Customer Reviews (1)

Gold fever; Americas first gold rush
A slightly entertaining book. Some history, and some tales. More is written about the trail of tears, than the life and hardships of the gold minor and prospector.If your one goal is to learn or just read about the Georgia gold rush this bookfalls short. If on the othe hand a little information about goverment policies,broken treaties, and a gold tale interest you, than you may want to purchase this book. It is a veryquick read. ... Read more

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Among the hordes of starry-eyed 'argonauts' who flocked to the California gold rush of 1849 was an Australian named Edward Hargraves. He left America empty-handed, only to find gold in his own backyard. The result was the great Australian rush of the 1850s, which also attracted participants from around the world. A South African named P.J. Marais was one of them. Marais too returned home in defeat - only to set in motion the diamond and gold rushes that transformed southern Africa. And so it went.

Most previous historians of the gold rushes have tended to view them as acts of spontaneous nationalism. Each country likes to see its own gold rush as the one that either shaped those that followed or epitomized all the rest. InThe Gold Crusades: A Social History of Gold Rushes, 1849-1929, Douglas Fetherling takes a different approach.

Fetherling argues that the gold rushes in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa shared the same causes and results, the same characters and characteristics. He posits that they were in fact a single discontinuous event, an expression of the British imperial experience and nineteenth-century liberalism. He does so with dash and style and with a sharp eye for the telling anecdote, the out-of-the-way document, and the bold connection between seemingly unrelated disciplines.

Originally published by Macmillan of Canada, 1988.

Customer Reviews (2)

Great reference book
As a historic archaeologist this book is invaluable for the history of the gold rushes from California to the Klondike and beyond.

A fascinating view of gold
Fetherling writes a fascinating account of 19th century gold rushes.What is particularly fascinating about this book is level of interconnectedness that he has unearthed.Americans in Australia, Australians in Canada and more - it is a web of social intercourse unsuspected by most.Yet the impact of that interconnectedness has been significant.Looking for a good read, this is it! ... Read more

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In 1850, Jean-Nicolas Perlot, a 26-year-old Belgian, joined a French mining company bound for the gold fields of California. This book is Perlot's witty and informative account of his life in California and his subsequent career in the newly rich town of Portland, Oregon. 33 illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

disappointed
I thought the book was a hard cover for 28 dollars.I didn't read your add close enough.I was disappointed to find the price on the paperback was 18 dollars.That makes your post free offer a bust.There were many offers for this book.Next time I will try a better offer.

first hand account of the difficulties at hand
Written in a "natural" fashion, this book is part of American history from a most objective point of view. It's amazing how Perlot was able to record his adventures in vivid detail.

one of the best among a limited few
First-hand accounts of this time and place are very scarce...beside being rich in detail and easy to read, I have another reason for recommending this book.This summer I presented to Yosemite visitors (as a naturalist volunteer) a program on the Miwok of the Wawona (Yosemite National Park) and how nature shaped their culture.Perlot's journal on how he cam e tounderstand the Indians and appreciate their skills was so suited to what I was tring to convey, that for my visitors appreciation, I read a paragraph or two to them.A "thank you" to the Indians of this park who guided me.

Great Great Grandpa did us proud
Excellent review of my Great Great Grandfather's 20 years in America after leaving first Belgium and then Paris to seek his fortune with a company that upon arrival in Monterey, California was bankrupt.Being a selfstarter and not one to give up easily; he headed off to the gold fields onhis own gathering other people as he went along.He gives an excellentaccount of the hardships and heartache suffered by not only himself butothers who found themselves so far from home.It was either charge forwardor give up and go to wherever it was you could afford to travel. It showshis compassion for his fellow man and also his ability to get along withthe Indians and adapt to whatever the world threw at him You have to beproud of a guy like that.Eventually he married a cousin and brought herto the U.S. to live in Portland, Oregon but eventually they returned toBelgium where he whiled away his last years enjoying life and most probablythinking about the wonderful and exiting years of taking each day as itcame; solving lifes problems and standing up for what he believed in;occasionally backing that up with his pistol and rifle.This is not ashoot em up story or anything of the sort; however, it does reflect what itwas like to be on your own in a very difficult environment and time whenonly the strongest survived.Naturally, I am biased since the old fellowblazed a trail for the rest of us Perlot's----of which there are but a few. ... Read more

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From award-winning historian Leonard L. Richards, an authoritative and revealing portrait of an overlooked harbinger of the terrible battle yet to come.

