• Acknowledgements
• Preface by Philip Payton
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Collectors
• Chapter 2 The Droll Tellers
• Chapter 3 Folkways and Stories
• Chapter 4 Piskies, Spriggans, and Bucca
• Chapter 5 Piskies and Migratory Legends
• Chapter 6 Seeking the Companionship of People
• Chapter 7 Mermaids
• Chapter 8 The Spectral Bridegroom
• Chapter 9 Giants
• Chapter 10 Knockers in the Mines
• Chapter 11 Tommyknockers, Immigration, and the Modern World
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Type Index for Cornish Narrative
• Bibliography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

By considering the folklore of Cornwall in a Northern European context, this book casts light on a treasury of often-ignored traditions. Folklore studies internationally have long considered Celtic material, but scholars have tended to overlook Cornwall's collections. The Folklore of Cornwall fills this gap, placing neglected stories on a par with those from other regions where Celtic languages have deep roots. The Folklore of Cornwall demonstrates that Cornwall has a distinct body of oral tradition, even when examining legends and folktales that also appear elsewhere. The way in which Cornish droll tellers achieved this unique pattern is remarkable; with the publication of this book, it becomes possible for folklorists to look to the peninsula beyond the River Tamar for insight. A very readable text with popular appeal, this book serves as an introduction to folklore studies for the novice while also offering an alternative means to consider Cornish studies for advanced scholars. The comparative analysis combined with an innovative method of The Folklore of Cornwall is not to be found in other treatments of the subject.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Illustrations List of Maps Acknowledgements
• Introduction Twenty-one bits of glass, historical archaeology, and the meaning of the West
• Chapter 1 Gold and silver!
• Chapter 2 A crowded city on the mining frontier
• Chapter 3 An Irish blacksmith and the archaeology of belief
• Chapter 4 The Chinese
• Chapter 5 Saloons and the archaeology of leisure
• Chapter 6 Women on the mining frontier
• Chapter 7 Kids on the Comstock
• Chapter 8 Piper's Opera House and the archaeology of theater
• Chapter 9 Death and the material culture of the final chapter
• Epilogue Breathing meaning into the past
• Notes
• Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Spent cartridges. The pieces of an original Tabasco Pepper Sauce bottle. Shards of a ceramic pot, stained red. For archaeologists each of the thousands of artifacts uncovered at a site tells a story. For noted Comstock authority Ronald M. James, it is a story resulting from decades of research and excavation at one of the largest National Historic Landmarks in America, the Nevada town that, with the discovery of the Comstock Lode, became a boomtown microcosm of the American West. Drawing on the work of hundreds of volunteers, students, and professional archaeologists, Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past shows how every detail-from unearthed artifacts to reports of local saloons to plans for the cemetery to surviving nineteenth-century buildings-adds to our view of Virginia City when it was one of the richest places on earth. James recreates this unlikely epitome of frontier industry and cosmopolitan living, the thriving hub of corporate executives, middle-class families, miners, prostitutes, and barkeepers-and more foreign-born residents per capita than anywhere else in the country-in a spot that had begun its life a few years earlier as the mining camp of several lucky guys. An excavation of the history of Virginia City, a window on the heyday of the American frontier, James's book is also an enlightening look at how archaeology brings the story of the past to life.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The beginning of a legend
• An early boomtown
• The big bonanza
• Disaster and rebirth
• The irresistible persistence of the past
• Walking tour.

