The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West

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the book was o. k. for one reading, too much of the book was about the gold rush, I wanted to know more about the Poker Bride.

The Poker Bride is a somewhat loosely based book on the life and times of Polly Bemis, a Chinese girl who arrived in Idaho during the gold rush years of the mid-19th century and lived there until her death during the first half of the 20th century. What the book really is, however, is a short history of Chinese immigration to the American West during this same period. What most people remember, if anything, about this period is the great contribution of the Chinese to the building of the transcontinental railway. That at least is my case. So far as I was aware, the huge influx of labor from Asia had been the product of the demand for it on the railroad. What I had not known was the potency of the call of the gold fields starting with the Sutter's Mill discovery in 1848.

Although I found the narrative thread of the book a little convoluted and at times a little repetitive, I think Mr. Corbett's book is a remarkable compendium of information. His selection of a quotation from G. K. Chesterton--one of my favorite authors and author of one of my favorite poems--is very apt here, and explains the problem exactly. "I will not say that this story is true: because, as you will soon see, it is all truth and no story. It has no explanation and no conclusion; it is, like most of the other things we encounter in life, a fragment of something else which would be intensely exciting if it were not too large to be seen....(The Secret of the Train)." To a certain extent it is the author's responsibility to pull the story out of the morass of information so it can be viewed critically by the reader; admittedly however, doing so would have pulled it from context and skewed the meaning of the actual events. I applaud the author for not giving in to the "story" but remaining true to the "history." This has to have been difficult for him, since he obviously has a story telling predilection.

There appear to be three--probably more--threads to The Poker Bride. First and foremost there is the story of the Bride herself. While there is no doubt she existed--contemporaries who knew her had been interviewed, photos exist of her, and some paperwork exists for her--there is little beyond the sketchily known events of her later life and what she said of her earlier life that goes beyond her mere existence in history. Essentially she is part reality and part myth, and the reader is allowed to decide what to believe. More than anything it is the author who, by creating an historical backdrop for Polly, gives her simple bare bones existence a significance beyond the simple documentation.

The second thread of The Poker Bride is what actually does this. Mr. Corbett has drawn as much data as possible to the recreation of the Chinese experience in the American West. By gleaning information from Western newspapers, personal accounts, and oral history drawn from those who had participated in the events, the author has given as much of an account of the Chinese immigration to pre-statehood California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming as is probably possible. As he notes in the context of the work, very few of these immigrants were literate, so records of their adventures are few to absent. Furthermore, few of the literate in this country were interested in recording the unvarnished experiences of these foreigners with the people they encountered here, the notable exceptions being Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Additionally most of the Chinese who came here to work or to mine for gold returned home, if at all possible, taking whatever stories regarding their experiences here with them. Some of these stories appear to have been collected from China either from the returning sojourners themselves for from those who had known them. (It would appear to be a popular topic for MA and PhD dissertations for ethnically Chinese students, which shows the value of checking university libraries for these sources of information!)

The third thread of the book is the female--in this case mostly the Chinese female--experience in the American West. I hold as quite apt the author's description of the environment and the times of the Gold Rush years as "bachelor" societies. The rigor, the risks, and the lifestyle of the Gold Rush years had the tendency to winnow the overall society--that is the rest of the entire world--in favor of the young, healthy male. This incredible state of social imbalance had a very expectable outcome.

If one could imagine putting all males from the age of 15 to 30 in a particular quarter of any large city without any supervision whatsoever, no law other than their own, and one overreaching goal of becoming wealthy, one might get a pretty good idea of what life in the old West during the Gold Rush years was like. The demands and interests of this segment of society, combined with the willingness and ability to pay whatever was necessary to acquire it, will also give one a very clear idea of the types of "black market" activity that would arise to supply it and the great difficulty and cost that would be required to suppress it--let alone the level of graft and corruption that would arise from doing so. In many ways, it is the same system of supply and demand that makes the attempt to suppress drugs, their use and sale, an almost hopeless endeavor.

In any case like this demand creates a market, and suppliers arise. Any attempt to suppress the market also increases the stress of demand, thereby increasing the price of the item in demand. This in turn makes the risks inherent with supplying it that much more worthwhile to undertake, and means an even greater effort to undertake supply will be made. Any attempts to prevent it will increase the violence associated with protecting it--both from those who wish to suppress it and from those who wish to take it over from those already controlling it. This whole scenario--minus the violence, perhaps--can be found in any textbook on economics, which illustrates it with simple graphs called "supply and demand curves."

The lucrative benefits to those in recognized positions of influence for turning a blind eye to the activity will also increase and ensure that at least some will succumb. By virtue of the great fortunes to be made by this avenue with virtually no investment or effort, society's official law enforcement will start to crumble. Those who have become involved in the graft begin to ensure that only those who will cooperate are able to obtain office. Efforts by a jaded society to change this situation will be met with threats and violence against "clean" candidates, making it difficult to change anything.

Meanwhile society, unable to do anything at all to prevent the victimization of individuals hurt by the illicit activity, responds by making the victims the cause of their own dilemma. People begin to label these individuals as "hopeless," "debauched," "morally unfit," "strange outsiders" or simply stupid and therefore amusing. All of which were applied to the Chinese who were victimized by the society of the "Old West."

The fact that the "peculiar institution" in the American South was defended as a social necessity is another case in point. Slaves were considered "better off" being enslaved, since they were seen as incapable of taking care of themselves. To estimate how difficult it would have been to change the lives of the Chinese immigrants in the West, one simply has to remember that it took a war lasting about 4 and a half years and more lives lost than in all other wars in which the US partook thereafter combined to eliminate slavery---not to improve the overall condition, which is an on-going thing--from the country. And there were those--in fact there are still those--who considered the price to have been "too high."

That the situation of the Chinese sex slave in the American West was miserable, hopeless and short is less the point, here, than is the life of women in any society and particularly in third world societies. Would the lives of any of these girls--and they could be anywhere from 2 to 16 for the most part--have been any different had they remained in China? I doubt it. Overpopulation and famine dictated a certain cold heartedness with respect to children, especially young children who could not contribute anything but their appetite to the family's situation. In a land where hard physical labor was the norm, males are usually valued more highly than females. In times of shortage, then, it will usually be the female children that are killed, abandoned or sold to provide extra shares of whatever there is for the rest of the family. Anything more generous and humane would be an irresponsible use of resources; that is the grim reality of these families. Hence, as the author notes in The Poker Bride, the Chinese of the time believed that girls and women had no souls, like animals they were disposable. That, more than anyting, was probably the secret of their quiet acceptance of their fates. If you believe yourself unworthy of anything more, or if you simply expect nothing more, you accept life as it happens to you. It certainly enhances survival. Those that didn't accept it tended to commit suicide, and the author documents a number of cases in point.