When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, Americans of all stripes saw the potential for both wealth and power. Among the more calculating were Southern slave owners. By making California a slave state, they could increase the value of their slaves—by 50 percent at least, and maybe much more. They could also gain additional influence in Congress and expand Southern economic clout, abetted by a new transcontinental railroad that would run through the South. Yet, despite their machinations, California entered the union as a free state. Disillusioned Southerners would agitate for even more slave territory, leading to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and, ultimately, to the Civil War itself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Broderick vs. Terry duel ...and a gold rush
The book starts and ends with the duel between Senator Broderick and California Supreme Court Justice Terry. In between it tells stories from California history from before the gold rush to the civil war.The initial portion of the book focuses on the fairly well known history of early settler's, Sutter, and the stampede for gold. The most intriguing part here was the story of transportation to California and Vanderbilt's vindictiveness against those that wronged him.

The bulk of the book covers the movers and shakers in California at the time. These are the stories of men that left there home states in pursuit of greater political power in California.These stories are tied to the quest of politicians in Washington to balance the free and slave state needs.The story of the southern "Chivs" in California is especially interesting.

The many different threads all seem to tie in to the story of California.However, the story ends before the civil war, with the war only mentioned briefly in the epilogue. With the emphasis of the title I would expect a little more coverage at least up to the start of the war.

Interesting Collection of stories but weak on thesis
This is a very random but interesting collection of stories from the gold rush to the civil war in California but lacked a solid thesis to connect them together. The book does do an excellent job of showing how California became a state via its population boom.It tracks the lives of those who impacted California from the Pathfinder, to Thomas Hart Benton and Jefferson Davis as well as the players within California many of whom would shape the transcontinental railroad.As noted by an earlier review it does provide a very interesting glimpse as to why the territories of California, Nevada and Colorado/Utah became the states that they did through the slavery question and how California was forced to remain together rather than try to solve the national slave problem from the local perspective.For those looking for more on the history of California and want to learn more about the little known stories this is a great book to start doing so but it does not tell a coherent story and remains a random collection.

Good try
I think that the authro had an interesting hypothesis and did attack the Civil War from an interesting perspective.But, the bottom line is that California was never really threatened to become a slave state or leave the Union at the time of the Civil War.I think it was a real stretch to suggest that those hypotheses were any more than very unlikely and really didn't even come close to happening.I believe that the vote was over 80% in favor of "free state" status.

A Close Run Thing: California, CSA
A Close Run Thing: California, CSA
The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War, Richards, Leonard L., Knopf Publishing, 304 pp., illus., maps, 2007.

Gold Rush! California, like Kansas in the 1850s, was caught between pro- and anti-slavery settlers. To migrating Southerners, the labor-intensive mines in the Sierra Nevada Mountains begged for slave labor. Southern slave holders, who did not migrate to California, viewed Californaia as a new market for slaves. The Mexican state of California became the U.S. state of California through intense political maneuvering, timely military presence, and impassioned hypocritical rhetoric. A 'free state' (wage labor as opposed to slave labor) California narrowly missed being divided, north to south, wage labor and slave labor.

Conversely, Northern migrants envisioned the building of ports which in turn would lead to extensive participation in the China trade. The struggle for California statehood, the divisions within the Democratic Party, the contentious spirit of the American (Know Nothing) Party, the demise of the Whig Party, and the explosive growth of the Republican Party is subperbly described by the author. Slanders, duels, law suits, graft, were a frequent occurrence. In an era when voters received paper ballots at home and then went to the polls, party organization was essential.