Founded in 1859, Virginia City quickly became world famous for its extraordinary prosperity. Over the next two decades, the mines of "the Richest City on Earth" yielded millions in gold and silver. The newly wealthy built mansions and churches, opera houses and schools, with furniture, fashions, and entertainment imported from Europe and the Far East. Here young Samuel Clemens, reporting for the Territorial Enterprise in 1863, first called himself Mark Twain. At its height Virginia City was a magnet for immigrants and the world leader in technological innovations in mining. The city's story did not end when the Comstock Lode played out. Beginning in the 1930s, bohemian artists, literati, and tourists were intrigued by this remnant of the Old West. The leader of Manhattan's cafe society, Lucius Beebe, moved here and re-launched the Territorial Enterprise in 1950. Television's most popular western from 1959 to 1973, Bonanza, located its fictional Ponderosa Ranch nearby. In the summer of 1965, a handful of Bay Area musicians, including Big Brother and the Holding Company, performed at the Red Dog Saloon and launched psychedelic rock, part of the inspiration for a defining decade of youth culture. Today it is both a National Historic Landmark District and a living community. Visitors come to enjoy its saloons and restaurants, admire its architecture, and learn from its museums and exhibits. <em>A Short History of Virginia City</em> will enhance their experience and will also be enjoyed by anyone interested in the history of Nevada, mining, and the Old West.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Illustrations List of Maps Acknowledgements
• Introduction Twenty-one bits of glass, historical archaeology, and the meaning of the West
• Chapter 1 Gold and silver!
• Chapter 2 A crowded city on the mining frontier
• Chapter 3 An Irish blacksmith and the archaeology of belief
• Chapter 4 The Chinese
• Chapter 5 Saloons and the archaeology of leisure
• Chapter 6 Women on the mining frontier
• Chapter 7 Kids on the Comstock
• Chapter 8 Piper's Opera House and the archaeology of theater
• Chapter 9 Death and the material culture of the final chapter
• Epilogue Breathing meaning into the past
• Notes
• Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Spent cartridges. The pieces of an original Tabasco Pepper Sauce bottle. Shards of a ceramic pot, stained red. For archaeologists each of the thousands of artifacts uncovered at a site tells a story. For noted Comstock authority Ronald M. James, it is a story resulting from decades of research and excavation at one of the largest National Historic Landmarks in America, the Nevada town that, with the discovery of the Comstock Lode, became a boomtown microcosm of the American West. Drawing on the work of hundreds of volunteers, students, and professional archaeologists, Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past shows how every detail-from unearthed artifacts to reports of local saloons to plans for the cemetery to surviving nineteenth-century buildings-adds to our view of Virginia City when it was one of the richest places on earth. James recreates this unlikely epitome of frontier industry and cosmopolitan living, the thriving hub of corporate executives, middle-class families, miners, prostitutes, and barkeepers-and more foreign-born residents per capita than anywhere else in the country-in a spot that had begun its life a few years earlier as the mining camp of several lucky guys. An excavation of the history of Virginia City, a window on the heyday of the American frontier, James's book is also an enlightening look at how archaeology brings the story of the past to life.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• A territory of humble beginnings
• A state of international fame
• The other early Nevada
• A new century
• After the boom
• A New Deal
• Inventing the future
• Learning from remnants of the past.

In 1991, Nevada's Commission for Cultural Affairs was created to oversee the preservation of the state's historic buildings and the conversion of the best of them for use as cultural centres. Working closely with local groups and drawing on both public and private resources, this program has rehabilitated dozens of historic structures treasured by their communities for the ways they represent the development of the state and its culture. ""Nevada's Historic Buildings"" highlights 90 of these buildings, describing them in the context of the state's history and the character of the people who created and used them. Nevadans themselves had a say in which buildings were picked.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• A territory of humble beginnings
• A state of international fame
• The other early Nevada
• A new century
• After the boom
• A New Deal
• Inventing the future
• Learning from remnants of the past.

In 1991, Nevada's Commission for Cultural Affairs was created to oversee the preservation of the state's historic buildings and the conversion of the best of them for use as cultural centres. Working closely with local groups and drawing on both public and private resources, this program has rehabilitated dozens of historic structures treasured by their communities for the ways they represent the development of the state and its culture. ""Nevada's Historic Buildings"" highlights 90 of these buildings, describing them in the context of the state's history and the character of the people who created and used them. Nevadans themselves had a say in which buildings were picked.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Nevada's Comstock Mining District has been the focus of legend since it first burst into international prominence in the late 1850s, and its principal settlement, Virginia City, endures in the popular mind as the West's quintessential mining camp. But the authentic history of the Comstock is far more complex and interesting than its colorful image. Contrary to legend, Virginia City spent only its first few years as a ramshackle mining camp. The mining boom quickly turned it into a thriving urban center, at its peak one of the largest cities west of the Mississippi, replete with most of the amenities of any large city of its time. The lure of the area's fabulous wealth attracted a remarkably heterogenous population from around the world and offered employment to dozens of trades and thousands of people, both men and women, representing every one of the region's diverse ethnic groups. Ronald James's brilliant account of the Comstock's long and eventful history-the first comprehensive study of the subject in over a century-examines every aspect of the region and employs information gleaned from hundreds of written sources, interviews, archeological research, computer analysis, folklore, gender studies, physical geography, and architectural and art history, as well as over fifty rare photographs, many of them previously unpublished.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication Page; Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction;
• 1. A Glimmer of Opportunity: The Setting;
• 2. The First Boom: Building the Community;
• 3. The First Boom: Building the Mines;
• 4. Grief, Depression, and Disasters: Successes in the Midst of Failures;
• 5. A Time of Bonanza;
• 6. The Workers: Labor in an Industrialized Community;
• 7. The International Community: Ethnicity Celebrated;
• 8. The Moral Options: Sinners;
• 9. The Moral Options: Saints;
• 10. Princes and Paupers: Contrasts in Class;
• 11. Over Time: Bonanza and Borrasca (1877-1942).

