Annie Kennedy Bidwell: An Intimate History

Over the past few decades, thanks to a new generation of historians, our sense of just exactly who were the Founders of nineteenth-century American California has been significantly enlarged and enhanced. With the publication of this meticulously researched and elegantly written biography, what many of us have long suspected now stands clear: namely, that Annie Kennedy Bidwell - in her concern for civilized and humane values and her willingness to put such values into practice - ranks among the great women of California in the nineteenth century. Like her husband, Annie Bidwell was a Founder. Historian Lois Halliday McDonald has recovered for us the splendor and moral purpose of an engaged and value-oriented American life.