The author offers telling details within in the mural of the political, social and economic panorama of California. Richards opens the story with the murder of an Irish Catholic Democratic U.S. Senator and ends the book with the unmourned death of one of the conspirators 20 years later. In the middle of the work, Richards reveals that the senator predicted his own death within a next few months. Seamlessly moving from the Sierra Nevada goldfields to San Fransico, from Panama and to the halls of Congress, and then back again, Professor Richards tells a story of gold and railroads, Mexicans and Anglos, miners and politicians, frontier women and ballroom damsels.

Refreshingly, Richards draws his conclusions hestitantly. He offers no platitudes nor does he reveal an agenda. The reader draws his own conclusions and meanings regarding the Slave Power Conspiracy, Stephen Douglas' quest for a railroad for the West, James Buchanan's activism and paralysis, and John Fremont's reputation and his actual accomplishments. This reader realized how close California was to becoming North California and South California. How may have the Civil War turned out if the North had not received almost $3 million dollars a month during the Civil War from the California gold fields? How may have the war turned out if gold had been king and cotton had been queen of the South?

California's Unknown Political History Between the Gold Rush and the Civil War
Most books about the American Civil War ignore the West. At best they will take up the 1862 Confederate invasion of New Mexico, and perhaps mention that a handful of Confederate troops made it as far west as Tucson.

Otherwise, aside from the Union occupation of New Orleans, Grant's actions in Tennessee and Mississippi, and Sherman's March to the Sea, most books on the conflict concentrate on Lee's campaigns in Virginia and his two invasions of the North. Books about the approach of the war take up the issues of slavery and States' Rights in the context of the politics in the East and the repercussions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The West is not usually discussed. Yet, California's gold helped finance the Union victory, and Californians were deeply involved in the politics that led to the conflict.

Leonard L. Richards, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, tries to redress this imbalance. In this new book he takes up the politics of California, from the entrance of John C. Frémont on the eve of the Mexican War, through the Gold Rush and California's admission as a state, to the 1860 election that led to the war.

Many Northern Californians today often wonder why the state couldn't have been divided into two? The more ecologically-minded north could manage its own water, and the thirsty south would have had to limit its unbridled growth. Richards tells us how the state almost did become divided, several times in fact. The closest division came was in 1858 when the California legislature passed an act to separate the state, creating a Territory of Colorado south of the vicinity of San Luis Obispo. Richards says this was because of a desire among the Mexicans of the south for more self-determination, but they would have never succeeded without the votes of the pro-Southern Democrats in the north who hoped to create a slave state in southern California.

The southern part of the state voted three to one in a referendum in support of the plan, but the US Congress, faced with the approaching Civil War, ignored the proposal. Considering the great interest among many in Congress and the Buchanan Administration in the vain attempt to create a pro-slavery Kansas, their negligence of a much more possible new slave state in southern California is surprising, but by 1858 the Republicans were in the ascendancy and the Democrats were fragmenting.

Against the background of the national debate, Richards describes the local politics in California, a free state dominated by pro-slavery Southerners, highlighted by a famous duel between the pro-slavery Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and an anti-slavery US Senator. The several plans to create a transcontinental railroad are also described against the background of the slavery issue and the Kansas statehood debate.

My only wish is that the Epilogue, a concise summary of California and California soldiers during the Civil War, should instead have been expanded intoseveral chapters. The book is called "...the Coming of the Civil War" and that's what it is. But when there are so few books that discuss California during the war, it would have been nice if Richards could have written more. ... Read more

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Perhaps never in the time-honored American tradition of frontiering did "civilization" appear to sink so low as in gold rush California. A mercurial economy swung from boom to bust, and back again, rendering everyone's fortunes ephemeral. Competition, jealousy, and racism fueled individual and mass violence. Yet, in the very midst of this turbulence, social and cultural forms emerged, gained strength, spread, and took hold. Rooted in Barbarous Soil,Volume 3 in the four-volume California History Sesquicentennial Series, is the only book of its kind to examine gold rush society and culture, to present modern interpretations, and to gather up-to-date bibliographies of its topics.
Chapters by leading scholars in their respective fields explore a range of topics including migration and settlement; ethnic diversity, assimilation, cooperation, and conflict; the dispossession of Indians and the Californios; the founding of schools and universities; urban life; women in early California; the sexual frontier; and the development of religion, art, literature, and popular culture. Many rarely seen illustrations supplement the text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Outstanding Read!
Don't be fooled by the title, this wonderful book is more than just the history of women, it offers compelling insight into the entire era.You don't have to be a history buff to enjoy this book. Read it, you won't be sorry!