• 12. The Sequel to the Big Bonanza: Tourism and TelevisionAfterword; Notes; Bibliography and Bibliographical Essay; Index.

Nevada's Comstock Mining District has been the focus of legend since it first burst into international prominence in the late 1850s, and its principal settlement, Virginia City, endures in the popular mind as the West's quintessential mining camp. But the authentic history of the Comstock is far more complex and interesting than its colorful image. Contrary to legend, Virginia City spent only its first few years as a ramshackle mining camp. The mining boom quickly turned it into a thriving urban center, at its peak one of the largest cities west of the Mississippi, replete with most of the amenities of any large city of its time. The lure of the area's fabulous wealth attracted a remarkably heterogenous population from around the world and offered employment to dozens of trades and thousands of people, both men and women, representing every one of the region's diverse ethnic groups. Ronald James's brilliant account of the Comstock's long and eventful history-the first comprehensive study of the subject in over a century-examines every aspect of the region and employs information gleaned from hundreds of written sources, interviews, archeological research, computer analysis, folklore, gender studies, physical geography, and architectural and art history, as well as over fifty rare photographs, many of them previously unpublished.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

From Storey County's High Victorian Italianate-styled courthouse to Lander County's former schoolhouse, now a Neo-classical courthouse, Temples of Justice provides an architectural history of the courthouses of Nevada. In Nevada's first published architectural history, Temples of Justice treats the state's buildings as a series of documents from the past. Presented collectively the courthouses illustrate the choices and influences that have affected Nevada's communities as the citizens have sought to project an image of themselves and their aspirations through public architecture. The courthouses are important local public facilities, and they provide an excellent opportunity to understand the history of attitudes and tastes in the state.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

From Storey County's High Victorian Italianate-styled courthouse to Lander County's former schoolhouse, now a Neo-classical courthouse, Temples of Justice provides an architectural history of the courthouses of Nevada. In Nevada's first published architectural history, Temples of Justice treats the state's buildings as a series of documents from the past. Presented collectively the courthouses illustrate the choices and influences that have affected Nevada's communities as the citizens have sought to project an image of themselves and their aspirations through public architecture. The courthouses are important local public facilities, and they provide an excellent opportunity to understand the history of attitudes and tastes in the state.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

When it comes to Nevada history, men get most of the ink. Comstock Women is a collection of 14 historical studies that helps to rectify that reality. The authors of these essays, who include some of Nevada's most prominent historians, demographers, and archaeologists, explore such topics as women and politics, jobs, and ethnic groups. Their work goes far in refuting the exaggerated popular images of women in early mining towns as dance hall girls or prostitutes. Relying primarily on newspapers, court decisions, census records, as well as sparse personal diaries and records left by the woman, the essayists have resurrected the lives of the women who lived on the Comstock during the boom years.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. "I Am Afraid We Will Lose All We Have Made": Women's Lives in a Nineteenth-Century Mining Town / C. Elizabeth Raymond
• 2. Women of the Mining West: Virginia City Revisited / Ronald M. James and Kenneth H. Fliess
• 3. Redefining Domesticity: Women and Lodging Houses on the Comstock / Julie Nicoletta
• 4. "They Are Doing So to a Liberal Extent Here Now": Women and Divorce on the Comstock, 1859-1880 / Kathryn Dunn Totton
• 5. The "Secret Friend": Opium in Comstock Society, 1860-1887 / Sharon Lowe
• 6. Creating a Fashionable Society: Comstock Needleworkers from 1860 to 1880 / Janet I. Loverin and Robert A. Nylen
• 7. Mission in the Mountains: The Daughters of Charity in Virginia City / Anne M. Butler
• 8. Divination on Mount Davidson: An Overview of Women Spiritualists and Fortunetellers on the Comstock / Bernadette S. Francke
• 9. "The Advantage of Ladies' Society": The Public Sphere of Women on the Comstock / Anita Ernst Watson, Jean E. Ford and Linda White
• 10. Their Changing World: Chinese Women on the Comstock, 1860-1910 / Sue Fawn Chung
• 11. "And Some of Them Swear Like Pirates": Acculturation of American Indian Women in Nineteenth-Century Virginia City / Eugene M. Hattori
• 12. Erin's Daughters on the Comstock: Building Community / Ronald M. James
• 13. Girls of the Golden West / Andria Daley Taylor
• 14. Gender and Archaeology on the Comstock / Donald L. Hardesty
• App. I. Statistical Profile of Women on the Comstock
• App. II. Birthplace of Females in Storey County, 1860-1910
• App. III. Occupations of Women on the Comstock, 1860-1910.

