Product Description
"Ten-year-old Donald McDonald watched the miners shovel the pay-dirt into the wooden sluice boxes. When the miners stopped the water flowing through the boxes, Donald's father motioned him over. Dipping both hands in the freezing liquid, Donald felt around in the gravel and sand at the bottom. Suddenly, up came his fingers clutching shiny nuggets. 'Gold!' he screamed. 'Look, Mama, I'm rich!'"

Donald was just one of many children who came North with their parents in search of gold. In yet another previously untold chapter of the gold rush era, Claire Rudolf Murphy and Jane G. Haigh have gathered individual stories, vintage photographs, and historic memorabilia to tell what life was like for these indomitable kids a century ago.

In a land where freezing, dark winters and mosquito-filled summers challenged even the hardiest pioneers, children, like their parents, had to be tough and quick to adapt to harsh conditions. They lived in boomtowns and rugged encampments on the gold creeks.They sold newspapers, baked bread, learned to read from pages torn from magazines-if there was anyone with time to teach them, performed on stage, and learned to make the most of their new situations. And perhaps infected by the eternal optimism of the gold-seekers, they learned to be positive, even during times of misfortune. Their stories continue to inspire hope and a positive attitude today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Glimpses from the real Klondike
With the huge number of books that are available on the Klondike Gold Rush, it's always a pleasure to see a new viewpoint being used. There are now several books dealing with the part played in the development of the North by women, but this is the first time that children have been the focus.I've heard this book referred to as a children's book (and in fact Amazon has it listed as reading level 9-12), but I consider it to be suitable fare for anyone with an interest in Northern history.The first aspect of the book that impressed me was the production - from cover to cover it is beautifully laid out, and graphics and photographs are used extensively throughout its 82 pages. While some are common images (the Chilkoot and gold camps), the majority are ones that I have seldom or never seen.The introduction to the book serves its purpose well - describing the conditions that families had to endure both en route to the North, and while living there. Cold, the hard work and the usual lack of schools were significant elements in most children's lives in the Yukon and Alaska, and often forged the types of personality traits important in later successes. Contrary to modern theories that growing up too quickly can be bad for a child's development, Murphy and Haigh argue that "Learning to work hard at a very young age may have been their best lesson of all."With stories in the book ranging from sad and introspective to comical, "Children of the Gold Rush" will make a worthwhile addition to the library of anyone who wants a more rounded perspective on the development of the Northern frontier.

Great Book!
This was another great book by Jane Haigh and Claire Rudolf Murphy! It was great to hear about how tough children were in the goldrush! This book takes you into the world of many small children in a gold oriented society.It really showed how easy most of us have it now! This is a "mustread" for any one who wants to learn about the goldrush, is a goldrushfan, or is just looking for a good book. ... Read more

Product Description
Describes the lure of gold that drew both men and women west and discusses how they lived, the difficulties they faced, the impact of the gold rush on Native Americans, and more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great book
A very nice overview of the subject matter. I am intrigued by this period in history, and this book help clarify a lot of my questions. ... Read more

Product Description
Luzena Stanley Wilson became a gold rush banker, storinggold dust in bread pans in her camp oven. Mary Graves survivedcannibalism in the Sierras. Madame Moustache lost the love of herlife, and her fortune, in a silver camp in Nevada. A storyteller wroteabout the West to feed her children. With Great Hope tells thefascinating stories of twelve uncommon women, the significant eventsof the times, and the everyday occurrences of life in the gold camps. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Very Informative
I used this book to help me write a paper on women in the California Gold Rush and found the stories to be not only full of information but very entertaining as well!

These women were tough!
This is an excellent book on the history of women during the gold rush period in Northern California.The book is a series of short biographies about several women who were key to the formation of the west as we know ittoday.Their successes and failures, hope and despair are all wellchronicled - but kept brief and easy to read. Woven into the stories areissues that women faced, like the right to vote and working to supporttheir families. You get a good feel for day to day life during this period. This book is inspirational for anyone today who thinks that like is hard,and would provide excellent supplemental reading for high school andcollege history courses.It has been painstaking researched, withinformation on how to learn even more. ... Read more

Product Description

The World Rushed In is a pioneering achievement in historical writing, at once a personal, intimate story of one man's search for wealth and the definitive account of the California gold rush. Building upon the copious journals of gold seeker William Swain and enlarging upon his experiences through the imaginative interweaving of his diaries with the letters of hundreds of other '49ers, J. S. Holliday gives the reader a compelling opportunity to be part of one of America's most exciting and important adventures. Holliday captures the triumphs and tragedies of Swain and his compatriots in vivid, human terms, from the dangerous journey across the plains and mountains to the rugged mining camps of northern California. This is history at its very best. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Amazing 1st person story
This is one of my favorite books. In it are woven the gold rush journal of William Swain, seeking his fortune in California, with his correspondence to the wife he left behind. Among the illistrations are drawings by J. Goldsborough Bruff, who just happened to be on the trail, just days ahead of Swain. J. S. Holliday does a masterful job in letting the participants tell this amazing story of adventure. My copy is worn and the pages are falling out from use. If you enjoy history, I highly recommend this book.