Fantastic
This is a thoroughly well-researched and fantastic book.Fun just to sit down and read the whole thing.Levy gets in some obscure references--in fact, her bibliography is rather daunting.

It's also a must-read for any historical researcher.Totally recommended.

A little known history
In her book, They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush, Jo Ann Levy weaves letters and journal entries into a picture of the lives of women during the California gold rush.
Coming by covered wagons or ships these women wrote about their journeys' across mountains, deserts, oceans, and jungles. The excitement of an adventure and the beauty of the land was not the whole story however; misery and death joined them on their journey. Inadequate provisions, brutal storms and sickness were common themes. And once these women reached the promise land of San Francisco, the streets were not paved in gold as they dreamed, but littered with trash.
The belief that there were only prostitutes or actresses was also not true; many women ran boarding houses or mined for gold.Some left after the gold ran out, but many women stayed in the cities that they helped create.
Though this book it is not organized in to one story, it is an insight into the women who came to California during the gold rush. You will be amazed by their bravery as they left their comfortable lives and uprooted their families for adventures unknown.

Very muchworth your time to read!
This book is great!
A person wouldn't even need to be interested in history of the gold rush days to thoroughly enjoy reading this book.I don't have alot of free time to read, so when I pick a book it has to be worth my while.This certainly was.And it's an easy book for reading a few pages at a time, like I do just before going to bed.I love how it organizes the accounts and groups the stories into chapters of a particular theme.Fascinating!

A Fresh and Factual Look at Women in the West

In They Saw The Elephant, Jo Ann Levy has combined women's journals and letters with newspaper articles of the gold rush era into an articulate, shining gem of historical writing. Her purpose was to dispel many of the common assumptions and general characterizations made in earlier histories about the women who participated in the California gold rush.A number of the early twentieth century histories of this monumental American event imply there were few women in California, and that a majority of those women were of questionable social standing. Levy's placement of her chapter on prostitution is wisely situated in the second half of her work. She admits there is little written record concerning the lives of these women, particularly those of Chilean and Chinese descent who came to the gold fields. The author does not fill in the blanks with supposition or fiction. By the time the reader gets to the chapter on prostitution, it is already clear that women were contributing far more to the Gold Rush than physical pleasure for males.

The Oregon Trail opened in 1847. Levy includes some of the women's stories from this trek even if their final destination was not the gold fields. This is a plus. The reader understands that women had started emigrating west for reasons other than gold and the journals and letters used to demonstrate life on the trail were vivid.

The variety of women discussed in this book was a cross section of society at the time. I laughed out loud while reading about how some of the highbrow, educated women reacted to the primitive society of San Francisco. These women adapted, and most made a good living as boarding house keepers and cooks.
Levy does an excellent job showing us the ingenuity of the women who went west. Living aboard abandoned ships in the bay, renting out rooms in, and using wood and goods from those ships are details about day-to-day life often lost in the telling of the human experience of the gold rush.

Perhaps the strongest statement Levy makes in her book is found in the Postscript. Women who went west during the gold rush continued their lives long after the three- year bonanza. Most didn't stay in San Francisco. Most didn't even stay in California. Their toil was but another blip on the radar screen of their lives. They didn't crawl back east to their families as broken women. They had seen the elephant, but had no desire to own the circus.

Several of the accounts made me chuckle and realize how little life has changed. One letter describes how quickly houses were being built in San Francisco. It goes on to describe the shoddy workmanship including gaps in the walls large enough to see through. I live in the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country. Houses go up over night here, literally. We joke about housing developments growing as quickly as mushrooms in the forest. The only reason the cracks in the walls don't allow light in now is chicken wire and stucco. Little has changed in the last 150 years.