I think Mr. Corbett's description of the plight of the poor Chinese in the American West holds a far greater significance than one might believe on the surface of the overall story. The point of the book is that it was surprising to find an elderly Chinese female alive and thriving in late 19th and early 20th century America. The likelihood that she would have survived her teens and 20ies under the circumstances of her arrival in the country made it highly unlikely that she would. More importantly, the First World's attitude toward "human rights" in the Third World needs to be refocused. If one had wanted to change the lives of any of the Chinese girls of the Gold Rush years, one would have had to attend to the social issues of the country from which they were shipped. In fact the treatment of women is key to the problems of most Third World countries. It has become well known that birthrate declines as the education and improvement in lifestyle of women increases. And it is a high birthrate that creates the surplus of labor that leads to sale of females for the benefit of their families during times of famine. Wherever labor is in greater supply than demand, as it so often is in the Third World, wages remain lower than the costs of raising a large family; but if you must have family to look after you in old age, you need to have lots of children so that at least some survive to take care of you. Governments that keep the wealth of a country in the hands of a very few beggar the population, drive higher birth rates, and cause events like the immigrations of the Gold Rush years.

The Poker Bride might well be noted as a cautionary tale to us all. As the world's population continues to rise, as food supplies and transportation costs escalate the modern world could--and in fact actually does--see a similar migration of people from areas of high population density to that of lower density. The potential for an improved level of life brings thousands to this country, creating black market structures that extort money from those who want to move here, bribe officials to look the other way, and enure the resident population to the unremedial plight of the immigrants. There is little different about the situation now than that in the Gold Rush era. The Chinese have managed by a change in their government, in the design of their economy, and in their control over their population growth to keep their own workers home; but countries where changes have not met the needs of the general population, migrations--legal and illegal--are still seen. The situation of these migrants continues to be regarded with the same ambivalence by the native born citizen of the country, and their vulnerability to abuse by those who seek to gain at their expense continues to be a problem.

In short, Mr. Corbett's tale of The Poker Bride is an old one and unfortunately an ongoing one. We need to take heed.

Corbett, Christopher. "The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West", Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010.

A Saga of America

Amos Lassen

Here is an aspect of the old West that many of us know nothing about. We know that there were Chinese there during the gold rush but we do not know about the Chinese women who came over to work as concubines. One of these was Polly Bemis who was won in a poker game by Charlie Bemis and he married her. This kind of marriage was unheard of at the time and Charlie and Polly lived isolated lives in central Idaho. After her husband's death, Polly came to town and told of her experiences. Here is her story as well as the larger story of Chinese mass immigration and a picture of life in California and the Pacific Northwest.
In the nineteenth century it was taboo for a white man to marry an Asian woman but here is that story. This is one of the most curious of stories and at first, we learn that Americans welcomed the Chinese and thought them to be "exotic curiosities". But as more and more came here, public sentiment went against them. The Chinese were accused of stealing American jobs and they were portrayed in the press as "thieving, shifty, and untrustworthy". There was a "Chinese Must Go" campaign in the 1880's and all was not good.
This is quite a story and we get to learn about an unheard chapter in our history. This is a look at an invisible chapter in American history and it is a wonderful and vivid reconstruction of a lost period. Corbett's narrative is intriguing and he has done his research well--he gives us an extensive bibliography. We get not only the story of the poker bride but also the story of the gold rush. It's a happy story but not all of the Chinese were as happy as Polly. There is a great deal to be learned here and Corbett's writing style makes that leaning effortless.

One of the things I'm learning during my reading of historical titles is that we tend to forget much of our past. And actually, we *do* end up repeating many of our mistakes and ugly periods. I found some of those forgotten elements when reading The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West by Christopher Corbett. While the book would seem to be more about the story of Polly Bemis, a Chinese "working girl" who was won in a poker game, the real story is of how life in the West was lived during the days of the Gold Rush.

In the late 1840's, gold was discovered in the West, and many Americans headed to California in order to make their fortune as miners. At the same time, large numbers of Chinese came over via steamer to do the jobs that nobody else wanted to do (reminiscent of our current migrant and immigration woes). San Francisco was the hub of much of the activity, and it was largely a male-dominated town. The women were often Chinese, and most of them were there as prostitutes and slaves. Life was cheap, and if you were on the lower end of the working girl scale, you were likely to die young and alone from disease or abuse.

One of these girls, "Polly", was brought over and purchased by a rich Chinese merchant. But as legend has it, he gambled her away during a poker game to a miner who lived and worked in Idaho. The miner, Charlie Bemis, took his newly acquired property and headed off to the hills of Idaho, to a small mining down named Warrens. It was there that Polly spent her entire life, eventually becoming Bemis's bride. Her story only became known when she came out of the backwoods in 1923 and visited a city for the first time, seeing things she had never seen before, like cars, trains, and radios. This was a national story at the time, and people were fascinated to learn more about Polly Bemis and what she had experienced during the last 60 years.

The first part of Poker Bride, and perhaps the most consistent theme throughout the book, is focused on mining life during the last half century of the 1800's and the suffering of the Chinese during that period of American history. The internment of Japanese-American citizens during the last part of World War 2 is an often-told story, but the Chinese suffered much of the same type of national backlash after the main gold rush period. They were taking jobs that many thought should belong to Caucasians, and they did work for far less money than others. The racism and bigotry during that time was rampant, and its not surprising that most Chinese wanted to go back to their own country to be buried when they died. Polly's story in the last part of the book seems to be a bit of an add-on to what the majority of the content was focused on. And since there's a number of conflicting stories about exactly who Polly was and how she ended up in Idaho, the author ends up having to give a number of alternative perspectives and let the reader sort it out a bit for themselves. I wouldn't mind so much if the title hadn't pointed to Polly being the main topic of the book, while the content was more in line with a generalization of the subtitle.

Even with the minor "bait and switch" of the title, I still found The Poker Bride quite interesting. Stripping the veneer of romance and legend off the Gold Rush stories is worth reading in order to give you more realistic look at life during that time. Makes me very glad I wasn't born and raised back then...

Disclosure:
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My family has been in the mother lode area of California since the 1800 gold rush when a woman in the family ran a bakery and a brothel. And because Jackson CA in the mother lode has a Chinese graveyard, this books title caught my attention from the get go.

Very well written and researched. Charlie and Polly Bemis are two people I would have loved to know. Reading of their journey from San Francisco up to Idaho and the people and places they encountered reminded me of visiting many of the same places. The author does an excellent job of describing how the Chinese were treated when they arrived in San Francisco and how they were treated in the gold country. Something the many small towns here in the Sierras are honest about when you visit their small town museums.

Reading in the book and especially chapter 10 of Charles Shepp and Peter Klinkhammer who lived near Charlie and Polly, and helped them out, and spent the holiday with them, and would care for Polly after Charlie died, was one of my favorite chapters, as it shows how people here help each other out. Loved reading of how Polly was such a great fisherman, and how she grew a big vegetable garden and orchard which she would harvest and preserve also reminded me of how we live today. Love reading the no nonsense diaries these folks kept, which noted the weather, what they ate, how the bears ate all the berries or the horses got into the orchard, again reminded me of how they lived and the connection to how many live today. The book notes that without the help of Charles and Peter, Polly wouldn't have been able to remain on the ranch after Charlie died. And that the men were not looking for new neighbors, which is why they agreed to care for Polly and get the land after her death. Gotta love these folks.