The Human Side of the Gold Rush
"The World Rushed In" is a gold rush history must read. Holliday's approach to telling the 49ers tale was a seamless stitching together of William Swain's journal and letters home with other facts and general information surrounding the rush. It is a personal approach. It is an accurate approach to what being a 49er meant to those who chased the elephant.

Holliday's interpretations and prose keep the story flowing, but do not add extraneous information. Nor does Holliday attempt to explain feelings or jump to conclusions. The ease with which this book flows and the personal feelings expressed by William and Sabrina Swain make this book hard to put down. The reader feels the fear of cholera and the aches at the end of the day.
This book describes the rush mentality of the 49ers extremely well. These young, eager, adventurers truly believed they would easily find their fortunes and soon be back home. Swain himself, who was apparently better read and prepared for the trip than many, believed he would be home much sooner than he was. Unlike many others, his decision to return home from California was easier. He had a farm, a family and a life to return to that did not require any wealth. Many of the rushers had nothing to return east to.

As a native upstate New York farmer who has traveled along most of the major westward trails, albeit via car or railroad, I completely understood Swain's descriptions of praise or denigration of the land he passed through. I empathized with his homesickness. There was irony in the travails Swain survived and many of my own one hundred and fifty years later. We both went west to find our fortunes. We both adapted. He was able to return home in twenty- two months. Seven years later, I am still hoping.

My favorite paragraph in the book is a journal entry describing the Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada. The paragraph ends with "where the hell is California?" I have crisscrossed Nevada in every direction. It is desolate, harsh and will lead even the most proper person to exclaim, "Where the hell is anything!" I can't imagine crossing this state walking beside an ox team.

Holliday artfully tells the big story of the emigration in conjunction with Swain's individual view. Swain had no idea how many people were ahead of or behind him. Swain mentions problems in other companies, but had no idea the extent of discontent among some of the trains. Holliday draws from other sources to compare Swain's adventures with the experiences of others. This approach gives a broader spectrum of the emigration. Swain's crossing was relatively uneventful and trouble free. He was taken ill a few times, but did not die from cholera as so many did. He was fortunate in selecting trustworthy traveling companions. He found decent passage home. Swain made it home.

"The World Rushed In" is a must read for anyone interested in the human side of the gold rush. Other works contain all the facts, figures and dates one could want. This book reveals the personal and social side of 'going to see the elephant.'

I almost felt like I was there!
My wife and I recently visited California for the first time. In a U.S. Forest Service bookstore, I saw this book. Since we planned to return to California and tour the Gold Rush areas, I bought the book. I made a good choice! The use of William Swain's actual diary and letters made me feel almost like I was there, the descriptions were so detailed and vivid. It was an incredible journey that tens of thousands of men, women, and children made across the west. Many of these people thought that they could simply pick up gold nuggets for a few days and be rich. In fact, gold mining was brutally hard work, and few of the 49ers ever got rich. The author does a fantastic job of describing the California Gold Rush in human terms.

If you only read one book about the California Gold Rush, "The World Rushed In" would be a great choice.

Swain's personal account feels like a novel
Thank heavens for people like William Swain who took the time to record their personal stories and let it become, in a sense, a first-person history tale to people in the 21st century. Swain goes into great detail about his trials and tribulations and you begin to care so much about him, it almost becomes a novel. It accidentally sets the reader up for disappointment in the end by Swain reaching home and the story suddenly stopping. You'll find yourself asking, how did Eliza greet her papa? What did Swain do with the meager amount of money he made? What was Sabrina and her husband's first words to each other after an almost two-year absence? Of course, it's not Swain's fault for ending his diary at home. He merely kept the journal to update his family on his journey; not give readers 150 years later an autobiography. Holliday can not answer these final questions either and rightfully so, he does not try. You are left to ponder how it ended and hopefully, after reading so many emotional passages from William and Sabrina, you can use your imagination to answer the homecoming questions.

Holliday blends the information together wonderfully by arranging each chapter into three sections:

1. an overall historical account

2. Swain's diary

3. A Back Home section in which letters written to Swain from wife Sabrina and brother George are included.

The format works splendidly for the reader and keeps everything in a proper time frame. Holliday also includes scaled-down regional maps for every chapter which lets the reader follow along on a microcosm/macrocosm scope of the total journey. Holliday has also laboriously researched hundreds of other personal diaries and includes passages from them when Swain leaves gaps or when a quirky story can be added to intrigue the reader further. The World Rushed In is a fast read and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in Western US history or is just looking for a great story.