Women civilized the wild California gold rush society. Some used the money they had made from the miners and started churches, schools, and hospitals. Others became heavily involved in various societies. In general, they went west with their husbands, to support their husbands in search of a better life, and they brought their civilized mindset with them.

This is an excellent book, appropriate for all audiences. It flows well, and contains a great deal of authentic information
... Read more

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NEW IN PAPER--In this first environmental history of the gold rush, Kathryn Morse describes how the miners got to the Klondike, the mining technologies they employed, and the complex networks by which they obtained food, clothing, and tools. She looks at the political and economic debates surrounding the valuation of gold and the emerging industrial economy that exploited its extraction in Alaska. The profound economic and cultural transformations that supported the Alaska-Yukon gold rush ultimately reverberate to modern times.--"Morse demonstrates the dramatic environmental damage created by the gold rush, but she also helps us understand the very real accommodations that miners had to make if they hoped to survive in these far northern landscapes. . . . She is a superb storyteller with a wry sense of humor, a flair for the quirky detail and the revealing anecdote, and a keen appreciation for the tragicomic underside of this famous event." --from the Foreword by William Cronon--"This environmental history of a gold rush is as surprising, revealing, and complicated as gold itself.-- I know of nothing quite like this wry and clever book." --Richard White--"If you're only allowed one book about the Klondike Gold Rush, I suppose it has to be Jack London.-- But this volume definitely comes next -- a wonderfully compelling acount of what it actually felt like to pack up and head to the Yukon.-- Scholars will find it provacative and deep, but all readers will find it absorbing, touching, funny -- a truly revealing window on our national history and our national character." --William McKibben--"The Nature of Gold follows environmental history's prescription to examine how people know nature through labor. But this is no myopic study of gold seekers trudging up Chilkoot Pass and then lighting the fires that thawed the frozen earth for mining. Kathryn Morse recognizes how profoundly the economic and political culture of the 1890s shaped the rush for gold in Alaska and the Yukon. And she details the varieties of interconnected human and animal labor that sustained the Klondike rush, from the Native peoples who hauled supplies over the pass, to the woodcutters who provided the fuel for steamboats, to the packhorses and sled dogs who moved gods from place to place, to the local fishers and hunters and distant farmhands and meatpackers who kept the miners and their beasts fed. The Nature of Gold effectively and seamlessly blends both older and newer environmental history methodologies, and does so in an eminently accessible and compelling prose style."--Susan Lee Johnson, University of Wisconsin-Madison--"The Nature of Gold is a tour de force of modern scholarship.-- It takes on special significance because few theoretical analyses of northern settlement, particularly in Alaska, have yet been written, and the Klondike gold rush is one of the first historical events newcomers to the field find themselves drawn to.-- This work will give them just the introduction they need to construct a meaningful understanding of northern history. " -- Pacific Northwest Quarterly--Kathryn Morse is associate professor of history at Middlebury College in Vermont.- ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Really Interesting
I bought this for a class, but enjoyed it so much that I decided to keep it rather than just disposing of most of my text books like I usually do.Great information on Alaska that is more widespread than just the Klondike. ... Read more

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“I have found it.” These words, uttered by the man who first discovered gold on the American River in 1848, triggered the most astonishing mass movement of peoples since the Crusades. California’s gold drew fortune-seekers from the ends of the earth. It accelerated America’s imperial expansion and exacerbated the tensions that exploded in the Civil War. And, as H. W. Brands makes clear in this spellbinding book, the Gold Rush inspired a new American dream—the “dream of instant wealth, won by audacity and good luck.”
Brands tells his epic story from multiple perspectives: of adventurers John and Jessie Fremont, entrepreneur Leland Stanford, and the wry observer Samuel Clemens—side by side with prospectors, soldiers, and scoundrels. He imparts a visceral sense of the distances they traveled, the suffering they endured, and the fortunes they made and lost. Impressive in its scholarship and overflowing with life, The Age of Gold is history in the grand traditions of Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough.