Loved reading of Polly visiting the outside world for the first time and how when she first heard a radio she wanted to run away because she thought it was a ghost speaking. Although she was overjoyed when the men strung a phone line to her home so they could stay in touch with her, since the river could be harsh and prevent easy access to her place. Or how happy a person she was and how she loved being asked to hold babies, or getting to ride in a car, rain etc. Things many people today simply take for granted.

On page 183, we read that she fell ill in 1933, at the age of eighty-one she was taken on horseback over narrow and winding trails to the War Eagle Mine where they had arranged to have an ambulance waiting for her. And that she showed herself very grateful for all that was done for her. Thus she wrote out of the area on a horse, just as she had ridden in. She would die on November 6, a Monday, with a brief notation that it was a warm and cloudy day and she would be buried at 10 am the next morning. Peter has always planned on getting her a simple headstone. He died in 1970 at the age of eighty-nine and the heirs to his estate carried out his wishes and she has a simple head stone that notes her name and September 11, 1853-November 6, 1933. In 1987 her remains were moved back to the ranch she had shared with Charlie on the banks of the Salmon River.

As a homeschooling family this is a book we will use as part of our school studies. And highly recommend to anyone who wants an honest story about the history of the gold rush and how the Chinese were treated.

There's a much better book on this true story written by a woman Chinese-American author, Ruthanne Lum McCunn, titled Thousand Pieces of Gold (published by Bluestreak). This book is the basis for the endearing film shown on PBS some years back, but goes on beyond to the end of her remarkable life.

"Eyewitnesses of the boom and bust days in Idaho claimed that a 'Chinaman' could carry more than twice his weight (suspended) on those long (bamboo) poles (yoked across his shoulders). They walked, jogged, or trotted in single file all day, often covering upwards of twenty-five miles, depending on the terrain." - From THE POKER BRIDE

"Two bittee lookee, flo bittee feelee, six bittee doee!" - The solicitation cry of a Chinese crib girl, from THE POKER BRIDE

"What Polly Bemis did most successfully was survive. She survived an experience and a system that killed most of the young women who entered it, and she remains the face of nearly every Chinese woman brought into this country in those days because of that simple fact." - From THE POKER BRIDE

Shortly after gold was discovered in California in January 1848, word of the strike reached Hong Kong. Soon, thousands upon thousands of Chinese males - free laborers all - set sail eastwards in search of "Gum Shan", the Mountain of Gold. Thousand of women were transported to California also, but the vast majority of them were sex slaves. Most of the immigrants, free or not, came from Kwangtung province. Americans came to term them - male and female - "celestials" since they originated in China's Celestial Empire.

(Most likely) in 1853, a Chinese girl (perhaps carrying the name Lalu Nathoy) was born. At age 18, she was sold into sex slavery by her starving family (reportedly for two bags of seed). In early 1872, she was shipped to San Francisco bearing the name of "Polly". Once there, she was re-sold for $2,500 to be a concubine for a rich Chinese living in the isolated, mountain mining town of Warrens, Idaho, where she arrived in July 1872 via Portland, Oregon. She was subsequently won in a poker game by Charlie Bemis, formerly of Connecticut, a gambler, saloon owner, and sometime miner held in high regard by the town's citizens. In 1890, Charlie was seriously wounded, thought fatally, by a gunshot to the face. But local legend has it that Polly nursed him back to health. In 1894, they were married, and, shortly thereafter with the decline of the mines, the couple moved further into the mountains to settle as virtual recluses on a ranch on the banks of the Salmon River some forty-four miles east of Riggins, ID. Charlie died in 1922. Polly remained at the homestead until her death in 1933, a legend in her own time.

THE POKER BRIDE by Christopher Corbett is primarily the story of the "celestials" that came seeking gold in California and Idaho in the last half of the 19th century. Polly's story, as fragmentary and sometimes tenuous as it is, is the backbone which supports and gives direction to the largest portion of the narrative.

The first seven chapters of the book describe the experiences of the Chinese who arrived in search of Gum Shan and the environment they found and the communities they created: the journey across the Pacific, Chinatown (San Francisco), the lot and plight of the Chinese sex slaves at the various levels of the prostitution profession in large urban settings, the evolution of and journey to the Idaho gold fields, Warrens, the nature of prostitution in the ramshackle mining camps, and the pervasiveness of gambling among whites and Chinese alike in the gold rush settlements. It's in Chapter Seven ("Fond of Playing Cards") that Polly is won by Bemis and her personal story acquires some substance. Chapters Eight ("The Shooting Affray in Warrens"), Nine ("Saving Polly"), and Ten ("Last Days on the River") flesh out Polly's story as much as is possible based on eyewitness accounts and those who've tried to reconstruct her life story posthumously. The Epilogue ("The Caravan of the Dead: Ghosts of the Oro Fino") brings the saga full circle as it describes the slow dying-off or the return to China of the remaining "celestials" during the first decades of the 20th century and, in the case of males, the effort to repatriate home the bones of those who died in the States.

A photograph begins each chapter, two of which are of Polly - one taken on her wedding day and one on the Salmon River ranch in her later years. Surprisingly, there's no photo of Charlie.

A map of the Idaho gold fields would've been useful, but is, unfortunately, not included. There is an extensive sixteen-page Bibliography indicating the considerable research undertaken by the author.

Despite the relative nebulosity of Polly's story and the minor deficiencies otherwise noted, THE POKER BRIDE is an enormously engaging, informative, and interesting telling of the California/Idaho gold rush from a perspective rarely achieved in popular history (at least in my experience). Five stars and a "Well done!" are richly deserved.

History is vivified when seen through the eyes of an individual, thus it is with Christopher Corbett's story of Polly Bemis, a Chinese concubine sold by her starving parents IN 1872 then smuggled to San Francisco. Next, she was brought by her owner to an Idaho mining camp where he lost her to Charlie Bemis in a poker game.

She lived with Charlie for almost half a century on an isolated ranch in the canyon of the Salmon River, "known as the `River Of No Return." She nursed him back to health after he was almost fatally wounded, and he later did an amazing thing - Charlie married her. There is a picture of Polly in the book wearing her 1894 wedding dress. She's a small woman with her hair pulled back in a neat bun; the hand touching her skirt appears strong.

In 1923 she will come down from the mountain on horseback and be taken by car to Orangeville, the Idaho County seat. This was an amazing journey for Polly as she had never ridden in a car. "She had never heard a radio or seen a train, an airplane, a motion picture, or electric lights. Her arrival was also amazing for the populace, receiving banner newspaper headlines and being likened to Rip Van Winkle.

Polly was one of the more fortunate of the hordes of Chinese who came to California, to what they called "Golden Mountain" to search for gold. As Corbett points out the California Gold Rush was a time of madness, violence, and rabid discrimination against the Chinese. Although they worked for very low wages it was claimed that they took jobs from Americans - there were "Chinese Must Go" campaigns, and frequent brutalities inflicted upon them.

