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Hispanic Americans increased their presence in America throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, as they struggled to gain civil rights and equality. This volume examines the impact of Hispanic Americans on America's expansion from coast to coast and the conflicts during the 1900s. Students will learn about people, issues, and events that have affected Hispanic Americans over the last 150 years.

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This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of History, published by University of Saskatchewan on December 1, 1997. The length of the article is 1590 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation. (book reviews)
Author: Charlene Porsild
Publication: Canadian Journal of History (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1997
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan
Volume: v32Issue: n3Page: p486(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
January 24, 1848, was a day that changed everything. The flecks of yellow metal, found in the American River by James Marshall, proved to be the foundation of modern California. Fortune hunters succumbed to gold fever and flocked to the Sierra Nevada foothills in search of unlimited wealth. The myths of California's gold rush are the subject of legendary songs and tales. Fortunes were won and lost almost daily. The realities behind the popular images were hard and often bloody. Gold Rush tells the story as it really happened in words and pictures. Lavishly illustrated and printed in color throughout.

The American Icon Close-Up Guide Series: The United States, in its relatively short life, has acquired an amazingly rich vein of history and legend. The American Icon Close-Up Guide series is designed to give the reader a brief, but fascinating, introduction to the wealth of treasures in the nation's past and present. Beautifully and clearly written by acknowledged experts, with outstanding illustrations, the titles in the series will build up to an unrivaled picture of what has made the United States of today. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Sacramento Union daily newspaper was a newspaper founded in 1851 in Sacramento, California. It was the oldest daily newspaper west of the Mississippi before it closed its doors after 143 years in January 1994, no longer able to compete with The Sacramento Bee, which was founded just six years after the Union, in 1857. The birth of this storied newspaper institution began 156 years ago, when the city of Sacramento was in its infancy. ... Read more

Product Description
Popular media depict miners as a rough-and-tumble lot who diligently worked the placers along scenic rushing rivers while living in roaring mining camps in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Trafzer and Hyer destroy this mythic image by offering a collection of original newspaper articles that describe in detail the murder, rape, and enslavement perpetrated by those who participated in the infamous gold rush. "It is a mercy to the Red Devils," wrote an editor of the Chico Courier, "to exterminate them." Newspaper accounts of the era depict both the barbarity and the nobility in human nature, but while some protested the inhumane treatment of Native Americans, they were not able to end the violence. Native Americans fought back, resisting the invasion, but they could not stop the tide of white miners and settlers. They became "strangers in a stolen land." ... Read more

Product Description
Described by others as quaint and exotic, or as depraved and threatening, and, more recently, as successful and exemplary, the Chinese in America have rarely been asked to describe themselves in their own words. This superb anthology, a diverse and illuminating collection of primary documents and stories by Chinese Americans, provides an intimate and textured history of the Chinese in America from their arrival during the California Gold Rush to the present. Among the documents are letters, speeches, testimonies, oral histories, personal memoirs, poems, essays, and folksongs; many have never been published before or have been translated into English for the first time. They bring to life the diverse voices of immigrants and American-born; laborers, merchants, and professionals; ministers and students; housewives and prostitutes; and community leaders and activists. Together, they provide insight into immigration, work, family and social life, and the longstanding fight for equality and inclusion. Featuring photographs and extensive introductions to the documents written by three leading Chinese American scholars, this compelling volume offers a panoramic perspective on the Chinese American experience and opens new vistas on American social, cultural, and political history. ... Read more

Product Description
Few are better prepared than Vardis Fisher to write of the gold rushes and mining camps of the West.He brings together all of the remarkable men and women, all of the fascinating ingredients, all of the violent contrasts which, by chance, go to make up one of the most enthralling chapters in American history.Fisher, a respected scholar and versatile creative writer, devoted the better part of three years to the preparation and writing of this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Book
This is exactly what I expected it to be, a book full of pictures and stories about mining camps and general life in the "old west". It is rife with information on nearly every aspect of gold camp life, from the diggings and miners to the prostitutes and leisure activities. The book itself is of good quality and looks like it will endure years of thumbing and re-reads. If you are at all interested in the old west gold camps I'd highly recommend it. ... Read more

Product Description
Describes the emigration of people from the East Coast of the United States and from foreign countries to California to pursue the dream of discovering gold. ... Read more

