On April 30, 1849, Sarah Bayliss Royce, along with her husband, Josiah, and their daughter, Mary, left her home in Tipton, Iowa, and headed for California in a covered wagon. Along the way, she kept a diary which, nearly thirty years later, served as the basis for a memoir she titled Across the Plains. That book has been freshly transcribed by Jennifer Dawes Adkison from Royce’s original handwritten document, and this new edition is faithful to the original, restoring several passages that were omitted from the previous edition.

In a new introduction Adkison reveals Across the Plains to be far more than a simple narrative of one pioneer woman’s journey west. She explains that Royce wrote the book at the request of her son, Josiah Royce, a well-known professor of philosophy at Harvard University with motives of his own. She crafted the narrative that her son wanted: an argument for spiritual faith and fortitude as foundational to California’s history. Yet the narrative itself, in addition to offering a window into a world that has long lacked close documentation, gives us the opportunity to study the ways in which nineteenth-century western women asserted this primacy of faith and crafted their experience into stories with larger cultural and social resonance.

Scholars have long used Across the Plains to mold and support an iconic image of the resolute pioneer woman. However, until now no one has considered Royce’s own self-conscious creation of this persona. Readers will discover that in many ways, Sarah Royce’s careful construction of this cultural portrait deepens our respect for her and our delight in her travels, travails, and triumphs.

Sarah Bayliss Royce, along with her husband, Josiah, and their daughter, Mary, left her home in 1849 and headed for California in a covered wagon. Along the way, she kept a diary which, nearly thirty years later, served as the basis for a memoir she titled Across the Plains.

Jennifer Dawes Adkison is an associate professor of English at Idaho State University. She has published essays on depictions of western women in contemporary novels and on the nineteenth-century nature writer Susan Fenimore Cooper. She received her Ph.D. in 2001 from University of Nevada, Reno, where she studied in the Literature and Environment Program.

"This volume is intriguing to contemplate and a vital piece of the story as we continually seek to understand the impact of the western frontier in the development of the American character." —The Chronicles of Oklahoma

“Across the Plains is a welcome contribution to the growing literature on women’s personal accounts and observations in California during the Gold Rush.” —Patti Loughlin, author of Hidden Treasures of the American West

“Royce reveals fear, discomfort, anxiety, and excitement regarding the environment and her place within it.” —Sandra Schackel, author of Western Women’s Lives: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century