The best Gold Rush diary
This is a superb, gripping and very personal account of one man's experience travelling to and from the California gold rush.The fact that Holliday had access to virtually all the letters sent from him and to himon the trail makes this book even more enticing.It made me feel that Iwas taking every step with William Swain on his journey, sharing in hisjoys and sorrows and those of his brother and wife back home.I thoroughlyrecommend this book, I couldn't put it down. ... Read more

Product Description
Skagways' past as a rip-roaring gold rush town is captured in The Skagway Story. This intriguing little book is just like a scrapbook, filled with photographs from dusty trunks in attics, recollections from pioneers who were there, and memorabilia of long-buried local residents.

Learn about the glory days of Skagway, known as the "Gateway to the Klondike"-the discovery of the Klondike goldfields in 1896, the ordeal of the stampeders trudging over the grueling Chilkoot Pass in the winter of 1897, the 1898 shootout between con man Soapy Smith and city official Frank Reid, the completion of the narrow-gauge White Pass & Yukon Route railroad in 1900, and other milestones in the history of the North's most famous bonanza. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Skagway Story
Excellent book.Exactly what I wanted and expected. The Skagway Story: A History of Alaska's most Famous Gold Rush Town ... Read more

Product Description
A lively gold rush history of Summit County, Colorado whichhas been designated a Best Seller by Colorado bookstores. Narrow-gaugealpine railways, Ute Indians, lusty mine camps, the 1860s birth ofnow-famous local ski towns and self guided mine tours all highlightthis classic history. A parade of larger-than-life characters marchacross its pages--people like dredge king Ben Stanley Revett andColorado's famed Snowshoe Itinerant, John Lewis Dyer, the skiingpreacher. Saints and sinners (mostly sinners) lead the parade ofprospectors, claimjumpers, shyster lawyers, shady ladies andhard-working miners who scaled the high mountain passes to create thehistory this book records. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A White-Persons View of History
A fine example of history seen through the eyes of white privelege and culture. A non-stop explanation of "wonderful" frontiersmen who were able to "conquer" the west for us all to enjoy. The fewreferences to native peoples or non-American early sttles are nothing morethan brief footnotes to a glorious re-telling of the "true heros"of the Summit area.

This is an excellent regional history, well researched.
This is one of the better regional histories covering a single Colorado county.A wide range of topics are covered, including how Summit County was founded, how the towns evolved and what is worth seeing.Mary Ellen Gilliland, the author, has been involved in researching the history of the region for many years and is an active member of the Summit Historical Society. ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of the man associated with the gold rush in California, detailing his various business ventures andpioneering exploits in California. ... Read more

Product Description
Catch the fever! Gold fever swept the nation—and the world—in 1848 when carpenter James Marshall discovered a gold nugget in the American River near John Sutter's mill. As word spread of gold in California, the news set off a westward stampede. Fortune seekers and adventurers poured into California by land and sea, wild with excitement and expectation.

Rosalyn Schanzer's engaging and humorous book tells the story of these prospectors in their own words. Schanzer has gathered her favorite quotes from journals and letters written by the forty-niners to recount the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill. Her irresistible narrative also uses newspaper accounts to trace the various routes the forty-niners took from the East Coast to the West, the adventures they experienced along the way, and the challenges they faced on arrival. The characters recount their stories in their own words, in well-researched and authenticated quote bubbles.

Step into an intensely exciting chapter of American history. Learn about the dreamers who dropped everything to head out west. See who found gold and how. Meet the lucky ones—and the many whose dreams turned to dust. Listen to the intriguing tales of the prospectors, and find out what the gold-diggers did with their newfound wealth.

To write and research Gold Fever!, Rosalyn Schanzer visited many California Gold Rush historical sites, and took more than 600 photographs of everything from gold nuggets to saloons in order to make her art as accurate and flavorful as possible. With skill and humor she brings historical characters vividly to life and puts the spirit of the age into her vibrant art. History shines brightly on every page of this evocative book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Book
Gold Fever by Roz Schanzer is a terrific book, not only with the information that it covers, but with its glorious illustrations.The children I teach are totally entralled when we read this book together.Hope to see more great work from this author/illustrator in the future.

Gold Fever! Tales from the California Gold Rush
The story of the California gold rush is told through (short) actual quotes from those involved, arranged in a sequential manner.This non-fiction book is entertaining and informative and reads like a comicbook.It is a historical edition and has excellent color illustrations.Recommended reading for 1st through the 6th grade, as well as the teachersof these grades,

Adults as well as children love this book.
The quotes make the telling very readable and enjoyable.I like the style of paper and the way Ms Schanzer did the pictures, told the story and made the reader feel like he/she had more information and a feel for the times. Good work! ... Read more

Product Description
California's storied Gold Rush triggered momentouschanges not only for the state, but also for the nation and theworld. The economic impact of that epoch-making event is the focus ofthe second volume of the California History Sesquicentennial Series.The chapter contributors offer a range of perspectives, includingcommentaries that reflect the new scholarship of environmental andresource history. Together, the essays and more than 90 illustrationsshow how the Gold Rush precipitated a veritable economic revolutionwhose effects continue to this day.

