In Women of the Colorado Gold Rush Era, authors J.v.L. Bell and Jan Gunia present the lives of ten unforgettable women who called Colorado home during the turbulent years of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. The collection of biographies reveals the heroism of Native American, Hispanic, Anglo, and African American women whose perseverance, hard work, and wisdom helped lay the foundation for the state of Colorado. In their presentations (usually in PowerPoint format), the authors discuss their reasons for writing the work, their methods of research, an overview of Colorado pioneer women’s lives, and the highlights of two or more of the biographies.
BIOS:
J.v.L. Bell has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University and an M.A. from Colorado School of Mines. She loves writing and researching Colorado history, and in 2015 she left engineering and sold her first Colorado historical mystery, The Lucky Hat Mine, to the Hansen Publishing Group. Women of the Colorado Gold Rush Era is her fifth publication. She lives in Westcliffe.
Jan Gunia, a Colorado native, has a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is a member of Kappa Tau Alpha, the national honor society for journalism and mass communication. Her passion for nineteenth century Colorado women’s history began in elementary school and continues to this day. Her extensive research of Colorado pioneers has taken her beyond Colorado to Maine and Kansas, where she visited Augusta Tabor’s former home and the Tabor land, respectively. She lives in Broomfield with her husband and Boston Terrier.