The California Gold Rush
A Brief History with DocumentsFirst Edition ©2018
The story of the California Gold Rush is one of unanticipated, rapid, and momentous change. In 1848, California was a remote and underpopulated province of Mexico; by 1850 it had become part of the United States and produced one-third of the gold in the world. Popularly, the Gold Rush is remember...
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The story of the California Gold Rush is one of unanticipated, rapid, and momentous change. In 1848, California was a remote and underpopulated province of Mexico; by 1850 it had become part of the United States and produced one-third of the gold in the world. Popularly, the Gold Rush is remembered as a pleasant adventure in which many prospectors not only became wealthy but furthered national expansion. Yet few prospectors struck it rich, the Gold Rush was characterized by appalling violence, and the environmental consequences of mining were devastating. In this volume, Andrew C. Isenberg confronts these controversies and paradoxes directly. The collection focuses on the social and environmental context and consequences of the Gold Rush, and considers, in the final section, whether the popular memory and scholarly understanding of the Gold Rush reflect that context and those consequences. A Chronology, Questions for Consideration, maps, and a Selected Bibliography all enrich students understanding of the California Gold Rush.
"This thoughtfully selected volume provides exactly what students need to focus their historical energies on strong analysis, insightful arguments, and fine writing. Overall, this volume offers a superbly curated selection of rich primary source text for students of the California Gold Rush."
--Jessica Kim, California State University
"This volume provides a focused examination of the Gold Rush from a variety of perspectives, with its emphasis on the environmental impact of the Gold Rush being especially noteworthy. Its inclusion of diverse voices makes it worthy of adoption in courses with diversity designations."
--Kevin Adams, Kent State University
"This volume provides a thorough introduction to a wide range of seminal issues preceding, during, and consequent to the California Gold Rush. The volume provides for a nuanced understanding of the Gold Rush, one that transcends romanticized and sanitized interpretations."
--Philip Garone, California State University Stanislaus
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Maps
PART ONE
Introduction: Race, Property, and the California Gold Rush
Before the Gold Rush
The Gold Rush
After the Gold Rush
The Gold Rush in Historical Memory
PART TWO
The Documents
1. Discovery
1. Azariah Smith, The Gold Discovery Journal, 1848
2. William T. Sherman, Memoirs, 1875
3. Colonel Richard Mason, Letter to Brigadier General R. Jones, August 17, 1848
4. Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clapp, The Shirley Letters from the California Mines, 1851-52
5. Joseph Pownall, Letter to Dr. O. C. Pownall, May 1850
6. Joseph B. Chaffee, Letters to his Parents in Binghampton, New York, 1850-1851
2. Cities
7. Elisha Oscar Crosby, Memoirs
8. Daily Alta California, Terrible Riot at Sacramento, August 15, 1850
9. Charles Robinson, The Sacramento Riot, 1892
10. John Frederick Morse, History of Sacramento, 1853
11. Henry A. Parker, Letters to his Mother, 1852-1853
12. Lell Hawley Wooley, California, 1849-1913, 1913
3. The National and Transnational Contexts of the Gold Rush
13. California Constitutional Convention, Debates, 1849
14. San Francisco Bulletin, Stovall v. Archy, February 13, 1858
15. Vicente Pérez Rosales, Times Gone By, 1882
16. Edward Hargraves, Australia and Its Gold Fields, 1855
17. John T. Know, Letter to the Sacramento Daily Union, May 31, 1858
4. Californios
18. Richard Henry Dana, Two Years before the Mast, 1840
19. Edwin Bryant, What I Saw in California, 1848
20. John S. Hittell, Mexican Land-Claims in California, April 1858
21. Cave Johnson Couts, Abel Stearns, and Charles Robinson, Letters, 1852-1857
22. Juan Bandini, Last Will and Testament, 1859
5. Natives
23. Isaac Perkins, Letter to Daniel Perkins, January 30, 1851
24. George Gibbs, J.A. Whaley, C. Woodford, J.W. Holt, Chas. Liscom, R. Wiley, and Edw. Kingwood, To the Governor of California, June 27, 1852
25. Stephen Powers, The Chi-mal’-a-kwe, 1877
26. Bret Harte, Indiscriminate Massacre of Indians: Women and Children Butchered, February 29, 1860
6. Chinese
27. Norman Asing (Sang Yuen), To His Excellency Gov. Bigler, May 5, 1852
28. Humboldt Times, Anti-Coolie Association, January 25, 1862
29. Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872
30. Chinese Exclusion Act, May 6, 1882
7. Chinese
31. John H. Eagle, To his Wife, Margaret H. Eagle, April 10, 1852
32. John Thompson Kincade, Letters to James Kincade, 1850-1871
33. Sacramento Daily Union, Hydraulic Mining, July 11, 1854
34. William Wells, The Quicksilver Mines of New Almaden, California, June 1863
35. Hamilton Smith, Jr., Circular Letter to Hydraulic Miners, 1876
36. Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly of the 22nd Session of the Legislature of the State of California, Testimony Taken by the Committee on Mining Debris, as Reported to the Assembly," 22nd Sess. , 1877-1878
37. Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Co., January 7, 1884
8. Reflections
38. Charles Howard Shinn, Mining Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government, 1884
39. Josiah Royce, California, from the Conquest in 1846 to the Second Vigilance Committee in San Francisco: A Study of American Character, 1886
40. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California, 1890
APPENDIXES
A Chronology of the California Gold Rush (1572 – 1885)
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography
Index
Authors
Andrew C. Isenberg
Andrew C. Isenberg received his B.A. from St.Olaf College and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He teaches the history of the American West, borderlands history, and environmental history as Professor of History at Temple University. He is the author of Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life; Mining California: An Ecological History; and The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920. He has also edited two volumes of collected essays: The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History and The Nature of Cities: Culture Landscape, and Urban Space.
Andrew C. Isenberg is the author of Mining California: An Ecological History (Hill and Wang, 2005) and The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920 and the editor of The Nature of Cities: Culture, Landscape, and Urban Space. He is a historian at Temple University and lives in Penn Valley, PA.
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