Eliza W. Farnham

Eliza W. Farnham had already developed a strong will for a woman of her day long before she set out for California. From 1844 through 1848, she had served as a matron in the female unit at New York's Sing Sing prison, where she gained a reputation as a reformer. Soon after her discharge from that post, she learned that her husband, who had journeyed to California without her, had died there.

Needing to travel to California to settle his affairs, Farnham organized a group of single, educated women to make the trip with her to the Golden State. In her book California Indoors and Out: How We Farm, Mine, and Live Generally in the Golden State, Farnham recounts the nerveracking voyage around the Horn of South America, her experiences on her husband's Santa Cruz farm, and mining life during...