A Victorian Gentlewoman in Colorado’s Mines: Mary Hallock Foote’s Extractive Imagination

When Wallace Stegner mined the letters of the writer and illustrator Mary Hallock Foote for his Pulitzer Prize-winning Angle of Repose, he continued a longstanding association between mining and men. A century earlier, though, Foote herself had drawn on the mining communities of Colorado as the subjects of her novels and illustrations. This talk explores the inspiration Foote found for her fiction in the mines around Leadville. This lecture coincides with the museum exhibition Here and Now, Then and Always, on view Ocbober 2, 2026 through February 27, 2027. Themed Cocktail: Coal Miner’s Daughter Lecturer: Sylvan Goldberg, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of English, Colorado College Tickets: $26 ($20 for FAC Members), includes your first drink Get TICKETS About Libation Lectures Libation Lectures is lecture series offering an educational twist to the traditional happy hour. Each lecture explores an aspect of the amazing art and artists from various FAC exhibitions and theatre shows, served up with a themed drink to help you really dive deep into the topic! This lecture is part of the Libation Lectures Spring Series, which includes four lectures: Chasing the Cambrian Explosion, Friday, August 14 A Victorian Gentlewoman in Colorado’s Mines, Friday, September 18 The Bones of Tradition: The Many Lives of the Day of the Dead, Friday, October 23 Dreaming of a White Christmas, Friday, November 20 Photo credit: Denver Public Library Special Collections