Biography & Autobiography

A Colorado favorite, Tomboy Bride presents the first-hand account of a young pioneer woman and her life in a rough and tumble mining town of the Old West.

In 1906 at the age of twenty, Harriet Fish hopped on a train from Oakland, California, to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in search of a new life as the bride of assayer George Backus. Together, the couple ventured forth to discover mining town life at the turn of the twentieth century, adjusting to dizzying elevation heights of 11,500 feet and all the hardships that come with it: limited water, rationed food supplies, lack of medical care, difficulty in travel, avalanches, and many more. As she and George move from Telluride’s Tomboy Mine to the rugged coast of British Columbia, to the town of Elk City, Idaho, and then back to Colorado’s Leadville, Harriet paints a poignant picture of a world centered around mining, sharing amusing and often challenging experiences as a woman of the era.

With a new foreword by award-winning author Pam Houston, this 50th anniversary edition also includes previously unpublished black and white photographs documenting Harriet's journey. Tomboy Bride endures as a classic of the region to this day as it captures in heart-felt emotion and vivid detail the personal account of Harriet Backus, a true pioneer of the West.

A Colorado favorite, Tomboy Bride presents the first-hand account of a young pioneer woman and her life in a rough and tumble mining town of the Old West.

In 1906 at the age of twenty, Harriet Fish hopped on a train from Oakland, California, to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in search of a new life as the bride of assayer George Backus. Together, the couple ventured forth to discover mining town life at the turn of the twentieth century, adjusting to dizzying elevation heights of 11,500 feet and all the hardships that come with it: limited water, rationed food supplies, lack of medical care, difficulty in travel, avalanches, and many more. As she and George move from Telluride’s Tomboy Mine to the rugged coast of British Columbia, to the town of Elk City, Idaho, and then back to Colorado’s Leadville, Harriet paints a poignant picture of a world centered around mining, sharing amusing and often challenging experiences as a woman of the era.

With a new foreword by award-winning author Pam Houston, this 50th anniversary edition also includes previously unpublished black and white photographs documenting Harriet's journey. Tomboy Bride endures as a classic of the region to this day as it captures in heart-felt emotion and vivid detail the personal account of Harriet Backus, a true pioneer of the West.

To know the story of the life and times of Judge Gilbert Merritt is to understand modern U.S. politics of the mid to late 20th century—how it came to be, and how it worked—particularly in the American South.

Judge Gilbert Merritt and his circle of young lawyers and journalists in Nashville were among the South’s earliest Kennedy Democrats in the late 1950s. Their brash political strivings, though not always victorious at the polls, affected the shape of many things, including the rise of modern Nashville.

As a young legal scholar in his twenties, Merritt was one of the nation’s youngest U.S. Attorneys (appointed by President Johnson); candidate for Congress; opponent of the death penalty; President Carter’s nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and almost a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

This social biography is a graduate course in Southern political history, and how that history is much more than campaigns and elections. It depicts a much deeper weave of the power of friendship and loyalty, the influence of history upon individuals and generations, and of how communities of interest formed and evolved over time in our nation—and of how it is all connected.

To know the story of the life and times of Judge Gilbert Merritt is to understand modern U.S. politics of the mid to late 20th century—how it came to be, and how it worked—particularly in the American South.

Judge Gilbert Merritt and his circle of young lawyers and journalists in Nashville were among the South’s earliest Kennedy Democrats in the late 1950s. Their brash political strivings, though not always victorious at the polls, affected the shape of many things, including the rise of modern Nashville.

As a young legal scholar in his twenties, Merritt was one of the nation’s youngest U.S. Attorneys (appointed by President Johnson); candidate for Congress; opponent of the death penalty; President Carter’s nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and almost a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

This social biography is a graduate course in Southern political history, and how that history is much more than campaigns and elections. It depicts a much deeper weave of the power of friendship and loyalty, the influence of history upon individuals and generations, and of how communities of interest formed and evolved over time in our nation—and of how it is all connected.