From the Trade Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

history for history lovers
One of my favorite reads on westward expansion, Brands takes on several journeys west to the golden land of California.Stories we were never taught in grade school, but should have been... ... Read more

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Early California during the '49 Gold Rush Days.More than 150 years have passed since young Thomas Edwin Farish stepped off a ship's plank onto the rich California soil to join the pioneers who had been drawn to California by discovery of gold.But within this book we can go back in time and experience those pioneer days of the '49 Gold Rush alongside him. Thomas Farish was a pioneer, gold miner, a politician, an author, and much more, and in the last years of his life, just prior to his death in 1919, he was the State of Arizona Historian.He witnessed and was a participant in a time when vigorous men and women arrived in California with hopes of fulfilling their dreams of achieving wealth in the days of the '49 Gold Rush.Ownership of the precious gold meant power and prosperity.But with it came the outlaw and the vigilante, and a struggle for law and order within pristine territory that was giving way to the influx of population from around the world.It was the beginning of commerce as businesses were established, and trade grew as towns and cities sprung up to meet the needs of the immigrants.And many found wealth in real estate, commercial endeavors, as well as in prospecting.It was a time of new endeavors, new risks, and endless opportunity.Farish paints exquisitely with words, the challenges, the tragedies, the sufferings endured, along with the hard work, the legends, the triumphs and successes of building communities such as San Francisco, Sacramento, and the many towns in the gold rush area of Northern California.His reminisces of the events and people who laid the foundation for the State of California are rich in history-names like Sutter, Stanford, Huntington, Hearst, Twain, Bradbury, Baldwin, Crocker, and other prominent figures.Linda Pendleton, a native Californian, has written an Introduction to Farish's work. ... Read more

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Gold Rush Grub weaves a tale of what the food was really like for intrepid dreamers like Wyatt Earp and Jack London in the gold fields of California, the Klondike, and Alaska. Chandonnet tells us how to roast a bear and stew a porcupine and gives us tempting recipes like corn meal-dusted trout with potato, apple, and onion hash that you¹ll want to cook tonight. ‹Amelia Saltsman, California food writer and television host

"A unique look at Œthe last great adventure.¹"‹Bruce Merrell, Anchorage Municipal Libraries

Ann Chandonnet brings us a rollicking history of gold rush food complete with hearty recipes ranging from sourdough flapjacks to stewed porcupine. From miners¹ meals and home remedies to holiday fare, beverages, and housekeeping, Gold Rush Grub follows the trail of stampeders from Sutter¹s Mill in California to Alaska and the Klondike.

The first food history of its kind, Gold Rush Grub presents a panoramic view of an exciting period in American history. The grub that stampeders ate was affected by everything from arctic weather to Pacific Coast agriculture and Midwest meat packing. For those who struck it rich, there were oysters, ice cream, and cognac. The less fortunate had to make due with beans and nettle soup.

Readers with an adventurous palate can experiment with recipes for scalloped grayling and caribou scrapple. Those who prefer to leave the porcupines and bears in peace will enjoy the engaging prose and historic photographs. Gold Rush Grub will appeal to general readers, cookbook aficionados, and anyone who loves a good meal and a great story. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An in-depth examination of culinary life on the frontier, especially among prospectors
Gold Rush Grub: From Turpentine Stew To Hoochinoo is not just a vintage-themed cookbook, but also an in-depth examination of culinary life on the frontier, especially among prospectors. Time-tested recipes of wild foods, or foods that stored well even in inclement conditions, formed the basis of many a prospector's diet; Gold Rush Grub reveals how to recreate the recipes of yesteryear with step-by-step, easy-to-follow instructions. Vintage photography of former prospectors and an amazing tour through history complete Gold Rush Grub, an authentic glimpse into the harsh life and culinary accomplishments of the old gold rush era.
... Read more

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For every successful mining district celebrated in history, there were failed dozens whose stories have been largely forgotten. The Mechanics of Optimism fills a void by documenting, in rare detail, the boom-bust cycle of Hot Spring District, a mid-1860s Montana gold camp that didn’t pay, despite early predictions of a bonanza.

Author and historian Jeffrey J. Safford examines how gold mining ventures were developed and financed during and after the Civil War, and how men, primarily Easterners with scant knowledge of mining, were willing to invest large sums in gold mines that promised quick and lucrative returns.