Of course, crossing the Pacific to reach our shores was travail within itself. "Steerage on the China run was damp, dark, poorly ventilated, and filthy." One ship, the Libertad, carried 560 passengers although its limit was 297, and lost 100 men on that voyage. Writers described the passage from China as a "floating hell."

A former editor and reporter with the Associated Press Corbett has researched extensively and enriched THE POKER BRIDE with details describing this little known portion of our history. It is, of course, Polly's story but it is also the immigrants' story - fascinating, often tragic, and true.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

about the experiences of Chinese immigrants on the West Coast, lured by the California gold rush and later strikes in Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. The early section is a succinct version of 18th and 19th century life for ALL Californians. Then we switch to those Chinese who ended up in the mountains of Idaho, during the Civil War and beyond. The book ends up saying just about all that's worth saying about one arrival in particular, the poker game bride later known as Polly Bemis, who survived an isolated life until the 1930's. The author notes that Chinese men, as a rule back then, believed that females had no soul, but in the almost exclusively male Chinese mining camps, their bodies had great worth. Therefore, unfortunate teen girls like Polly were sold into concubinage or even general prostitution, transported to America at great expense. My only knowledge of the early Chinese experience with our country prior to reading this came from Bret Harte, Mark Twain and other western writers of the second half of the 1800's, sources that Mr. Corbett quotes extensively. His research and organization of what he learned added tremendously to my understanding of the reasons for the influx, the problems caused by it, and the eventual solutions to those troubles. However, it saddens me to have to criticize a fellow ex-newspaper editor on the grounds of dereliction of duty. His book could have benefitted tremendously by one more scrupulous edit, this time to eliminate unneeded repetition. By the end of the 200 pages of narrative, I was quite annoyed. There are writers of non-fiction who make the mistake of citing a source, say on page 8, and then returning to that source maybe on page 191, and only using the last name. By that time, I have forgotten who that person was and what their contribution was. I don't like it when writers do that, and I'll bet Charles Corbett hates it too. Unfortunately, his cure for that problem was to reintroduce his sources, be they famous dead writers or local historians or neighbors, again and again and again and again and again and again. A judicious edit aimed at a balance between writer error number one and over-correction number two could have trimmed this volume by at least 20 pages, and made his story sing. As non-fiction books go, this is already pretty short, but it becomes a tedious read and it did not have to take that route. This is his second book, but I hope for his third one the publisher assigns an editor who will look for this tendency and help Mr. Corbett avoid it.

Polly Bemis is the poker bride of this book's title. She survived being brought to America as a concubine and the movement to try to rid the west of the Chinese population. She was looked upon in later years as a treasure, emerging from the ranch she had lived on for many years, in 1933, never having seen a car, airplane or heard a radio.
The book is set up with a complete introduction that tells her story. Christopher Corbett then tells of the time of the gold rush and describes all that surrounded the Chinese in the west.
For some the structure of the book will be frustrating. It is like sitting in a history class listening to your teacher start to tell one story and then go off on another. All are interesting, but if you acquired this book to read about the poker bride which is boldly printed on the book cover, then you will read a small bit about her and then read through 2 or 3 or more pages of information about the Chinese immigrant condition and history until another fact about the poker bride is mentioned again.
There is much about the horrendous conditions and life that Chinese women brought into the country for men's pleasure went through. There are 2 chapters and other frequent descriptions given about Polly in the 197 pages. There are about 50 pages on the story of Polly at the end. He writes of the many photos taken of her, but only 2 are included.
There is no index but the book seems to be well documented and researched; just realize that it will be an interesting story of the Chinese immigrant story. Not just specifically the poker bride.

Christopher Corbett's "The Poker Bride" is an appealing combination of yarn with serious history. The poker bride was a young Chinese immigrant who became known as Polly Bemis. During a famine in China, Polly's family sold her to avoid starvation. Polly was sold several times upon immigration to San Francisco where a fate as either a concubine (to a wealthy Chinese man) or a prostitute awaited her. In 1872, Polly was the stakes in a poker game. A white man from Connecticut and proprietor of a bar and gambling den in a remote mining town in Idaho, Charlie Bemis, won the hand and won Polly. Polly nursed Charlie back to health after he was shot in the face by an unhappy gambler. The couple married in 1894 and lived on a remote farm in the wilds of north central Idaho on the upper reaches of the Salmon River near a small community called Warren. In 1923, following Charlie's death, an aged Polly visited the small Idaho town of Grangeville, her first departure from the family farm in over thirty years. The following year Polly visited Boise, Idaho. She then returned and lived quietly on her farm until her death in 1933.

A mix of history and legend, Polly's story occupies only about one-third of Corbett's book. Most of the rest of the book offers a brief history of the Chinese in the early West as they were involved with mining. The history sets Polly Bemis's story in context but is of course highly important in its own right.

The story moves from early California to Idaho with stops in Oregon. It essentially begins with the California Gold Rush of 1848 and the influx of Chinese immigrants which followed in its wake. The overwhelming number of immigrants were men. They were willing to work long and hard for little pay at jobs few others would want to do. The Chinese immigrants soon became perceived as a threat and were subject to severe discrimination and ill-treatment which Corbett documents poignantly. Unhappily, Congress took a rare and drastic step of banning Chinese immigration in the Chinese Immigration Act of 1882. Polly and Charlie may have married in an attempt to avoid Polly's deportation under this law.

The relatively few Chinese women immigrants were, in the early days, much like Polly Bemis. They had been sold and came to the United States to work as sex slaves. Most of them lived in dreadful conditions in cribs and cheap bars under the eye of Chinese gangs or "tongs". Polly Bemis was a rarity in that she managed to escape the fate of many other Chinese women and make a life for herself.

Corbett's book offers a good portrait of the wildness and lawlesness of the early West in San Francisco, Idaho, and the mining camps. Before describing Polly's story, the book discusses the history of Chinese immigration, including the long ocean passage which reminded me of the earlier conditions pertaining on the slave ships several centuries earlier, the development of "Chinatowns", and the spread of prospecting from California to Oregon. Several chapters are devoted to the condition of Chinese women and to the spread of prostitution and sex slavery. Polly Bemis's story is told from the sparse and conflicting contemporaneous records and from accounts prepared by Sister Alfreda Elsenshohn, a nun who lived in the area and who devoted her retirement years in the 1940s-50s to writing about the early history of Idaho County.

The book recounts an unhappy part of the American experience in the mistreatment meted out to the Chinese. The character of this experience comes through in Corbett's account even though Polly Bemis's story is treated with eclat. The book lacks an index or notes. Instead it has a detailed bibliography which Corbett draws upon extensively in his text. He makes good use of well-known authors such as Bret Harte and Mark Twain but more importantly he draws upon many contemporaneous, obscure accounts of life in the early West. As does any historian, Corbett tries to sift through and assess his sources to arrive at a reasoned interpretation.

I was glad to have the opportunity to read this book and to learn something of Polly Bemis and about the wildness of the old American West. The book is enriched by several photographs, but a map of the Salmon River and its environs in Idaho would have been useful.