Product Description
More than any event in the twentieth century, World War II marked the coming of age of America's West Coast cities. Almost overnight, new war industries prompted the mass urban migration and development that would trigger lasting social, cultural, and political changes. For the San Francisco Bay Area, argues Marilynn Johnson, the changes brought by World War II were as dramatic as those brought by the gold rush a century earlier.
Focusing on Oakland, Richmond, and other East Bay shipyard boomtowns, Johnson chronicles the defense buildup, labor migration from the South and Midwest, housing issues, and social and racial conflicts that pitted newcomers against longtime Bay Area residents. She follows this story into the postwar era, when struggles over employment, housing, and civil rights shaped the urban political landscape for the 1950s and beyond. She also traces the cultural legacy of war migration and shows how Southern religion and music became an integral part of Bay Area culture.
Johnson's sources are wide-ranging and include shipyard records, labor histories, police reports, and interviews. Her findings place the war's human drama at center stage and effectively recreate the texture of daily life in workplace, home, and community. Enriched by the photographs of Dorothea Lange and others, The Second Gold Rush makes an important contribution to twentieth-century urban studies as well as to California history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The formation of the East Bay societies
I did a very quick read of this book but still found it to be quite informative. It provided a good base of knowledge of how the migration of people from around the US integrated into the East Bay region. Being a Bay Area resident I found that many of the socio-economic issues that are being dealt with today were created in part as a result of government housing policies and the rapid development of industrial areas without consideration of long term problems. There are more than enough statistics to make your head spin and a few sections that get a bit bland, but overall an enjoyable read on that period of history.

Good local history
This book brought home some facts about the explosive growth that occuredin the East Bay as a result of World War II, especially in Richmond. Italso helps explain a lot of the migration and subsequent types of jobcreation that are still with us today as a result. I found the backgroundon Kaiser - making ships, creating health plans and hospitals as a result -particularly interesting.

Informative chronicle of East Bay life during WWII
Anyone interested in the history of the east side of the San Francisco Bay during the 20th century will enjoy this book.Johnson employs a social historian's approach to explain what happened to the Richmond and Oaklandfrom 1941 to 1945 and how the war years affected the Midwesterners andSoutherners (and others) that came to the Bay Area and the natives thatthey encountered.The book successfully portrays aspects ofBay Areahistory such as huge shipyards, temporary war housing and rowdy downtownnight-life that, for the most part, are no longer visible.Johnson alsooutlines some of the political movements that developed during the WWIIyears and how they affected post-war Oakland and Richmond. Johnson'sdiscussion of the politics of the late `40s and early `50s is informativeand interesting but also brief; this may somewhatfrustrate anyoneinterested in the political history of the region.Overall, this is aninformative, well-written book. ... Read more

Product Description
California during the gold rush was a place of disputed claims, shoot-outs, gambling halls, and prostitution; a place populated by that rough and rebellious figure, the forty-niner; in short, a place that seems utterly unconnected to middle-class culture. In American Alchemy, however, Brian Roberts offers a surprising challenge to this assumption.

Roberts points to a long-neglected truth of the gold rush: many of the northeastern forty-niners who ventured westward were in fact middle-class in origin, status, and values. Tracing the experiences and adventures both of these men and of the "unseen" forty-niners—women who stayed back East while their husbands went out West—he shows that, whatever else the gold seekers abandoned on the road to California, they did not simply turn their backs on middle-class culture.

Ultimately, Roberts argues, the story told here reveals an overlooked chapter in the history of the formation of the middle class. While the acquisition of respectability reflects one stage in this history, he says, the gold rush constitutes a second stage—a rebellion against standards of respectability. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

american alchemy
so, the other book called "american alchemy" is a comprehensive history of the "movers and shakers of the solid waste industry in America."coincidence?probably not

More Like "American Crapelmy."
I met this so-called Professor Brian Roberts in college once, and let me tell you, HE'S A TOTAL CRACKPOT!!!He tried assigning sections of his award winning book to me in a pop culture class and I barely read it, because I know a thing or two about "sticking it to the man."

'Cause that's all that history classes and professors teach you - The rich guys were all right and the poor guys were all wrong, or the women were all right and the men were all wrong and the men still got away with it and do today!

We all know that 49ers are just a football team in a town full of gays.They even passed up Matt Leinart!So in conclusion, poor, nomadic speculators with nothing to lose were the real ones to do the gold rush.They truly are tales of "rags to riches" and the pioneering capitialist spirit in the 19th century.c'mon.

Incisive, engaging, and eloquent.
Full of interesting, charming, and humorous anecdotes gathered from letters and diaries, Roberts accomplishes the elusive task of making history informative and entertaining.Roberts repudiates the notion that the forty-niners were predominately working-class folk, explaining instead that most forty-niners were actually of middle-class origin (pointing out that the trip to California was expensive).These middle-class forty-niners, Roberts illustrates, joined the gold rush as a "rebellion against certain middle-class values; this revolt, in turn, was largely carried out by middle-class individuals."The gold rush provided an escape for those who sought freedom from the confines of Victorian mores.

