Writing Kit Carson

Susan Lee Johnson delivers a seminal work that reveals the intersection of self and the craft of imagining and writing history through her examination of how she and two largely unknown historians (whom she never met) connected to and wrote about Kit Carson. Johnson masterfully connects her own draw to Kit Carson with that of Quantrille McClung and Bernice Blackwelder. Johnson, like McClung and Blackwelder, felt compelled to explore the life of Carson, though Johnson’s work came decades later and raises different questions through her layered analysis of race, ethnicity, and gender constructs. The book is divided into three central sections. The first two chart the crafting of Kit Carson (from hero to villain to a flawed and complex figure) and the third turns to the women who crafted him; yet elements of historiography, biography, autobiography, and queer theory are laced throughout. Johnson’s rich analysis provides keen insights into what...

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