Safford explains how these mining companies were organized and underwritten, and why a little-known district in southwestern Montana was chosen as a center of operations.What were the businessmen involved in these ventures thinking? Why didn’t new mining technology triumph as predicted? Why did their financial strategies fail to produce lavish profits? Relying on extensive primary sources, Safford answers these and other questions while reminding the reader that the rapid rise and decline of Hot Spring was not unique. The mining frontier is littered with short-lived "sure-fire investments." True bonanzas were the exception, not the rule. ... Read more

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"It is a glorious country," exclaimed Stephen J. Field, the future U.S. Supreme Court justice, upon arriving in California in 1849. Field's pronouncement was more than just an expression of exuberance. For an electrifying moment, he and another 100,000 hopeful gold miners found themselves face-to-face with something commensurate to their capacity to dream. Most failed to hit pay dirt in gold. Thereafter, one illustrative group of them struggled to make a living in wheat, livestock, and fruit along Putah Creek in the lower Sacramento Valley. Like Field, they never forgot that first "glorious" moment in California when anything seemed possible.

In After the Gold Rush, David Vaught examines the hard-luck miners-turned-farmers -- the Pierces, Greenes, Montgomerys, Careys, and others -- who refused to admit a second failure, faced flood and drought, endured monumental disputes and confusion over land policy, and struggled to come to grips with the vagaries of local, national, and world markets.

Their dramatic story exposes the underside of the American dream and the haunting consequences of trying to strike it rich.

Customer Reviews (1)

A scholarly accounting that is nonetheless thoroughly accessible
Written by Professor of History David Vaught, After the Gold Rush: Tarnished Dreams in the Sacramento Valley is the true accounting of what happened to the gold rush miners and prospectors who turned to farming in Sacramento Valley to make a living, after the gold rush petered out. These ex-miners toiled to raise wheat, livestock, and fruit despite floods, drought, severe disputes over a vague land policy, and the fluctuations of the market for their crops. A scholarly accounting that is nonetheless thoroughly accessible to anyone curious about the fallout of the gold rush, and a highly recommended addition to California history shelves. ... Read more

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Celebrating the 150th birthday of the state of California offers the opportunity to reexamine the founding of modern California, from the earliest days through the Gold Rush and up to 1870. In this four-volume series, published in association with the California Historical Society, leading scholars offer a contemporary perspective on such issues as the evolution of a distinctive California culture, the interaction between people and the natural environment, the ways in which California's development affected the United States and the world, and the legacy of cultural and ethnic diversity in the state.
California before the Gold Rush, the first California Sesquicentennial volume, combines topics of interest to scholars and general readers alike. The essays investigate traditional historical subjects and also explore such areas as environmental science, women's history, and Indian history. Authored by distinguished scholars in their respective fields, each essay contains excellent summary bibliographies of leading works on pertinent topics. This volume also features an extraordinary full-color photographic essay on the artistic record of the conquest of California by Europeans, as well as over seventy black-and-white photographs, some never before published.Amazon.com Review
As the first of a projected four-volume collection that willportray the complete history of California, Contested Edencontains a dozen essays ranging from prehistory to 1848.Because itis often common to think of California's history as beginning with theGold Rush, this text provides a welcome look at the rich background ofthe most populous state. It is sure to be of interest both to academicand novice historians. Contested Eden begins with anexamination of California's natural history, and proceeds in a roughlychronological fashion through the Indian settlements, the conquest bySpain, the incursions of Russian traders, the settlers who cameoverland from the United States, and the role of California in the warbetween the U.S. and Mexico. Other essays tackle themes such ascultural conflicts and gender roles. On occasion the writing lapsesinto academic jargon, but for the most part the pieces are lucid andhighly informative. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Tedious, but ...
Contested Eden is a book filled with information, it is too bad that it comes off so much like a textbook.The stories can be good, yet can also be tedious.It is very helpful in the study of California History, yet can put one to sleep at the same time.I recommend it, but with caution.

found this very useful....
....for my doctoral research, which involves the history of California.The editors made a conscious choice to show this history in less Eurocentric form; Native Californian voices and perspectives are taken seriously, and there is good ethnographic and naturalistic information to be had.

