What Was the Donner Party?

The notorious true story of a group of pioneers forced to make impossible decisions when trapped in the mountains for an entire winter—part of the New York Times bestselling What Was? series, featuring 16 pages of photos.

In the winter of 1846-47, a group of eighty-seven pioneers heading from the Midwest to California found themselves snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range with no way forward and no food or supplies. While forty-eight of the group members survived, the others perished due to extreme weather, starvation, and illness. To survive, the remaining people resorted to extreme measures...including cannibalism. Theirs is a story of miscalculations, bad decisions, and extreme weather—but it’s also a story of survival and bravery among everyday people.