Bold, persuasive, and readable.
Few books have as much to teach about the history of Californians or the United States. I recommend American Alchemy highly to anyone interested in innovative books about American history and culture. ... Read more

Product Description
The year is 1850. Rumors of gold in California turn out to be true. Thousands of people board ships or travel cross-country by wagon train to head for the mines. In New York City, young Marcus Gale, would like to join them, if only to escape his gambling debts. Too bad he doesn't have money for a ticket-or a square meal. He jumps at the chance for a berth as stoker on a sidewheel steamer headed for the gold fields, even though he's not sure what a stoker does. Fortunately, Marcus is a fast learner when it comes to shoveling coal and understanding steam engines. He finds it more difficult to understand people, especially the kind willing to risk everything to get to the gold. He wonders about Captain Cutter, who hates steam and lives in a state of paranoia, thinking people are plotting against him. He may be right. And then, there's the beautiful Alouette Thorndyke, the wealthy heiress who Marcus thinks is an angel. Then again, what is she, really-angel or swindler? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Read!
I had mixed feelings by the time Marcus arrived in SanFrancisco....I didn't want the journey to end,it went too fast! I really enjoyed the development of the characters, and how a person can get caught in intrigue when trying to do other things..
I highly recommend this for a casual, delightful read.
JoAnn ... Read more

Product Description
“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.Amazon.com Review
Texas A&M University professor H.W. Brands enhances his reputation as one of America's great popular historians with The Age of Gold, which tells the story of the California gold rush through rollicking narrative and intelligent analysis. "James Marshall's discovery of gold at Coloma [in 1848] turned out to be a seminal event in history, one of those rare moments that divide human existence into before and after," he writes. It launched "the most astonishing mass movement of people since the Crusades" and "helped initiate the modern era of American economic development." Brands describes how thousands of people from all over the world hazarded the journey, faced the scientific challenge of extracting precious metal from the earth, and finally struggled "to sink roots" where so many came merely "to strip the land." This book is something of a departure for Brands, who most recently has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt (both of them excellent). Yet he tackles this new topic with confidence, telling dozens of stories about John Fremont, Leland Stanford, and less famous forty-niners. He concludes by describing why these tales have a national and even global importance. The Age of Gold is magnificent in its sweep, and not to be missed by fans of American history. --John Miller ... Read more

Customer Reviews (37)

Great reading!
This is one of the best I have read in a long time.I think Mr Brands deserves a literary award.I learned a whole lot, was entertained, and amazed. His writing caused me to actually seem like I was there and I found it most interesting. Now if you like gore or drippy romance novels this is not your book.But if like history, finance, struggle, and learning a little about mining you'll like this.Facsinating topic.

A Great Story Told Once Again By A Great Modern Historian
When James Marshall thought he saw a few specks of gold at the bottom of the American river near the sawmill he was building for John Sutter near Coloma California on January 25 1848 California was still a part of Mexico with the capital in Monterey; and from the Rio Grande and the Colorado to Oregon was Spanish or Indian - take your pick. - and thinly "settled" if it could be called "settled" at all. The site of San Francisco was a settlement of a few small cabins called Yerba Buena and the country that was the United States lay hundreds of miles away to the east beyond huge mountains through which only the hardy could pass and even then on small, difficult do-it-yourself trails,. But John Charles Fremont and his detachment of American soldiers had got through; and, as Marshall was making his discovery, Fremont was dashing about with his Army, cheerfully fighting a war that was fast closing down on him, a war that ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo a few days later - February 2 1848 - and which transferred ownership of and dominion over the country through which Fremont was cruising to the United States. That was the beginning

Twenty years later the village of Yerba Buena was a cosmopolitan city called San Francisco; a railroad and telegraph linked California through the mountains to New York and Washington; California had millions of new residents, some called to the gold fields, some to the mines, some to the towns, some to the fields and orchards being sown and planted on thousands of acres, some to the railroad, some to finance, and some to any one of the scores of occupations so necessary to a thriving and expanding economy. Most importantly the question of slavery which had so dogged the soul of the new Republic since its founding eighty years before had been settled by a great Civil War, and California had entered the Union as a free statewhere slavery was not permitted.