Robin Friedman

Everyone knows about the horrors of slavery experienced by 19th century African Americans who lived in the southern U.S. While their story should never be downplayed, there is a forgotten chapter of another ethnic group that was enslaved in the western U.S.: the Chinese. More specifically, an ethnic gender (Chinese women) faced situations every bit as harrowing and hopeless as the African Americans who were southeast of them. Nor were Chinese males treated fairly, either. While they were not enslaved, their treatment by white men was egregiously unfair.

Professor Christopher Corbett has done an exemplary job of disinterring the lost stories of the Chinese in the west. In particular, Corbett focuses on the human trafficking of Chinese women from the Chinese mainland to their arrival in San Francisco.

One of the outcomes of the law-of-unintended-consequences of the California Gold Rush was the demand for courtesans / concubines / female slaves by the influx of miners who entered the western states. One such slave was Polly Bemis, and this is her story.

While it is outrageous to think of any woman being "won" in a poker game, the irony of this book is that Polly was far luckier than most Chinese prostitutes whose lives were cut short by their involuntary involvement in the sex trade. Polly actually ended up with people who showed her kindness, which made her far more fortunate than most women in her dire situation.

What I was expecting from this book was a sort of historical novel about Polly's life. On that point I was wrong. Roughly 75% of the book lays out the milieu created by the California Gold Rush rather than a biography of a lone Chinese courtesan. This approach worked very well as it laid the backdrop for what Polly experienced.

This book was a real eye-opener and leaves one with a great familiarity of the Gold Rush days as well as a Chinese courtesan. The work is well researched and the author's erudition of the topic is obvious. In some ways, this book is to the 19th century Chinese who lived in the west what Roots (Four-Disc 30th Anniversary Edition) and Amistad are for African Americans who were in the south during the turbulent 19th century. If Chinese American or Chinese and American history is something that intrigues you, then the present book belongs on your bookshelf. Either way, it's a story you'll never forget.

The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West is that rare book bringing popular appeal to an obscure historical subject, making it seem interesting and even invigorating. The title and subtitle perfectly encapsulate the two subjects. The first is the amazing story of Polly Bemis, a poor Chinese girl sold into sexual slavery, smuggled into America, and won in a poker game by a white man whom she came to marry. It is the sort of story straight out of Wild West romances, proof that truth is stranger than fiction. This is an interesting story in itself, and Christopher Corbett examines it from nearly every angle. Particularly interesting are his summaries of various, often conflicting accounts; he does an admirable job with the ever difficult task of separating fact from fiction, which is especially pertinent in the Wild West, where the two always blur together. However, this is but a frame for a general overview of the first Chinese in the West, a fascinating and often ignored topic. Everyone knows about the Chinese in California, but Corbett reminds us that they were spread out among Western states and territories from the mid to late nineteenth century by the tens or even hundreds of thousands. The book is especially compelling for focusing significantly on Idaho, the state that now has the highest percentage (over 90%) of whites - a dramatic sign of how much things have changed. Corbett rescues this important slice of history from obscurity. Chinese men came for gold and stayed to build railroads and open restaurants and laundries; women came as prostitutes and nearly always remained as such. The Chinese became an integral part of the Wild West economy and society, transforming an unfamiliar land whether or not they assimilated. Initially tolerated as harmless curiosities, they were eventually victims of savage personal and official discrimination. Their lives were hard in any case, and Corbett viscerally details their many struggles and travails. He also makes clear that they were in many ways admirable; courageous, hardworking, and determined, a surprising number prospered against all odds. Corbett's very readable style and storytelling skill make all this utterly absorbing; even those with little or no interest in the subject will be enticed. It indeed goes well beyond the ostensible subject, taking in an array of Western topics from mining camps to the legal structure - or lack of it. Anyone at all interested in the time and place will find much to sustain attention. A true treasure trove of American history and folklore, The Poker has a wealth of information ranging from facts to anecdotes to tall tales. Truly delightful, it is one of the few books that is as entertaining as it is informative.

That said, it is not perfect or necessarily for everyone. First, it is important to realize that this is a popular history; Corbett gives sources by name in the text but does not have citations, though there is a 15 page bibliography. More importantly and unfortunately, the book is badly edited. It has inexcusably excessive repetition, especially in regard to Bemis; for example, the same fact is at one point given in three straight paragraphs! There are also some minor stylistic problems: overuse of words, especially in proximity; a lack of pronouns; other repetition; a few typos; etc. This is regrettable, because the book's core is solid, and such things keep it from being as good as it should - and easily could - have been. That said, these are minor problems, and many will not even notice.

All told, this is an excellent popular history. Anyone interested in Chinese Americans or the Wild West will be utterly gripped, and many others will find the subject far more stimulating than they ever thought possible. This promises to be one of the year's best history books and will surely have a long shelf life.

I received a review copy of "The Poker Bride" from the publisher, and found myself intrigued by the premise of a Chinese woman won as a bride of sorts in a late 1800s poker game. It's the stuff of legend and fairy tale, yet based in reality. I dove in, expecting an in depth look at this woman's story culled from newspapers, journals, and written interviews from the past.

Yes, the woman existed, known by most as Polly Bemis. Yes, the author does a thorough job of pulling facts and fables together into a cohesive outline of her life. But, the premise itself is a bit of a bluff. The majority of Polly's past is shrouded in mystery, with numerous details never firmly established due to conflicting sources of information. It's a great idea that never gets fleshed out, and it left me wishing that the book was not misrepresented by title and cover.

That said, the subtitle is "The First Chinese in the West," and this is truly what the book describes--and with superb research and heart. I learned many new things about the early years of San Francisco, the Gold Rush era, the immigration of thousands of Chinese, the racial misdeeds, the rampant prostitution, and the miners that preyed upon this age-old occupation. As a study of the American West Coast in the 1800s, and of Chinese influence along those shores, "The Poker Bride" succeeds in every respect. It's a fascinating book, strong on details, except for the thin threads of Polly Bemis's life that are used to hold the narrative together. Despite the gimmick, it's an important addition to our understanding of that time period.

It's the stuff that legends are made of. The year was 1872. A young Chinese girl arrives in San Francisco which at the time was the chief port of entry for those emigrating to this country from China. The girl known as Polly was around 21 years old when she stepped off that boat. Life had certainly not been kind to her. In the midst of a devastating famine in her native land Polly's father was forced to trade her for a mere two bags of seed. Though it sounds unimaginably cruel this was not uncommon in those days. Polly's father did what he had to do to keep the rest of his family alive. From there Polly was sold as a slave girl. When she arrived in San Francisco she was auctioned off for the impressive sum of $2500 to a man named Hong King. King was a Chinese national who evidently arrived in America during the Gold Rush and ran a gambling hall and saloon in the remote mining town of Warrens in northern Idaho. He wanted Polly to be his hostess. Polly was quite lucky in that most of the Chinese girls who came to America during this period wound up as prostitutes. But there would be one more incredible twist that would change Polly's life forever. Gambling was a popular pastime in mining country and her owner Hong King became involved in a high stakes poker game with another local saloon owner named Charles Bemis. They were playing for gold dust and King had lost just about all of it when he decided to up the ante and risk his only remaining possession Polly in a last ditch attempt to recover his losses. Hong King lost the hand and the beautiful young lady was turned over to Bemis. Thus began the legend of "The Poker Bride". In this well-documented and highly entertaining book author Christopher Corbett tells the compelling life story of this fascinating lady who would spend the next five decades living in the remote backcountry of Idaho. It is an unforgettable tale!

