Purple Hummingbird : a Biography of Elizabeth Warder Crozer Campbell /
Claude N. Warren and Joan S. Schneider.
- Salt Lake City : The University of Utah Press, (c)2017.
- 1 online resource (xi, 194 pages) : illustrations, map
Includes bibliographies and index.
Why a biography of Elizabeth Campbell? -- The purple hummingbird -- Growing up a Crozer -- Betty and Bill at the Twentynine Palms Oasis -- Life as homesteaders in Twentynine Palms -- The beginnings -- A scientist takes flight -- The great Lake Mojave "debate" : intellectual transitions -- The state of early man studies in California in 1937 : a history for curious readers -- Lake Mojave : the view from Twentynine Palms -- The death of Bill in 1944 and the aftermath -- The purple hummingbird comes home to rest : the later years -- Appendix A : Chronological table of Campbell fieldwork -- Appendix B : Elizabeth Campbell's contributions to archaeology.
"Elizabeth Warder Crozer Campbell and her husband, William Campbell, found themselves forced to move to the Mojave Desert in 1924, its dry climate proving to be the best for William's frail lungs burned by mustard gas in World War I. They camped at Twentynine Palm Oasis in what is now Joshua Tree National Park, homesteaded nearby, and became a central part of that early community. Life in the remote, stark landscape contrasted sharply with Elizabeth's early years of wealth and privilege in Pennsylvania, where her family owned not only farms and thoroughbreds but also coal, iron, and steel. Her resilient spirit made the best of what at first seemed like a bleak situation: she became an amateur archaeologist and exploring the desert in search of human-made artifacts became her daily work and passion. Neither Elizabeth nor William had any formal training in archaeology, so she drew from the resources at her disposal --