About this Book
In 1852, 24-year-old Lucy Kendall was a passenger on the Josephine, traveling from New York City around Cape Horn to San Francisco, where her father, one of California's"forty-niners," awaited the arrival of Lucy, her mother, and her younger sister. In this diary, one of only a few by women recounting such a voyage, she describes the hardships and dangers she and her fellow passengers endured. This book has twenty-six black and white illustrations including charming sketches by Lucy and her father, Joseph Kendall.

 

This book, identical in size to Lucy's original journal, has twenty-six black-and-white illustrations, including charming sketches by Lucy and her father. An introduction by historian Andrew Rolle places the journal in its historical context.

About the Author
Amy Requa Russell (1896-1985) was a published poet and a prizewinning playwright.

Andrew Rolle is retired from Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he was Cleland Professor of History.


Notes:
Reviews of Voyage to California:

 

"An informative introduction by historian Andrew Rolle places the journal in its historical context."—Bookwatch

"This volume belongs in the library of every person who has an interest in the California gold rush or in the voyages and journeys of the 19th century."—Richard Hitchcock, California Historian

"The rarity of Lucy [Herrick]'s diary is manifold: It is lively, literate, observant, heartfelt and intimate, a small and tasty bite out of the large, long life of a woman whose adulthood was bookended by two of the chief events in Americanized California: the Gold Rush that brought her west, and the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, which struck two months before she died."—Los Angeles Times

"Lucy Kendall Herrick's account of her voyage from New York around the horn of South America to California is presented in a beautifully appointed publication by the Huntington Library." —Montana: The Magazine of Western History

"From her perspective as a well-bred young woman who had crossed the Atlantic several times, Lucy Kendall's written impressions of the long voyage to California form a sensitive, articulate, and accurate account of life aboard a sailing ship, as well as provide insights into the sea as a harsh physical as well as social milieu. Neither of these themes are commonly explored in the diaries of women. . . . the diary is a significant contribution to our understanding of the long and uncomfortable experience that rounding Cape Horn represented to those who opted for the all-sea route to the gold rush. Similarly, the accompanying notes are a useful commentary on the fortunes of a family whose new life in California more than justified the hardships endured along the way." —Southern California Quarterly