Apr 7 Chautauqua at Museum of the Horse

Calamity Jane Talks to Tourists

Sat, Apr 7, 2018, 11:30am - 12:30pm

Museum of the Horse
26301 U.S. 70, Ruidoso Downs, NM
(you probably have to pay museum entrance fee, unless you are a member or student member- a benefit while taking Dr. Cynthia E. Orozco's history classes at ENMU-Ruidoso)

Martha Cannary, aka Calamity Jane, as portrayed by Leslie Joy Coleman, was a well-known and significant historical figure who came to fame (or infamy) during the transition from the 'old west' to a more civilized time. She deeply resented the constraints that society placed on women. "Men had the power and they wanted control, but I wanted to control myself..." Judgmental writers have enjoyed casting stones, describing her as a drunken harridan, a disgrace to womankind. Defenders cite her kindness and maintain she managed to stay sober for periods of time when volunteering her services as an unpaid nurse. Even her most severe critics credit her with caring for miners quarantined during a Deadwood smallpox epidemic and for children or adults stricken with diphtheria, mountain fever and other diseases. Calamity was a product of the wild and woolly west. She was not immoral; but unmoral. With her upbringing, how could she be anything but unmoral. She was one of the frontier types and she had all the merits and most of their faults.