In, Out, and Beyond: Dislocation, Contamination and the Redemptive Power of Womanhood in California, In-doors and Out by Eliza W. Farnham, 185

Abstract

In 1856, the New York-based Dix, Edwards & Co. published a book on California which received many favorable reviews, both in the eastern cities and on the newly-settled western coast. 1 In January 1857, the Hutchings California Magazine recommended California In-doors and Out; or, How we Farm, Mine, and Live generally in the Golden State for its style and its illuminating treatment of a wide array of subjects:The volume before us is descriptive of adventure, climate, scenery, soil, population and production, mining, farming, grape growing, gardening, milling, ranching and dreaming-of men and women, their education, pursuits, social habits, and condition, of what they have been, are or can be. In fact, of almost everything that is interesting in, and to Californians, from digging gold to raising calves; not omitting some suggestions of improvement to men and women. It is an interesting book, fluently and pleasingly written and we commend it to our readers. It is, moreover, the first book that has been written in, or concerning California, by a lady. 2 2 This "lady" was no anonymous pioneer. Although her name may no longer sound familiar today, Eliza W. Farnham was a popular writer as well as a celebrated and controversial reformer in the nineteenth century. By the late 1840s, she was known as the author of a book on early Illinois and the bold matron of Sing Sing prison, where she had introduced original reforms based on phrenology. 3 After the death of her husband Thomas Farnham, she decided to migrate to California, where Thomas had bought land.