There are really two storylines in "The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West". In addition to chronicling the remarkable life of the young lady who would one day become Polly Bemis Christopher Corbett spends a considerable amount of time relating the story of those who came to this country from China during the frenzied years of the Gold Rush. Most of the Chinese men who arrived in California looking for gold never really intended to stay. A large percentage of those who struck it rich took their money and returned to China to live a life of leisure. Many others gave up the search for gold and returned home while still others concluded that it just might be more lucrative to provide much needed services for the miners. Thus, many Chinamen wound up running laundries, restaurants and dry goods stores. The Chinamen as they were called were generally welcome when they first arrived in the West but over time most white men would come to despise them. For most of the young Chinese women who arrived on these shores life was not very kind. The overwhelming majority of these women would wind up as prostitutes and "dance hall" girls. They lived and worked in filthy surroundings and a large percentage died at a very young age. This is a part of western folklore I had read very little about. But one would have to conclude that luck was on the side of young Polly. She would wind up living a very different life. Reports vary but it appears to be quite possible that Polly was never forced to work as a prostitute. After Polly was won by Charles Bemis he put her to work helping to manage his business. Shortly thereafter Bemis was shot in the head in an altercation. The prognosis was grave but Polly nursed him back to health using Chinese herbs and medical techniques. Charles Bemis was forever grateful and would one day marry her. When the Gold Rush was over and the mining town of Warrens, Idaho was largely abandoned the couple moved to a remote spot on the Salmon River where they would live out the rest of their days.

The story of Polly Bemis the so-called "poker bride" first drew national attention in 1923 when Polly emerged from the Idaho backcountry after her husband's death to discover a world that she was totally unfamiliar with and unprepared for. Many compared her to Rip Van Winkle and her story was carried in newspapers and magazines across the nation. As Christopher Corbett points out in the Preface of "The Poker Bride" Polly "not only had never ridden in an automobile; she had never seen one. She had never heard a radio or seen a train, an airplane, a motion picture, or electric lights." One can only imagine her reaction to the new world she was discovering all around her!

At the end of the the day I found "The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West" to be an extremely well written, painstakingly researched and highly engaging book. I simply could not put this one down. I found that reading "The Poker Bride" dove-tailed quite nicely with another terrific new book that I have read recently entitled "Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built A Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized The Wild West". After reading these two fine books I believe that I now have a much better understanding of how the Western part of our nation was settled. In my opinion "The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West" would be a great choice for history buffs and general audiences alike. Indeed, this would be a great book to take with you on vacation or to read at the beach. Outstanding in every respect. Very highly recommended!

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 transformed America. Some of the transformations, like the impetus to populate the empty western lands and the increase in individual fortunes, were good, at least for some. The ecological effects were often disastrous. The social effects, besides the population shift, were most significant for the interaction of Chinese immigrants with American citizens, and these were often disastrous as well. In _The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West_ (Atlantic Monthly Press), Christopher Corbett has told the story, as much as it can be known, of one Chinese girl who came to California and was indeed won in a poker game. There is not much that can be said about Polly Bemis for certain, but Corbett's book (similar to his previous book _Orphans Preferred_, about the Pony Express) is not only about the specific case but also about the larger picture and the folklore and traditions that were made around it. Polly's story is relatively happy-ever-after; for most of her fellow Chinese, however, the land of the "Golden Mountain" proved to be one of violence and exploitation.

The news about the gold rush came to Hong Kong before it reached Boston and Washington. The result was that tens of thousands of Chinese came to seek their fortunes in the gold fields, and old, battered ships that were good for nothing else were pressed into transporting them. The Chinese came for the express purpose of making money; expecting to return with a relative fortune, the Chinese simply worked hard and kept to themselves without an attempt to learn the culture of the new land. They were easy targets for exploitation, especially the women who came and almost always became prostitutes. It's a grim story, made a little lighter by the specific tale of the main character in Corbett's work. Polly Bemis didn't leave many traces; one of the lessons in this book is that the history of these Chinese in America was always written by others, since the Chinese themselves were almost universally illiterate. Probably (and according to what she supposedly said of her own background) she was one of the girls who was a financial resource to her family when they sold her into concubinage. She arrived by boat in San Francisco and then by horseback up to the mining camp of Warrens, Idaho, in 1872. It was not the cribs for her; she was to be the concubine of a wealthy Chinese master, although she may have traded hands before coming to him. She was indeed won in a poker game, or so the story goes. Her master, an enthusiastic gambler, lost one round of gold dust stakes after another, and finally had only one possession to put up, his 18-year-old Chinese slave girl. The winner was Charlie Bemis, a Connecticut Yankee who was there for the remnants of the gold rush, keeping a saloon and gambling house. He wasn't cut out for the hard work of mining, and was by most accounts an idler, but he could keep a good saloon. One account by a man who knew him said, "He was absolutely square and entirely fearless. While there is no record of his having shot a man, his fearless personality, coupled with his skill at shooting, enabled him to maintain order without getting into trouble." It might not have been remarkable that Polly was won at a gambling table; far more remarkable is that she and Bemis settled into a long-term relationship and that the American married the Chinese. He may have done so to give her legal backing to avoid deportation back to China, but it seems to have been a supportive relationship. Polly was a good cook, gardener, and catcher of fish. When Charlie was shot in the face by a brawler, he was not expected to live, but she nursed him back to some degree of health. They lived together for fifty years. Only after his death did Polly make some visits outside their remote camp on the Salmon River, and she was feted as a Rip Van Winkle figure who was astonished by the metropolis of her county seat, Grangeville, and by automobiles and a picture show.

It's a happy story, one that only serves as a contrast to all the rest of the book. Polly was lucky; she started out as a concubine, and she did not have to descend to the more usual depths or to die of venereal disease and malnutrition. Her story can easily be seen in a romantic light (although it may be that those who wrote about her initially tended to stress the happiness of her particular case). As Corbett tells it, it is still a fine story, but he hasn't let readers forget that as far as the Chinese experience of the time went, Polly Bemis's happy fate was sadly an anomaly.

Have not read this book yet but I do intend to. Several years ago a movie was made based on this story. The movie and the book are titled, Thousand pieces of gold. Wonderful movie if you can find it. I had to order a VHS copy. You won't regret finding the movie. Wonderful. I was so enthralled with the movie that I bought the book. This book looks equally interesting. Will let you know later.