When it comes to Nevada history, men get most of the ink. Comstock Women is a collection of 14 historical studies that helps to rectify that reality. The authors of these essays, who include some of Nevada's most prominent historians, demographers, and archaeologists, explore such topics as women and politics, jobs, and ethnic groups. Their work goes far in refuting the exaggerated popular images of women in early mining towns as dance hall girls or prostitutes. Relying primarily on newspapers, court decisions, census records, as well as sparse personal diaries and records left by the woman, the essayists have resurrected the lives of the women who lived on the Comstock during the boom years.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

When brothers Ethan and Hosea Grosh left Pennsylvania in 1849, they joined throngs of men from all over the world intent on finding a fortune in the California Gold Rush. Their search for wealth took them from San Francisco into the gold country and then over the Sierra into Nevada's Gold Canyon, where they placer-mined for gold and discovered a deposit of silver. The letters they sent back to their family offer vivid commentaries on the turbulent western frontier, the diverse society of the Gold Rush camps, and the heartbreaking labor and frustration of mining. Their lively descriptions of Gold Canyon provide one of the earliest accounts of life in what would soon become the fabulously wealthy Comstock Mining District. The Groshes' letters are rich in color and important historical details. Generously annotated and with an introduction that provides a context for the brothers' career and the setting in which they tried to make their fortune, these documents powerfully depict the often harsh realities of Gold Rush life and society.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In the words of literary luminaries, newspaper articles, public documents, personal letters, political speeches and personal accounts this is an attempt to define Nevada's colorful and complex development. It describes life in a mining boomtown, racial segregation in Las Vegas, political careers and atomic testing whilst through photographs we are shown significant Nevada architecture, the masterpieces of renowned Paiute basketmaker Dat-so-la-lee and tree carvings by sheepherders. The collection ranges from the earliest descriptions of the region to the current debate on Yucca Mountain.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1
• Beginnings
• 1.

• Captain Nathaniel V. Jones's Report from the Las Vegas Mormon Fort-Mission
• The Gold Hill Record Book
• Congressman James M. Ashley's (R-Ohio) Reasons for Nevada Statehood, 1865
• William M. Ormsby's Letter to Stephen Douglas
• President Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation of Nevada Statehood, 1864
• The Nevada Constitution's Paramount Allegiance Clause
• 4.

• Dan De Quille on Woodcutting in the Sierra Nevada
• Fortune-Telling on the Comstock
• Julia Bulette's Probate Records
• Mark Twain's Description of the Execution of John Millian, 1868
• James Nye's Speech to the First Territorial Legislature
• Frances Fuller Victor's "Nevada"
• 5.

• Mrs. Hugh Brown on Tonopah Housekeeping
• Theodore Roosevelt's Admonition of Governor John T. Sparks
• The Sacramento Bee on George Wingfield
• 7.

• Paul Hutchinson on Nevada Gambling in The Christian Century
• Postcards Promoting Gambling in Nevada
• Images of Nevada Prostitution
• Images from the Johnson-Jeffries Fight
• Postcards Advertising Nevada Divorce
• Postcards Promoting Marriage in Nevada
• Erma O. Godbey on the Construction of Hoover Dam
• 9.

In the words of literary luminaries, newspaper articles, public documents, personal letters, political speeches and personal accounts this is an attempt to define Nevada's colorful and complex development. It describes life in a mining boomtown, racial segregation in Las Vegas, political careers and atomic testing whilst through photographs we are shown significant Nevada architecture, the masterpieces of renowned Paiute basketmaker Dat-so-la-lee and tree carvings by sheepherders. The collection ranges from the earliest descriptions of the region to the current debate on Yucca Mountain.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

When brothers Ethan and Hosea Grosh left Pennsylvania in 1849, they joined throngs of men from all over the world intent on finding a fortune in the California Gold Rush. Their search for wealth took them from San Francisco into the gold country and then over the Sierra into Nevada's Gold Canyon, where they placer-mined for gold and discovered a deposit of silver. The letters they sent back to their family offer vivid commentaries on the turbulent western frontier, the diverse society of the Gold Rush camps, and the heartbreaking labor and frustration of mining. Their lively descriptions of Gold Canyon provide one of the earliest accounts of life in what would soon become the fabulously wealthy Comstock Mining District. The Groshes' letters are rich in color and important historical details. Generously annotated and with an introduction that provides a context for the brothers' career and the setting in which they tried to make their fortune, these documents powerfully depict the often harsh realities of Gold Rush life and society.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)