On the Fringes of Power - The Life and Turbulent Career of Stephen Wallace Dorsey

Touted in his time as one of the "great men of the West," Stephen Wallace Dorsey was a Reconstruction carpetbagger who went to Arkansas and finagled and bribed his way into getting elected to the US Senate after living only two years in the state before heading West to seek his fortune. From a fraudulent New Mexico land claim to taking up mining claims and real estate in Southern California, he used sheer cunning and guile to manipulate the system of the Gilded Age to his own ends. Dorsey was a major presence in early New Mexico-which was no-holds-barred frontier corruption-with his flair for excess. Excess is in everything he did, his manipulative 600,000-acre-land-grab, his political shenanigans, his excessive drinking, his extravagant lifestyle always on display. In his fraudulent dealings he was caught out-not by the law, but those more conniving than he was. His fantastic mansion in the middle of a still-today empty prairie in northeastern New Mexico was of state-wide historical importance before the state could no longer afford to keep it.

About the author

Mari Graña has published books on New Mexico history and on western women in medicine. Her memoir, "Begoso Cabin," won the Willa Cather Award from Women Writing the West for best memoir of 2000, and the biography of her physician grandmother, "Pioneer Doctor," was a finalist for the same award in 2006. "Charity's Sister" is the third in a series on women in medicine. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Product details

• Authors: Mari Graana, Mari Grana, Grana Mari
• Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.09.2015
• EAN: 9781442247352
• ISBN: 978-1-4422-4735-2
• No. of pages: 144
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; Biografien: allgemein, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Political, Biography: historical, political & military, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Criminals & Outlaws, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / General, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, HISTORY / United States / 19th Century, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Political leaders & leadership, History of the Americas, c 1914 to c 1918 (including WW1), Biography: historical, political and military, Political leaders and leadership, C 1900 - C 1914, c 1900 to c 1909, c 1914 to c 1918 (World War One period), US West, Western & Pacific Coast states