Bold Spirit : Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America

by Linda Lawrence Hunt

This woman needs to be remembered - another MUST READ! - Jim Winsness

Bold Spirit by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Table of contents

  1. On Foot to New York
  2. Motherhood on a Minnesota Prairie
  3. The Crucible Years
  4. Surprises in Spokane Falls
  5. Frontier Vices and the Move to Mica Creek
  6. Financial Fears and a Family Death
  7. The Wager
  8. Undaunted by Rain, Sleet, and Snow
  9. Hot, Hungry, and Hopeful
  10. Night Terrors
  11. "New Women's" Actions and Old Victorian Attitudes
  12. An Electrifying Presidential Election
  13. Earning Their Own Way
  14. A Rush to the Finish
  15. The Impossible Happens
  16. Heartbreak at the Mica Creek Homestead
  17. Homeward Bound
  18. Lost and Found
  19. A Reflection on the Silencing of Family Stories

Publisher description

In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America.

Hoping to win the wager and save her family’s farm, Helga and her teenaged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara’s curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington. Their route would pass through 14 states, but they were not allowed to carry more than five dollars each.

As they visited Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, remote ranches and local civic leaders, they confronted snowstorms, hunger, thieves and mountain lions with equal aplomb. Their treacherous and inspirational journey to New York challenged contemporary notions of femininity and captured the public imagination. But their trip had such devastating consequences that the Estby women's achievement was blanketed in silence until, nearly a century later, Linda Lawrence Hunt encountered their extraordinary story.

Library of Congress Catalog Record

  • LC Control No.: 2004057372
  • Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
  • Personal Name: Hunt, Linda, 1940-
  • Main Title: Bold spirit : Helga Estby’s forgotten walk across Victorian America / Linda Lawrence Hunt ; foreword by Sue Armitage.
  • Edition Information: 1st Anchor Books ed.
  • Published/Created: New York : Anchor Books, 2005.
  • Description: xvi, 307 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.
  • ISBN: 1400079934
  • Notes: Originally published: Moscow, Idaho : University of Idaho Press, 2003. Includes bibliographical references (p. 285-298) and index.
  • Subjects: Estby, Helga, b. 1860 --Travel --United States. Estby, Clara, b. 1876 --Travel --United States. Walking --United States --History --19th century. Norwegian Americans --Biography. Mothers and daughters --United States --Biography. United States --Description and travel. United States --Social life and customs --1865-1918.
  • LC Classification: E168 .H94 2005
  • Dewey Class No.: 973.8/7/0922 B 22
  • Geographic Area Code: n-us--- Electronic File Information:
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