While I'm not an expert in this area, I do question whether the persistent use of terms like "aristocracy," "hierarchy," "wealth," "headman," and "chief" are appropriate when discussing Native Californians.My impression is that our Western and European prejudices are still at work here.

Pre-Gold Rush California Essays
This book looks at pre-gold rush California from various angles. Essays on native California history, along with indigenous actions during early occupation years are major parts of this text. The history of"Californio" women and indigenous sexuality are also included. Californio and Anglo interactions between 1820 and 1850 cover new ground.

At times the work appears a bit "heady" because the advancedvocabulary. However, this is a "must read" for any Californiascholar.

Scholarly essays about pre-gold rush California
This book looks at pre-gold rush California from varorious angles. Essays on native California history, along with indigenous actions during early occupation years are major parts of this text. The history of"Californio" women and indigenous sexuality are also included. Californio and Anglo interactions between 1820 and 1850 cover new ground.

At times the work appears a bit "heady" because the advancedvocabulary. However, this is a "must read" for any Californiascholar.

Scholarly essays about pre-gold rush California.
This book looks at pre-gold rush California from varorious angles. Essays on native California history, along with indigenous actions during early occupation years are major parts of this text.The history of"Californio" women and indigenous sexuality are also included.

Californio and Anglo interactions between 1820 and 1850 cover newground.

At times the work appears a bit "heady" because theadvanced vocabulary.However, this is a "must read" for anyCalifornia scholar. ... Read more

Product Description
With the release of this book, the search for the lost Rhoades Mine is narrowed to a few square miles of real estate due east of Kamas, Utah. This gives promise that the greatest of all gold deposits—including remains of Montezuma’s vast treasure—may soon be found.

It all began in the mid-1800s when Ute chief Walkara bagged up sixty pounds of raw gold for Mormon bishop Isaac Morley. He took it to Brigham Young, who later assigned Thomas Rhoades—under a blood oath of secrecy—to fetch more of the sacred metal for minting coins and decorating temples.

The gold came from the sacred Ute mines in the Uintah Mountains that were once worked by the Aztecs. In 1520 the Aztecs told Hernando Cortez that their vast hoards of gold came from seven mines far to the north—the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola—leading to Spanish exploration throughout the Uintah Mountains. But the Spaniards had little luck, and the treasure still awaits.

Discover within these pages:

• How modern technology has combined with history and legend to pinpoint the location—within a few square miles—of the Mother Lode of all gold deposits.
• The reason Mel Fisher, discoverer of lost Spanish treasure in the Caribbean, came to the Uintah Mountains just before his untimely death.
• The government’s decision in the early 1900s to reduce the size of the Ute Indian Reservation to make new areas available for mining when F.W.C. Hathenbruck and Caleb Rhoades promised to use mining proceeds to pay off the national debt.
• The secret endeavors of Jesse Knight and Reed Smoot to claim the gold mines in the Uintahs for themselves.
• The recent sham burial of Ute chief Black Hawk in Spring Lake, Utah, to cover up the secret transfer of his bones to one of the tribe’s sacred mines.
• Never-before-published maps and detailed letters from those who have been to the mines. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Utah Gold Rush Review
It seems that this book was written to re-state basically what was written in "Footprints in the Wilderness," Not everyone has access to a copy of that book because it is out of print and hard to find.

I think this book was a great thing because it gives people a chance to hear what Gale Rhoads had said in his book plus more.

This is probably as close to Gale's book as it gets without reading his actual book.

I think everyone should either buy this one or read it from the library.

As for Boren being in prison, what does that have to do with writing a book?

***GOOD BOOK***

Dont waste your money on this one....
It seems that all Boren has managed to do in this book is rehash what has already been written and copy letters that have already been published. If you have read Footprints or any George Thompson books you will be sorely disappointed in this one. No new info, just a redo to generate some $$ while Boren is in jail. And by the way, how is he writing this when he has been in jail for the past 10+ years. This is the randoms ramblings of a man in prison too long. ... Read more