The Legend Meets Reality

Martha Jane Canary — Calamity Jane — became a legend in her own lifetime, which means almost everything believed about her is partly or entirely invented. She claimed to have scouted for Custer, to have married Wild Bill Hickok, and to have been a gunfighter of rare skill. None of it holds up. Most of these stories came from her own autobiography, published in 1896, which she wrote for money.

The invented parts were built around a real person. Born around 1852 in Missouri and orphaned young, she survived the frontier economy by taking any work that paid — teamster, scout, dishwasher, prostitute. Her actual life was harder and sadder than the legend she sold.