The Fall issue of Overland Journal is at the printer and will go out to OCTA members the week after Christmas. Bob Clark has retired as the editor–the first time since 2002 that I have not been working for him in some form!–and I’m happy to be working with our new editor, Marlene Smith-Baranzini. She was the associate editor of California History, the quarterly of the California Historical Society, but left the position before I worked on it. We both copy-edited The Governor: The Life and Legacy of Leland Stanford, and I learned so much about being an editor from reviewing her works–what to change and, more importantly, what to leave alone. Since then she has become a very trusted colleague (and fun person to meet up with when I’m in California!).
The first article in this issue of OJ is fur-trade oriented, thus this lovely cover image. I loved the detail of the mule in the background, but it became hard to see when I shrank the image down enough to fit the whole thing on the cover. Yet the whole painting is so beautiful, and we wanted our readers to see the whole thing, too! So we are running both versions–the striking cropped version on the front cover, so we can see the nitty gritty of the trappers’ work in the river, and the full version on the back, where the bend in the river and the mountains in the distance are visible. I just love how it turned out.
Here’s the full info on the cover image, from the Fall issue: Alfred J. Miller, Trapping Beaver, ca. 1858–1860, watercolor on paper, 8.9 by 13.8 in. Courtesy the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Md. In 1837 the European-trained artist A. J. Miller (1810–1874) made his first journey into in the American West with a hunting party, creating quick, accurate sketches that he would later render in his Baltimore studio.