As is the case with several other reviewers, my copy of this book came from the publisher. I like reading about the tidbits of history which in the end come together to form the big picture, and The Poker Bride sounded like a sure bet to hold my interest. And hold my interest it did! In this book, the story of Polly Bemis is the subtext of the greater story of the Chinese experience in the development of the West around which author Christopher Corbett builds this overview. Bemis' odd story is the bait that lures the reader in, but the story as a whole is one that will set the hook.
Many people interested in the settlement of the frontier and more particularly in the Gold Rush already have some knowledge of the Chinese in California and Nevada. But as this book will inform you, Chinese immigrants ranged far afield from San Francisco, as far away as Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Colorado in their search for a stake that would allow them to return home to enjoy a retirement in relative comfort. These immigrants were mostly men who never intended to remain here in the land of the "heathen" and so did not bring their wives. The result was that the buying and selling of Chinese women into sexual slavery became a big business. At the onset, it was mostly ignored by the authorities and allowed Chinese "tongs" to grow rich and powerful. This impunity meant that these tongs were able to exert near absolute control not only over the trafficking of women, but also over every aspect of Chinese life in areas where there were sizeable numbers of Chinese settled.
In the broad story, Corbett relates the many ways that a Chinese woman could find herself America-bound and herded into the barracoons where the women, if not already pre-purchased, were auctioned to the highest bidder. The luckiest ones ended as the concubines of a rich Chinese man, the unlucky wound up in the miserable hog-pens where disease, violence, and a short unhappy life awaited them. Polly Bemis was in many ways one of the luckiest and it is her remarkable story within a story that lifts The Poker Bride above being just another history.
As for Bemis' story, some criticize the author for using too much anecdote and conjecture to tell it. But so little is really known about her that without some educated guesswork she would remain a mystery. What he does is to tell what is indisputably known, then to take information from a variety of sources contemporary to Bemis, including her neighbors, former associates and tidbits from Bemis herself, allowing the reader to puzzle together a likely approximation of the real story.
Those who like happy endings will be sure to enjoy the bittersweet and almost fairy-tale story of the life of Polly Bemis, the famous "poker bride", particularly when the fates of thousands of her less fortunate countrywomen are considered. For it is from stories such as hers that legends are born. For a fascinating glimpse at a little known aspect of the story of the American West, this book is a winner!

I had some doubts when I began to read The Poker Bride. Lately it has seemed to me many popular history books were little more than magazine articles expanded to include a bibliography. The story of Polly Bemis-- a sex worker who got luckier than most-- seemed an excellent candidate for the "not long enough for a book" prize.

To my surprise, Corbett seems to have a book here. And an interesting book at that. We know precious little about Polly Bemis today, and Corbett shares as much of the story as can be told. He also tells us the folklore and the myth that grew up around this unlikely western wife. Best of all (at least for me) Corbett gives us a lot of the context of the early Chinese experience in the US West. It's fascinating stuff. Some of it I knew vaguely from other reading, but I've never had such a clear image of the Chinese migration.

I'd recommend the book for the material alone. Corbett, however, is worth mentioning for his writing. I found it exceptionally good history writing. Books like this are so often obtuse. The prose here is crisp, economical, and always clear. I enjoyed the book itself and not just the subject matter.

Recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of the US West, prostitution, or the Chinese experience in the US.

Have you ever heard of a more romantic plot than the one offered up here by Christopher Corbett in his new book `The Poker Bride?' I mean come on, a tale set in the chaotic era of the Wild West Gold Rush involving a helpless Chinese girl sold into slavery and prostitution who's eventually rescued by her future husband who wins her freedom in the proverbial poker game! Even more fascinating, it's a true story! It just doesn't get any better than that does it?

However before you get too excited and inform the local women's book club about this heartrending period piece be aware that this is not a romance ala Jane Austin, nor is it the latest release from the Harlequin romance series. The woman known as Polly Bemis (aka: Poker Bride) is utilized by the author as a vehicle through which a greater story is told. In seeing through the eyes of Polly the reader is given the opportunity to experience what life in the American Gold Rush era must have been like for "the first Chinese in the West." In other words this is first and foremost a history book while Polly and her life provide the personal, literal and symbolic face of the immigrants. She's something the reader can identify and sympathize with. In the end one comes to realize her story and the history of the Chinese in the American Wild West were one in the same.

While the prospective romance novel reader will probably not find this book to be what they're looking for, the lover of history certainly will. Christopher Corbett provides us with an expansive portrait of the times that I found absolutely fascinating; early San Francisco history, cultural influences, societal make-up and how these influences where lived out in the everyday life of the rural, shabby townships and mining camps.

Even more impressive is Corbett's treatment of the plight and experiences of the Chinese immigrants; the harsh trans-Pacific sailing conditions, the hatred for the migrant workers and the subjugation of women from both the predominately white society as well as the prevailing cultural traditions practiced by the Chinese themselves. I found the mention of P.T. Barnum and his Asian/Chinese "freaks" exhibit, which included the famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng, to be not only unexpected but to be quite revealing concerning the white American opinion of the Asian culture.

Again, if you're looking for a hot, titillating romance look elsewhere, but if you appreciate a comprehensive, well researched, read offering the reader not only a rare glimpse into an exciting moment in American history but a tale of individual endurance and triumph try `The Poker Bride'.

One of the saddest scenes in the TV series Deadwood is when Mr. Wu imports a load of slave Chinese girls to be prostitutes in the frontier town. In those days, where a white prostitute was afforded a certain level of respect and even celebrity, and where a common French streetwalker could pass her self off as an educated and expensive courtesan, the Chinese girls were just so much meat to be pounded into at pennies a turn, until their used-up bodies were tossed into the trash heap and space made for the next load of slaves to take their place.

This was the world that Polly Bemis arrived to in 1872, sold by her father for two bags of seed and smuggled in as a slave to San Francisco. Polly, born Lalu Nathoy, was luckier or prettier than most of her shipmates as instead of winding up in one of San Francisco's infamous "cribs" she was most likely the private concubine of a wealthy merchant until she was lost as property in a game of Poker to prospector Charlie Bemis. What happened next is the most extraordinary turn in her life, because in a time of anti-Chinese sentiment when lone Chinese wanders might find themselves hung and when anti-racial relationships were not just considered immoral but also illegal, Charlie Bemis married the girl he won in a card game.

Christopher Corbett (Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express), uses the unlikely tale of Charlie and Polly Bemis as the framework for his exploration of the Chinese under-culture of the Old West in his book "The Poker Bride." A non-fiction history book, Corbett does not attempt to provide a narrative for Polly's life, but merely to lay out the facts as they are known, and delve into the background of the world in which she arrived.

Indeed, "The Poker Bride" cannot truly be said to be about Polly Bemis; she only shows up in page 121 of the 197 page book. Truly, this is the story of the many Chinese people who came to America seeking their fortune, sold on a false dream, only to find themselves slaves in a country where racial prejudice and economic greed led people to use other human beings in despicable ways. Although the American Civil War was over and California was always a Free State, there was no Uncle Tom's Cabin for the Chinese and a blind eye was turned to the slave labor that built, fed and serviced the Western frontier. It didn't help that the worst slavers were the Chinese themselves, who imported village girls for the use of Chinese men, naïve girls who were lied to with promises of good husbands and wealth in a far off land.