The story of what happened in those twenty years in California is told by H. G. Brands, a distinguished professor of American History at the University of Texas in Austin, in The Age of Gold. He's a great storyteller; and most of us know the story. But he tells it again - and it holds our interest: How Sam Brannan spread the word in mid to late 1848 - Gold for the picking in California! How the Argonauts flocked to the gold fields in 1849 - first from Australia and Chile and the Hawaiian Islands and China, then across the plains and over the mountains and through the desert, losing life and property along the way. What life was like in the gold fields. How Yerba Buena grew through fires and Committees of Vigilance from a spindly village to the most sophisticated city on the Pacific Coast. How the search for gold proceeded from a miner in the stream with a pan to several who were employees of a mining company behind a nozzle taking down a hill with a water cannon (placer mining) or on a dredge churning up a beautiful river bed and leaving nothing but detritus and bare rocks or digging a shaft into a lovely hillside in Mariposa and taking out gold bearing quartz and leaving the tailings behind to scar the hill forever. How the railroad was built - the Central Pacific, which so enriched Colis Huntington Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins. How the boundaries of the present day State of California became established and how it became a state midst the controversy of. In short, what happened in these twenty years - the era he has called "The Age of Gold".

We already know about the people - people like Lily Langtry, Sam Clemens, Joaquin Murrieta, John Charles Fremont, William Walker - and others so familiar to us today, but Brands make them come alive again and again in this excellent book.

I was particularly interested in his touch on the great compromises - the compromises between those who endorsed slavery and those who did not- compromises which subdued the great conflict for eighty years - first the compromise over the three-fifths rule in 1784, then the Missouri Compromise of 1829, then the nullification compromise of the 1830s and finally the compromise of 1850 which permitted California - which had never had status as a Territory - to enter the Union as a State with the Monterey (anti slavery) Constitution, established Utah and New Mexico as Territories without prejudice regulating slavery, made the boundaries between Texas and New Mexico final, banned the slave trade from the District ofColumbia and strengthened the fugitive slave law .

My only criticism of the book is that Brands goes overboard in taking the position that California in the 1850s was pretty much responsible for what happened in ther next several decades. No matter what happened in California the time for a "Compromise" over slavery had already passed when California became a part of the picture; and the California question was virtually a non-issue in the coming conflict over slavery. California added really nothing of critical value to that mix. But since 1940 California has been the essential ingredient of the mix that has been the United States in this century.

Popular history at its finest
The Age of Gold is a fascinating read. The book primarily deals with the California gold rush and its consequences, but the author adeptly deals with so many other issues related to California's early history. These include the struggles to build order in newly created communities, racial relations, the transcontinental railroad, the Civil War, international trade, etc. Mr. Brands's primary thesis is that the gold rush was not simply an influential event that helped shape California and our nation's history, but that it was a truly paradigm-shifting type of moment. He superbly demonstrates the effects of the gold discovery on mining and transportation technology. He argues persuasively that the gold rush played an important role in shaping the national character.He argues that the early admission of California into the Union, itself facilitated by the discovery of gold, inflamed North-South tensions and may have speeded the resort to rebellion. The gold discovery also encouraged the creation of the transcontinental railroad, which, as Brands argues, created the largest integrated market in the world and transformed America into an economic power.

And yet, I don't want people to get the impression from what I've written so far that this book deals solely with large, impersonal socioeconomic and political forces. Because this book is first and foremost a tale of fascinating personalities. This is, in my opinion, where Mr. Brands really makes his mark, in retelling the stories of the men and women who braved numerous obstacles to come to California and who then created the technology and the institutions that led to its statehood. Brands relies almost exclusively on personal diaries and firsthand accounts in the first section of the book, which details the practical difficulties of reaching California from the eastern US and from foreign countries in the mid-19th century. The first part of the section covers the voyage by sea, both around the Cape Horn and over the Central American isthmus. The latter route was taken by Jesse Fremont, wife of famous explorer John, who crossed the isthmus with her young daughter while her husband was conducting an overland expedition. The second part of this section looks at those who made the overland expedition from the eastern states. While the grueling hazards of cross-country travel are pretty familiar to most Americans who learned about the Oregon Trail and the Donner party in school, Brands nonetheless adds new layers to this dramatic story through his expert storytelling and adept use of diaries.

