author
Josephine Clifford McCrackin
1838–1920
A fearless journalist, novelist, and conservation advocate, she turned a life of upheaval and adventure into vivid writing about the American West. Her work is also linked to the early effort to protect California’s redwood forests.
1 Audiobook
Overland tales
by Josephine Clifford McCrackin
About the author
Born in Prussia in 1838 and brought to the United States as a child, she grew up in St. Louis before building a writing career in California. She wrote fiction, journalism, and memoir-like pieces drawn from an unusually eventful life, including time connected to the post–Civil War army frontier and later years in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
She became known in California literary circles as a contemporary of writers such as Bret Harte and Ambrose Bierce, and she was active in journalism as well as book publishing. Her best-known book is The Woman Who Lost Him, and Tales of the Army Frontier, introduced by Bierce, and her work often blended personal experience with sharp storytelling.
McCrackin is also remembered for her love of the redwoods. After settling in the Santa Cruz Mountains, she wrote passionately about the destruction of old-growth forests and is associated with the wider movement that helped lead to the creation of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. She died in Santa Cruz in 1920.