Friday, May 22, 2015

SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED -- Meg Mims



LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN THE OLD WEST

June is coming upon us in a few months, along with the season for weddings -- which got me to thinking. Just how common were mail order brides in the Old West?

Think about the issue this way. After the Civil War, widows and young women outnumbered eligible men in the East. And out west, eligible men vastly outnumbered the few women who'd already followed the call of the gold fields.




So yes. The newspapers had a field day with advertisements for brides willing to travel west, the mail thrummed back and forth between eager bachelors and respectable (or not so respectable, depending on the situation) ladies in small towns out east. Like the internet today, both sides often "doctored" descriptions and/or photographs in hopes of snagging a partner. Disappointment often reigned, of course, and at times men waited in vain for a promised bride - who turned in the ticket for money instead of undertaking a journey. Some newspapers printed notices such as these.




And who doesn't love the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Adam seeks a bride one day in town, snags Millie by pure luck - who envisions a wonderful life with the handsome, sweet talking backwoodsman, but ends up being cook, maid and teacher-of-manners to his six brothers. They soon want their own brides, of course. It's pure fun, and the barn dance is the best part.




In the 1860s, Asa Mercer promised to import women of marriageable age to Seattle - and that history inspired the popular television show, Here Come the Brides (along with the film Seven Brides/Seven Brothers). A set of three brothers bet their tract of timber against the sawmill owner's offer to fund the expenses; the businessman has eyes on that land and timber, of course, while the Bolt brothers have a difficult time convincing the women of Massachusetts to leave home. It's more pure fun, and inspired lots of young girls in their teens to worship at the feet of Bobby Sherman and David Soul. Oh yeah.




Okay, back to the mail order brides issue. Fred Harvey himself played matchmaker, hiring single women "of good character" who could work  in his cafes along the railroad. The businessman kept strict standards, however, that the women must work as waitresses for a year; they were chaperoned while men visited in special "courting" parlors, and had to live in special dormitories. Between 4,000 and 5,000 women ended up marrying by first working as Harvey Girls. This also spawned the Judy Garland hit, The Harvey Girls. While the plot seems silly, they did get the uniform right.




Some immigrants also utilized ways of procuring brides, either through letters or matchmakers. Russian men paid fees to obtain potential wives, steeped in tradition from their old homes; Chinese and Japanese did the same, asking their parents to act as brokers to get a bride, sight unseen or via a blurry photograph. Such pressure from parents sent Asian women across the ocean, or else chose to escape starving to death. The recent TV mini-series, Broken Trail, starred Robert Duvall and Thomas Hayden Church and wove a group of Chinese women brought over as brides - or so they believed.




The theme of mail order brides remains popular in novels. Do a search on Amazon or B&N using that keyword, and you can scroll through 100 pages of offerings. One anthology includes our own Western Fictioneers member Cheryl Pierson in Lassoing a Mail Order Bride - published by Prairie Rose Publications - which sounds really interesting. "A woman would have to be loco to become a mail-order bride... wouldn't she? Leaving everything behind and starting fresh in the untamed west is the answer to a prayer for these ladies!" Check it out.





I used the offer of a train ticket, the promise of a wedding, a nice house with husband and family, as a subplot for a minor female character in  Double Crossing. Check out my novel if you haven't read my western historical mystery with the "True Grit on a train" major theme.




Mail order brides are not a thing of the past. And the tradition continues, not surprisingly. Where there's a need, there's a way to fill it...








Mystery author Meg Mims earned a Spur Award from WWA and also a Laramie award for her western historical mystery series, Double Crossing and Double or Nothing. Meg is also one-half of the writing team of D.E. Ireland for St. Martin's Minotaur mystery series featuring Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins -- lives in Southeastern Michigan with her husband and a sweet Malti-poo. She loves writing novels, novellas and short stories, both contemporary and historical. 
Follow her on FacebookTwitter & Pinterest!


13 comments:

  1. This was a fun to read article, Ms. Meg Mims.

    I also wandered into this subject matter by writing my own book MAIL ORDER BRIDE---years ago, but never got around to editing it. Now I see I will have to add something to the title as there are so many books written with just that name. When and if I ever get it edited.

    Looks like a Harvey girl was a WESTERN man's best bet!

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    1. Indeed, Charlie! Harvey sure had the right idea.

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  2. Great job, Meg. i like your books better than "7 Brides...."! ;-) Just another warning, but your characters in "Double Crossing" are about to come alive again on June 15, when "Chief of Thieves", Sunstone Press comes out and your Lily and her pals meet my Lily and hers on the streets of August 26, 1869 Cheyenne (p. 255).
    Good job, this is a great article, Meg.

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    1. Thanks, Steve! Sounds cool -- Lilies in the Cheyenne streets!

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    2. Cute! How about Lilies in the Chugwater Valley!

      :-)

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  3. A fun post, Meg. If Judge Arbuckle's order stood today, there would be an alarming number of marriage annulments.

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  4. Mail order brides is a favorite topic of mine -- esp. since mia nonna was a mail order bride in 1900. She came from Naples to marry my grandfather who had come to America from near Florence (Pistoia). She was legally blind and dirt poor.

    BTW, Gwendoline Yeo (who played in Broken Trail) was the lead in my niece's film 'HEATHENS AND THIEVES' that will be premiered at the Women Writing the West conference in Bend, Oregon, in October. Gwendoline won two best actress awards for her role in H&T and the film won six best feature awards, as well.

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    1. Neat story about your nonna - definitely write it. Great info about Gwendolyn, congrats to her!!

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  5. You gotta love women taking a chance. Whether it was to get out of a situation or to find independence and even love, Mail Order Brides are fun to write about. Great post. Love both Seven Brides and Here Come the Brides. I've had the privilege of meeting cast members so your post gave me a huge smile today. Thank you.

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    1. How awesome to meet the cast members! Lucky you, Nancy!

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  6. Meg,

    Mail-order bride stories have so many possibilities. A movie (it was also a story) that comes to mind when I think mail-order bride is "Zandy's Bride" with Gene Hackman and Liv Ullman. Gene's character was such a jacka**, and he played it well.

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    1. Oooh, I will have to look that one up. Love Gene Hackman. Thanks, Kaye! I loved Going South with Mary Steenburgen and Jack Nicholson, where it's a twist in a way on the theme - she saves him from the noose if he agrees to work for her/be her "husband". Fun!

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