Letters from the Southwest - Hardcover

Lummis, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816510393 ISBN 13: 9780816510399

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 1989

Synopsis

In the fall of 1884, journalist Charles Lummis set out on foot from Ohio to California on assignment for the Los Angeles Times. The reports he mailed ahead to that newspaper were later refashioned for the book A Tramp Across the Continent, a work that helped to establish Lummis as the most active promoter of Southwestern culture who ever lived.

Lummis wrote another set of letters during his journey, however, which he sent back to Ohio for publication by the Chillicothe Leader. Although these letters contain basically the same narrative as those sent to Los Angeles and later found in A Tramp, the Ohio letters more closely reflect the author’s thoughts and observations while on the journey. In fact, a comparison of the two drafts indicates that Lummis spent considerable effort removing spontaneous details from the Ohio letters in favor or a more commercial, self-promoting, and politic reporting for the California paper.

The twenty-four Ohio letters, assembled here by James W. Byrkit, offer a far more candid look at the Southwest than Lummis was later to bring to print, as well as greater insight into the author’s own personality. Byrkit’s introductory essay provides the background for Lummis’s career, compares the three bodies of work relating to the trek, and offers an account of Lummis’s transformation from chronicler to promoter.

About this title

About the Author

James W. Byrkit is on the faculty of Northern Arizona University and is the author of Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona’s Labor-Management War of 1901–1921. He began his research on the life of Charles Lummis in 1956, and during the centennial of the “tramp” toured the cities on Lummis’s route with a multi-media program commemorating the trip.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816510393
• ISBN 13: 9780816510399
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 309
• Editor: Byrkit James W.