How Did Calamity Jane Work?

Calamity Jane has a reputation for being one of the wildest women in the Old West, but it's hard to separate historical fact from fiction. Learn more about this sharp-shooting adventurer in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/calamity-jane.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogelbaum Here. Calamity Jane, with her reputation for being
one of the most adventurous and foul mouthed women in
the Old West, is the stuff of American legend. She
was known to be a sharpshooter, a whiskey lover, and
an adopter of men's fashion at a time when women

(00:24):
were largely confined to strict codes of conduct. But, as
with many figures from this era, teasing out real detail
from mythologized self marketing and romanticized yellow journalism isn't easy. Today,
let's look into the person behind the tall tale of
Calamity Jane. Calamity Jane was born as Martha Jane Canary

(00:47):
around Princeton, Missouri, in the eighteen fifties. The exact date
is unknown, but some historians think it was in eighteen
fifty six. The family didn't have much money, and around
eighteen sixty five they sold their farm and followed the
promise of the mining boom West with the wagon train
of other settlers. By then, Canary was the oldest of

(01:09):
three two six siblings. Accounts very she spent most of
the five month migration hunting with the men in the caravan.
By the time the group reached their destination, a Virginia City, Montana,
Canary had earned a reputation for being, in her own words,
a remarkable good shot and a fearless rider for a
girl of my age. Sadly, they arrived without Canary's mother.

(01:34):
She had died along the way. Her father passed two
around eighteen sixty seven, leaving Canary to support herself. By
about the age of twelve, her siblings seemed to have
wound up in Utah. She moved on to Wyoming. While
wandering there, she took on a variety of jobs, reportedly
everything from dishwasher, waitress and cook to nurse to dancer.

(01:58):
She may have been a scout for General Custer and
a writer in the Pony Express, at least that's what
she later said in her semi fictional autobiography Life and
Adventures of Calamity. She wrote that by the eighteen seventies
she was quote the most reckless and daring rider and
one of the best shots in the West. It seems

(02:20):
that she may really have been an army scout around
this time, though not for Custer and the Pony Express
stories are unconfirmed. Canary reportedly earned her nickname around eighteen
seventy five during the Newton Jenny Expedition, a scientific party
that set out to map the Black Hills and determine
the quality and quantity of gold there. Apparently, she wandered

(02:43):
off one day, and her fellow party members hoped no
calamity had befallen her. It was with this nickname that
she arrived in Deadwood, South Dakota, in eighteen seventy six,
alongside another much pathologized frontier figure, wild Bill Hiccock. You
may have come in on the same wagon train. They
became friends, though probably not more than friends, as some

(03:07):
stories claim. Their relationship was short lived. In August of
that year, Hickock was shot in the back of the
head by Jack McCall while sitting at a gambling table
in a Deadwood saloon. Canary stayed in Deadwood, prospecting at
mining camps and later nursing residents who fell ill during
the smallpox outbreak. She finally left Deadwood the following year

(03:29):
and traveled around South Dakota taking odd jobs. By this point,
her reputation had made her somewhat of a celebrity, and
magazine editors and dime novel authors were writing increasingly wild
stories about her adventures. In eighteen eighty two, Canary bought
a ranch on the Yellowstone River, but felt fancy within
the year, leaving for California and then moving on to Texas.

(03:52):
She met a man by the name of Clinton Burke
in El Paso, and the two married around eighteen eighty five.
They had a daughter, Jesse Elizabeth, and left Texas for Boulder, Colorado,
when the girl was a toddler. For several years, the
family ran a hotel and then spent time traveling yet
again throughout the Northwest. By eighteen ninety five, Canary realized

(04:14):
she could use her shooting skills to support her family
and joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, performing sharp shooting
tricks on tour around the Midwest, but her drinking habit
cost her the job. She published her autobiography a year later,
then in nineteen oh one, she was hired by the
Pan American Exposition, but once again lost the job due

(04:34):
to her alcohol misuse. Canary moved back to the Black
Hills in nineteen oh three and worked as a cook
and housekeeper in a brothel. She died a few years later,
probably due to issues stemming from her drinking, and was
buried next to Hiccock at Mount Mariah Cemetery. It's tough
to know how many of the details surrounding Canary's life

(04:57):
are true and how many were fabricated, either by the
media or by Canary herself. Even pieces of her personal
life are questionable because there's no existing marriage license confirming
her union with Burke and no birth certificate for her daughter.
In nineteen forty one, a woman claiming to be the
child of Canary and Hiccock came into the public eye,

(05:18):
but her claims were later proven to be false. Canary's
tombstone itself displays what historians have found to be the
incorrect name and birth date for her. Before the article
this episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with
Carolyn Webber, executive director of Deadwood History Incorporated. She said,

(05:38):
Martha Jane Canary or Calamity Jane, is so much more
than her body reputation. She was an unaccompanied young child
and woman in the frontier American West, doing the best
she could with the situations she was handed. She supported
herself at a time when there were limited opportunities for women.

(06:00):
Today's episode is based on the article Calamity Jane Roadhard
drank even harder and became a Wild West legend on
how Stuffworks dot Com, written by Michelle Constantinofsky. Brain Stuff
is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot
Com and is produced by Tyler Klang and Ramsey Young.
Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app,
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