Libby: The Alaskan Diaries and Letters of Libby Beaman 1879-1880 by Libby Beaman , Betty John

genre: nonfiction memoir

Libby Beaman is the daughter of a well-connected Washington DC family. After her youth is disrupted by the horrors of the Civil War, finding work in the aftermath proves to be another challenge. Thus, when there is a chance for Libby's husband to have a stable job, she encourages him to take it, even though that job is on the unthinkably remote Alaskan Pribilof Islands, newly acquired by the United States from Russia.  Not only that but she packs up her skirts and joins him, despite everyone's insistence that she stay home. This book is a collection of her diary and letters, a memoir of place never before seen by an American woman.

It is amazing, the books I find at the thrift store. What a story! Libby Beaman is a fiercely independent woman who also, you can see in her writing, knows she is a pawn in a man's game. With society's expectations in her mind of what a good Victorian lady ought to be, she can look the part but she has a hard time playing it! The things she experiences in Alaska are fascinating and harrowing. I hadn't anticipated learning so much about the life cycle of seals but if you are an animal lover, this book might be hard to read. The job her husband is there to do, overseeing the seal pelt harvesting, is such a bloody, stinking job. And there's really nowhere that Libby can go to escape it - or her husband's boss - who is his own problem.

She definitely sees herself as a proper American and that the indigenous people whose island she now lived on are backwards natives who not only were "uncivilized" but also had been influenced by the Russians for years. Her feelings of cultural superiority are sometimes very glaring, which is not surprising.  But you can see her learning and trying too. I like how this book is both her diary and her letters - you get her brutal honesty in the diary and then you can see how she tells family back home, making it all so much more smooth and chill than real life. I try to imagine BEING her. She was a real woman, living in this real place where you are iced in for MONTHS. She was a witness to a changeover in national loyalty, with old customs slowly being meshed into new.

This is one of the best memoirs/diaries I have read. Libby had an incredibly unique experience and I'm so glad she took the time to write it down.