Corbett's book covers the lives of some of these "Celestials and Sojourners" and the attitudes at the time towards them. Although at first the Chinese were seen as a valuable resource, especially as they did not want to integrate or immigrate into the US but just make their fortune and go home, fear and yellow journalists fanned the flames of hate until the anti-Chinese sentiments of the late 1800s led to scenes such as the Seattle riot of 1886. Although some reporters, such as Mark Twain, tried to show sympathy for the poor creatures, by far the louder voices were singing songs of "The Heathen Chinee."

As for Polly's story herself, Corbett does not romanticize or glamorize it as was done with the book and film Thousand Pieces of Gold. Polly most likely worked as a prostitute, Corbett says, although well-meaning folks who knew her have tried to cover up this part of her past. And Bemis most-likely married her to prevent a valuable work-mate from being deported rather than out of some custom-defying and fiery love. Corbett just gives us real life, not fancy or neat but still extraordinary.

This is a book that a student of Chinese history in the old West will find invaluable.

This is a fun and informative book on the Wild West, as experienced by the generation of the Chinese who came during the Gold Rush. In many ways, it is the typical story of an exploited minority of immigrants in a foreign culture: barred from taking many types of jobs, they are forced into the lowest jobs of the low, from coolie hard labor to the vilest kind of prostitution imaginable. They struggled against racial discrimination - were even refused protection by laws in many cases because "there is no law forbidding murder of a chinaman" - and faced constant threats of deportation. With their difference of appearance and unique culture in chinatowns that sprung up all over the west coast, where prostitution, gambling, and gang violence flourished. The difference with this book is that the author follows one of the immigrants that escaped her fate, a concubine who was lost by her "master" in a poker game. This adds a personal flavor to what is usually an anonymous mass without a voice.

For personal reasons - my Chinese relatives arrived on the West coast barely 2 generations after the Gold Rush - I was utterly fascinated by the chapters on the early West. You get not only a history of the Gold Rush and boom towns, but also a view into Chinese culture in the mid-19C, when the country was beginning the terrible cultural deterioration that lasted until the late 1940s (or, perhaps, the late 1970s). I was born barely a century after that, lucky given the struggles of my mother's family. It was very emotional for me, enabling me to understand much of the background that still largely existed when my grandparents emigrated. It certainly effects my family even today.

The first 2/3 of the book is more of a general historical description of the West and the Gold Rush. The details of the exploitation of Chinese women, leaving little option beyond prostitution in brothels run by tongs at mining camps or in lawless chinese ghettos, is nothing short of horrific. It was slavery in all its gradations. The lucky few survived by finding a husband or as concubines, while the overwhelming majority succumbed to disease or murder.

The last 1/3 of the book is about the Poker Bride, who finds a husband with whom she virtually disappears in the mountains of Idaho. She was a kind of celebrity later in life, emerging after the death of her husband from the Hills to a modern world in the 1920s that she had not seen in nearly 50 years. Corbett expertly plumbs the myths surrounding her, from her transfer as property to her marriage after she gouged a bullet from her owner's neck, saving his life. This is a very interesting story and this part of the book at its best resembles Evan Connell's books on the West, though it never quite rises to his eloquence.

Recommended as an interesting slice of American history. Corbett is an eloquent writer, but his style is somewhat repetitive; the book is also not as dense as I would have hoped, with less literary texture than expository explanations. Nonetheless, the historical research is extremely good and essential.

I'm savoring this book, i.e., haven't finished it yet. However, I know I absolutely will. I enjoy the humor at least as greatly as I am shocked. The author does a great job of describing the era of the gold rush as it was lived by men and, so far as I've read, women as "Chinese chattle." Excuse me, but why waste time talking about it, I'm eager to get back to it!

Subtitled "The First Chinese in the West", this well-researched history tells a fascinating story. During Gold Rush times, thousands of Chinese came to America to work in the mines and, later, to help build the railroads. This is their story and there is no scarcity of detail, making this whole saga come alive.

The narrative centers around Polly Bemis who was sold as a concubine to a wealthy Chinese man who had her sent to an Idaho mining camp where she was won in a poker game by an American gambler who later married her. She lived with him for 50 years on an isolated farm, and later, in 1923, she was brought to the attention of the public and took a few memorable visits to town where she was written about in the local newspapers. This is not a novel. This is a real life story. And so there are many unanswered questions about her life. The author honestly brings some of the inconsistencies about her story to light, thus creating a desire in the reader to know more.

And yet, this book is much larger than just Polly's story. It is the story of an era and the Chinese men whose labor helped build this country. They worked as household servants, in laundries and in the mining camps. Their lives were hard and they were victims of discrimination. Most of them came as young men and planned on going back to China which most of them did, and by the beginning of 20th century their presence had almost vanished. They either returned to China on their own or, for those who had not survived, had their bones shipped back to China for burial.

The book contains some photographs, including several of Polly. This makes this story even more real. I, like the author, speculated about some of the conflicting accounts about Polly, and I was appalled at the conditions under which these people labored even though, in some ways, their lives were better off than they would have been in China. I learned something new on almost every page although I found the title a bit misleading because "The Poker Bride" sounds like a fictional historical novel. However, the book is fascinating and really enjoyed it. Frankly, truth is more interesting than fiction.

When you study about the Chinese coming to America in the 19th century, the emphasis has always been on those who helped to build the western portion of the transcontinental railroad. As we learn from this excellent book, the railroad was only part of their story.

Chinese came to this country because they were interested in making enough money to go back to China and support themselves and their families at a level not possible if they had stayed in their home country. That was the majority. There were, however, those females who were either sold by their families or kidnapped and sent to America to serve as sex slaves and prostitutes in the rough and tumble mining camps of the west. This book tells all of their stories, with emphasis on one young Chinese girl, who was supposedly won from her Chinese owner by an American in a poker game. Whether that was true or not is not really the purpose of this book. It is. rather, to give the reader some insight into different aspects of the Chinese (or "Celestials" as they were frequently called in the newspapers).

Not only did these hardy folks helped build the railroads, but they searched for gold in various places, particularly in Idaho where most of this book takes place. Often they were prevented from panning for wealth and so they opened restaurants and laundries, and became very successful at these businesses.

There was a lot of prejudice against Chinese (or "The Heathen Chinee" as they were often called, from the title of a Bret Harte poem), but they persevered despite that problem. As the mining dried up, the towns founded during the Gold Rush days withered and died, and the Chinese either went back to China or moved to the larger cities, such as San Francisco, where there were thriving "Chinatowns".

The story of the poker bride goes from her birth through her coming to America, to the famous poker game, and then her life with,and subsequent marriage to, the man who allegedly won her. It's quite an interesting story, and we follow her all the way until her death. She and her husband lived for many, many years isolated on their place on the "river of no return" in the wilderness mountains of Idaho. they didn't need anyone, and were occasionally visited by folks who were rafted down the river by men making a lving out of touring the wilderness.

We learn about the researchers and historians who chronicled the life and times of Polly and other Chinese, and in particular the nun who wrote extensively about her. I enjoy reading a book that tells me something that I hadn't known before, and this book certainly does that. It is well-written and quite informative, and I highly recommend it!