UBC: Doc Holliday
Mar. 19th, 2010 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyRoberts, Gary L. Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006.
This is the biography of a man who left no account of himself in his own words, which means it as much a book about "Doc Holliday" as it is about John Henry Holliday, D.D.S. Possibly slightly more. Given the inevitable constraints of its subject matter, I think it is an excellent book and excellent biography (the two overlap, but are not necessarily the same); Roberts is very careful about distinguishing between facts, fiction, and the stuff in the mushy area in-between. He's also very good about pointing out things we want to be true, such as the legend of the romance between Doc and his cousin Mattie (later Sister Mary Melanie), or the even more unsupported legend that Kate Elder nursed Doc on his deathbed.
I am furious at Mattie's sister Marie, who burned Doc's letters; in "protecting" her sister, she destroyed what seems to have been history's only chance to see John Henry Holliday without the obscuring lens of other peoples' agendas. (Which is not to say the letters wouldn't have been colored by his own agenda, but at least the coloration in that case would be intrinsic.) From Perry Mallon to Bat Masterton to Wyatt Earp to Mary Katharine Cummings (assuming that she was, in fact, Kate Elder, as Roberts does and I find myself inclined to agree), everyone who spoke about Doc at any length had a blatant agenda of his or her own; mostly these agendas are transparent (except for Bat Masterson, about whom I find myself thinking, wtf?) and mostly they are about saving the speaker's reputation at Doc's expense. (Wyatt and Kate, I am looking AT YOU.) Mallon, of course, is entirely self-serving and made of lies, but Roberts shows his part in creating the legend of Doc Holliday--it's kind of scary, actually, to see how, once something has been said, no amount of debunking or disproving can make it go away entirely.
The description that sums Doc up for me is this one, which Roberts attributes to Lee Smith: "He did not have a quarrelsome disposition, but managed to get into more difficulties than almost any man I ever saw" (379). It's hard not to become partisan; Doc Holliday was not a good man, but he seems to have been striving to be the best man he could be under the rotten circumstances he found himself in. This quality makes him show up well against not only the Cow-Boys (especially Ike Clanton), but also against the self-serving revisionism of Wyatt Earp and Kate Elder. Of course, we can't know what Doc would have said if he'd lived longer, but I tend to think that, while it might not have been strictly truthful, it would have been honest.
Adams, Ramon F. A Fitting Death for Billy the Kid. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.
Bailey, Lynn R. "Too Tough To Die": The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Silver Camp, 1878 to 1990. Tucson, AZ: Westernlore, 2004.
Brown, Richard Maxwell. No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Caldwell, Mark. The Last Crusade: The War on Consumption, 1862-1954. New York: Atheneum, 1988.
Cresswell, Stephen. Mormons, Cowboys, Moonshiners, and Klansmen: Federal Law Enforcement in the South and West, 1870-1893. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991.
Dormandy, Thomas. The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Ehle, John. The Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Fabian, Ann. Card Sharps, Dream Books, and Bucket Shops: Gambling in 19th-Century America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Hoig, Stan. Night of the Cruel Moon: Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears. New York: Facts on File, 1996.
Maddux, Vernon R. In Dull Knife's Wake: The True Story of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878. Norman, OK: Horse Creek, 2003
Monnett, John H. Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyenne. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
McKanna, Jr., Clare V. Homicide, Race, and Justice in the American West, 1880-1920. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996.
Perdue, Theda, and Michael D. Greene, eds. The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
Roberts, Gary L. Death Comes for the Chief Justice: The Slough-Ryerson Quarrel and Political Violence in New Mexico. Niwot: University Press of New Mexico, 1990.
Rothman, Sheila M. Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History. New York: Basic, 1994.
Sherman, James E., and Barbara H. Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico. Norman: University of New Mexico Press, 1975.
Shillingberg, William B. Tombstone, A. T.: A History of Early Mining, Milling, and Mayhem. Spokane, WA: Clark, 1999.
Slotkin, Richard. The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890. New York, Atheneum, 1985.
---
*Sadly, the Robert Chambers who ghost-wrote Wyatt Earp's articles for the San Francisco Examiner cannot have been the Robert W. Chambers who wrote The King in Yellow, but I really like the AU in which he was.
