mexico and California

Edited by Andrew F. Rolle
The American exploration and travel series, 30

Personal narrative of Col. Henry E. Dosch, member of Fremonts body guard and one-time pony express rider. By Fred Lockley.

vols. 1-3; 5-8