Zanjani, Sally 1937- (Sally Springmeyer Zanjani)

PERSONAL:

Born November 21, 1937, in San Francisco, CA; daughter of George (a lawyer) and Sallie (a lawyer) Springmeyer; married Esmail Zanjani (a scientist), May 31, 1963; children: Don Springmeyer, Mariah Evans, George. Ethnicity: White. Education: New York University, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1964, M.A., 1967, Ph.D., 1974. Politics: Democrat. Hobbies and other interests: Opera, hiking.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Reno, NV.

CAREER:

University of Nevada, Reno, adjunct assistant professor of political science, 1975—.

MEMBER:

Western History Association, Western Writers of America, Mining History Association (past president), Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Cofounders Award, Westerners International, 1992, for Goldfield: The Last Gold Rush on the Western Frontier; honored by Nevada Women's History Project, 1997; Rodman Paul Award for outstanding contributions to mining history, 1999; inducted into Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, 2000; Cofounders Award, Westerners International, and Evans Biography Award, both 2001, for Sarah Winnemucca.

WRITINGS:

(Under name Sally Springmeyer Zanjani) The Unspiked Rail: Memoir of a Nevada Rebel, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 1982.

(With Guy Louis Rocha) The Ignoble Conspiracy: Radicalism on Trial in Nevada, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 1986.

Goldfield: The Last Gold Rush on the Western Frontier, Ohio University Press (Athens. OH), 1992.

"Ghost Dance Winter" and Other Tales of the Frontier, Nevada Historical Society (Reno, NV), 1994.

Jack Longstreet: Last of the Desert Frontiersmen, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 1994.

A Mine of Her Own: Women Prospectors in the American West, 1850-1950, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1997.

Sarah Winnemucca, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2001.

The Glory Days in Goldfield, Nevada, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 2002.

Devils Will Reign: How Nevada Began, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 2006.

Contributor to history journals and other periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Suggest "miners of the Old West," and most people would envision a grizzled, pickaxe-toting prospector—young or old, but always a man. Sally Zanjani sought to change that pop-culture image in her book A Mine of Her Own: Women Prospectors in the American West, 1850-1950. Zanjani presents a gallery of women who were unconventional by the standards of their day. They shunned marriage and the genteel life and instead sought their fortune in California, Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon, facing down a hostile environment and their own long odds against success. Although their numbers seemed small—Zanjani counts only about a hundred women who made their way in the "Old" and "New" West—the author "persuasively states that, if fivescore female miners emerge from the ranks of this masculine industry," according to Anne Butler in a Pacific Historical Review article, "an unknown number remain lost in the record. By implication, she prods historians to reexamine western occupations traditionally regarded as the exclusive province of male workers."

Charlene Porsild reviewed A Mine of Her Own for the Canadian Journal of History, and praised the author's "diligent efforts [that] represent a splendid example of how perseverance and painstaking research can pay off in huge rewards." The book, like its subjects, is "pioneering," concluded Porsild. Anne Butler similarly noted that Zanjani's book "offers much to reflect on about women in the workforce of the American West and shows there is yet plenty to learn about the region's gender history." Historian Susan Armitage described A Mine of Her Own as lively, engaging, and thoroughly researched. "Zanjani's book will be read by mining historians," Armitage predicted, "and will also occupy a place on western bookstore shelves next to the old chestnuts about plucky pioneer ladies and dashing madams, where it will outshine them because it is better written and more authentic."

Among Zanjani's other books is The Ignoble Conspiracy: Radicalism on Trial in Nevada (written with Guy Louis Rocha), an investigation of a 1907 murder trial sparked by union radicalism. Zanjani once explained to CA: "The Ignoble Conspiracy was largely responsible for posthumous pardons granted to Goldfield Union radicals Morrie Preston and Joseph Smith in 1987, eighty years after their convictions."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Canadian Journal of History, December, 1997, Charlene Porsild, review of A Mine of Her Own: Women Prospectors in the American West, 1850-1950, p. 486.

Library Journal, April 1, 1997, Patricia Ann Owens, review of A Mine of Her Own, p. 108.

Pacific Historical Review, May, 1998, Anne M. Butler, review of A Mine of Her Own, p. 283.

Signs, spring, 2000, Susan Armitage, review of A Mine of Her Own.