This is the biography of a man who left no account of himself in his own words, which means it as much a book about "Doc Holliday" as it is about John Henry Holliday, D.D.S. Possibly slightly more. Given the inevitable constraints of its subject matter, I think it is an excellent book and excellent biography (the two overlap, but are not necessarily the same); Roberts is very careful about distinguishing between facts, fiction, and the stuff in the mushy area in-between. He's also very good about pointing out things we want to be true, such as the legend of the romance between Doc and his cousin Mattie (later Sister Mary Melanie), or the even more unsupported legend that Kate Elder nursed Doc on his deathbed.
I am furious at Mattie's sister Marie, who burned Doc's letters; in "protecting" her sister, she destroyed what seems to have been history's only chance to see John Henry Holliday without the obscuring lens of other peoples' agendas. (Which is not to say the letters wouldn't have been colored by his own agenda, but at least the coloration in that case would be intrinsic.) From Perry Mallon to Bat Masterton to Wyatt Earp to Mary Katharine Cummings (assuming that she was, in fact, Kate Elder, as Roberts does and I find myself inclined to agree), everyone who spoke about Doc at any length had a blatant agenda of his or her own; mostly these agendas are transparent (except for Bat Masterson, about whom I find myself thinking, wtf?) and mostly they are about saving the speaker's reputation at Doc's expense. (Wyatt and Kate, I am looking AT YOU.) Mallon, of course, is entirely self-serving and made of lies, but Roberts shows his part in creating the legend of Doc Holliday--it's kind of scary, actually, to see how, once something has been said, no amount of debunking or disproving can make it go away entirely.
The description that sums Doc up for me is this one, which Roberts attributes to Lee Smith: "He did not have a quarrelsome disposition, but managed to get into more difficulties than almost any man I ever saw" (379). It's hard not to become partisan; Doc Holliday was not a good man, but he seems to have been striving to be the best man he could be under the rotten circumstances he found himself in. This quality makes him show up well against not only the Cow-Boys (especially Ike Clanton), but also against the self-serving revisionism of Wyatt Earp and Kate Elder. Of course, we can't know what Doc would have said if he'd lived longer, but I tend to think that, while it might not have been strictly truthful, it would have been honest.
Adams, Ramon F. A Fitting Death for Billy the Kid. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.
Bailey, Lynn R. "Too Tough To Die": The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Silver Camp, 1878 to 1990. Tucson, AZ: Westernlore, 2004.
Brown, Richard Maxwell. No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Caldwell, Mark. The Last Crusade: The War on Consumption, 1862-1954. New York: Atheneum, 1988.
Cresswell, Stephen. Mormons, Cowboys, Moonshiners, and Klansmen: Federal Law Enforcement in the South and West, 1870-1893. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991.
Dormandy, Thomas. The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Ehle, John. The Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Fabian, Ann. Card Sharps, Dream Books, and Bucket Shops: Gambling in 19th-Century America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Hoig, Stan. Night of the Cruel Moon: Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears. New York: Facts on File, 1996.
Maddux, Vernon R. In Dull Knife's Wake: The True Story of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878. Norman, OK: Horse Creek, 2003
Monnett, John H. Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyenne. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
McKanna, Jr., Clare V. Homicide, Race, and Justice in the American West, 1880-1920. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996.
Perdue, Theda, and Michael D. Greene, eds. The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
Roberts, Gary L. Death Comes for the Chief Justice: The Slough-Ryerson Quarrel and Political Violence in New Mexico. Niwot: University Press of New Mexico, 1990.
Rothman, Sheila M. Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History. New York: Basic, 1994.
Sherman, James E., and Barbara H. Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico. Norman: University of New Mexico Press, 1975.
Shillingberg, William B. Tombstone, A. T.: A History of Early Mining, Milling, and Mayhem. Spokane, WA: Clark, 1999.
Slotkin, Richard. The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890. New York, Atheneum, 1985.
---
*Sadly, the Robert Chambers who ghost-wrote Wyatt Earp's articles for the San Francisco Examiner cannot have been the Robert W. Chambers who wrote The King in Yellow, but I really like the AU in which he was.
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