Wpl Life on Oregon Trail

by Gary L. Blackwood

Book Overview

Describes how people traveling on the Oregon Trail lived, discussing their reasons for going west, modes of transportation, interaction with the Indians, and activities on the Trail. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560065400
• ISBN13: 9781560065401
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Lucent Books
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.8" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 10 to 13 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 8

Customer Reviews

The Great American Adventure

This is an interesting and well-balanced account of the huge westward migration overland to Oregon and California c. 1843-69. Like all the series, it's well buttressed with contemporary quotes and illustrations, along with numerous sidebars, and provides an excellent introduction to the subject. And it includes a number of facts that I had never encountered before, such as the "Nineteenth-Century 'Bumper Stickers'" squib on p. 26, the Mormon Trail (on the north bank of the Platte) offering less river crossings than the regular trail, the number of jumping-off points and their various advantages, the makeup of wagon trains (i.e., the derivation of the people), and that as many as 10% of all 1841 movers eventually turned back (or, presumably, stopped and squatted), a number that I suspect remained more or less constant throughout the period. Particularly good is the book's overview of the Indian situation: generally peaceful through the '40's, somewhat iffier by 1851, and featuring full-scale raids on wagon trains by 1862. (One emigrant recalls how "an Indian chief" and several of his braves dived into the river and "made every possible exertion" to recover her father's body after he was swept downstream, though they failed to get it.) There also seem to be fewer errors of fact (as measured against my findings over 40-odd years of study) in this volume than in some others in the series. Author Blackwood quotes Jesse Applegate, a well-known emigrant, as saying that "Emigrants were hungry all the time," and attributes this fact to shortage of game, without stopping to think that the dry, fresh prairie air and the unusual exertions connected with westering may have increased their appetites; and he states that "For an Indian, a mule was almost as good a catch as a horse," a point on which authorities seem to differ depending partly on the tribe involved. On the whole, however, I would definitely recommend the book to young (and adult) students curious about the westward migration.

Life on the Oregon Trail

"Life on the Oregon Trail" is one of the series "The Way People Live", telling events of historical significance written in prose format. Readers will identify with the families as they begin to make decisions of right and wrong in preparation for the trip from East to West in the 1840s-1850s. Details of required items are given in a format of actual reports to allow the reader to feel involved rather than to be reading "just a history" book. Pen and ink drawings throughout help give a visual image to the facts presented for those who chose to move to Oregon Country. Actual traveler accounts are included with background supporting information to help the reader feel the excitement, fear, expense, and futility of these brave souls. Written in a chapter format, with footnotes, bibliography and index, this book would be of great help to classroom teachers either as a resource for information or to be read to children. Young adults studying the Oregon Trail history will find this a useful book to support their studies.