After detailing what people went through to reach California, Brands analyzes daily life in the territory and discusses the challenges of creating law and order in a place overflowing with newcomers whose primary goal was not to create a society but simply to strike it rich. He points out that San Francisco in its earliest days was overrun by criminal gangs (including some fearsome Australian gangs), who in turn were confronted by vigilante citizens' groups. In the absence of building codes, the city was also a perennial fire hazard. The process of creating a society was long and drawn out. Brands next looks at the role California and its bid for statehood played in national politics, and specifically its role in inflaming North-South tensions and contributing to the outbreak of war. Individuals who loom large in this section include William Sherman, who played an important role in California politics prior to the Civil War, and John Fremont (along with his extraordinary wife), who unsuccessfully carried the Republican banner in the presidential election in 1856. Finally, after the civil war, Brands turns his attention to the creation of the transcontinental railroad, including the important role in its construction played by former governor Leland Stanford.

Along the way, Brands manages to cover numerous other issues, including the threat posed by the populating of California to Native Americans, the debates in early California over slavery (including the fascinating legal case of Archy Lee), life in California for original Mexican Californians and immigrant Chinese, and much more. And again, I want to emphasize the fact that while Brands deals adeptly with large-scale historical forces, his narrative is populated by fascinating individuals, and informed by their personal accounts. In conclusion, I'd recommend this book to anybody with an interest in American history, and anybody with an appreciation for well-written and intelligent social history.

California Gold
The Age of Gold is the best book that I have read (and I have read quite a few) about the California Gold Rush for it tells the story in the words of the people involved and gives a feeling of the incredible change the discovery of gold brought to the State of California.

Disconnected narrative
Mild disappointment.Too episodic and written just north of the level of a USA Today article.I think the author intends the narrative episodes to illustrate valid historic points, but he doesn't really tie the narrative and the theses together explicitly, and he isn't a good enough writer to make them flow together implicitly.

His key premise appears to be "The California Gold Rush was really important.Here are some examples."And the examples are often interesting and amusing, but not enough on which to hang a story which has no point. ... Read more

Product Description
In the 1820s a series of gold strikes from Virginia to Alabama caused such excitement that thousands of miners poured into the region. This southern gold rush, the first in U.S. history, reached Georgia with the discovery of the Dahlonega Gold Belt in 1829. The Georgia gold fields, however, lay in and around Cherokee territory. In 1830 the State of Georgia extended its authority over the area, and two years later the land was raffled off in a lottery. Although they resisted this land grab through the courts, the Cherokees were eventually driven west along the Trail of Tears into what is today northeastern Oklahoma.

The gold rush era survived the Cherokees in Georgia by only a few years. The early 1840s saw a dramatic decline in the fortunes of the southern gold region. When word of a new gold strike in California reached the miners, they wasted no time in following the banished Indians westward. In fact, many Georgia twenty-niners became some of the first California forty-niners.

Georgia’s gold rush is now almost two centuries past, but the gold fever continues. Many residents still pan for gold, and every October during Gold Rush Days hundreds of latter-day prospectors relive the excitement of Georgia’s great antebellum gold rush as they throng to the small mountain town of Dahlonega. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Bravo!
As a Georgia native and an amateur historian, I was shocked by my own level of ignorance about the history of Georgia Gold Rush. While there has been a great deal of literary and historical attention given to the forced removal of the Cherokee nation from Georgia and the tragic journey of the Trail of Tears, there has been relatively little recent scholarship devoted to the historical events that precipitated that exile and the utter disregard shown to the Cherokee people as well as their private property by speculators, the state of Georgia and the Federal government in concert.I highly recommend this volume for the general reader of US and southern regional history as well as for Georgians who are willing to develop a more complex appreciation of their state's history.

Accurate portrayal of America's first gold rush.

Mr. Williams documents the Georgia gold rush in an interesting and uncompromising style.So many myths surround this time frame in north Georgia's history.For example, Benjamin Parks is frequently credited withthe first modern discovery of gold in Georgia, mostly because he claimed itto an Atlanta reporter fifty years later.Williams quickly disprovesvirtually all of Park's claims.

In the chapters titled "GoldFever and the Great Intrusion" and "The Cherokee NationAbandoned," Williams gives one of if not the most accurate concisehistories of Cherokee Removal I have ever read.

Additional chaptersreview a miner's life, the people who made money (most weren't miners), andthe end of the Georgia gold era in 1849. ... Read more

Product Description
Discusses the everyday life, cooking methods, common foods, and hardships and celebrations during the Gold Rush in California. Includes recipes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Golden Recipes
This is a small book but has a total of 8 recipes to try.I have made 18K Hash twice, and it's simple and good tasting!An easy book for the younger people to read and tells you what type of equipment needed to make each meal.Also provides history of the gold rush and why certain food was made.A good book to have of the bookself and use from time to time! I really liked this book but wished it could have had even more recipes in it. ... Read more