Among the topics given a fresh interpretation are the relationshipbetween technology and society; the environmental impact from miningand the sudden increase in California's population; the influence ofthe Gold Rush on agriculture, manufacturing, banking, andtransportation; and its impact on the peoples and economies of LatinAmerica, Europe, and Asia.The popular image of the independentprospector is also examined anew, as is the role of different groupsof industrial workers, including Chinese, Mexicans, and women.

The Gold Rush was a multiplier, an event that accelerated a chain ofinterrelated consequences that in turn accelerated economicgrowth. But it also touched a deep-seated nerve in the human psycheand unleashed economic forces, for good or ill, that transformedCalifornia forever into a Golden State. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best short essay work I have seen on this subject
In line with much of the new non-fiction surveys and studies, the book, in short essays gives the picture on much information that I have not seen before on the Gold Rush and the aftermath.In particular it gives a readera chance to compare the Internet investment frenzy with the Gold Minestocks frenzy in the 1860s & 70s.

The information is concise andbeautifully and fascinatingly written. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

good historical reading
This book is great if you want to know about the gold rushes of America. She organized it in good ways to keep the different aspects of the rushes interesting. ... Read more

Product Description
It's 1898, and 12-year-old Bucky, his father, and Uncle Tanner are off to Alaska to prospect for gold. The journey is hard, and they face deadly storms, numbing cold, and a grueling six-hour nonstop trudge up a mountainside with heavy backpacks. Will the journey be worth it in the end? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Historical fiction that most likely describes what happened to someone
This book is an example of the best kind of fiction for children, it is based on history and could have even happened to someone. Bucky is a boy in his early teen years and his uncle Tanner is just back from the gold fields in Alaska. The gold rush is on and while Tanner owns a claim that is producing, he gambled away all his money. Therefore, he is back visiting and trying to convince his brother, Bucky's father to join him in Alaska during the next season.
Bucky's father has been trying to save money to purchase his own hardware store, but at his current rate, it will take years until he has the money. Therefore, Bucky, Tanner and his father outfit themselves and set out for the gold fields. The trip is hard, they must pack a years worth of supplies over a mountain in bitter cold. While Bucky struggles, he pulls his own weight and they eventually arrive at the claim.
Once there, they begin working the muck, extracting the gold and saving it. Once they have enough, Tanner goes into town, where he follows his nature and gets in a card game. Bucky and his father get there before Tanner loses their money as well and they immediately depart for their home in Washington State with enough money to buy a store.
This book accurately describes the gold fever and the harsh conditions in the Alaskan gold fields. The temperatures and work were brutal and only the resourceful and cautious survived. Many people went bust and there were always unscrupulous people willing to prey on the innocent. It is an excellent adventure for young people, Bucky is a character that they can relate to.
... Read more

Product Description
Moving personal account of frontier women left behind inMinnesota when their husbands went west to prospect for gold inColorado and Montana in the mid-1800s. ... Read more

Product Description
By 1860, 12 years after the discovery of gold at Stutter's Mill, more than 5000 American blacks had made the difficult trek to California in search of quick wealth. This text describes this area of American history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Blacks in Gold Rush California
This is a must for any student of California history and//or African American studies. Lapp's generous use of primary source material adds additional credibility to an already laudable scholarly work. His bibliography is an excellent beginning reference point for anyone researching any number of salient topics on the subject of the black experience in California during and immediately following the Gold Rush. ... Read more

Product Description
The news of gold in California beckoned people from every continent on earth. This astonishing and instant migration would leave its mark forever on California and, indeed, the entire world. Taking a comprehensive look at the excitement, unrest, exploitation, and romanticism of the California gold rush, this unique and authoritative anthology combines firsthand accounts by the participants themselves and retrospective writings by later authors with dozens of historical photographs, cartoons, and other illustrations.

Long sea voyages, arduous overland trips, life in early, bohemian San Francisco, and the feudalism of late gold rush society - all are vividly described in the words of those who experienced them. The writings of well-known authors like Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Ambrose Bierce, Dame Shirley, Henry David Thoreau, and Jack London blend with less familiar voices - Native Californians, Jews, immigrants from Asia, South America, and Europe, and women. Modern authors such as Bill Barich, Czeslaw Milosz, and Gary Snyder offer contemporary perspectives on the gold rush's environmental, economic, and cultural legacies. Together, these rich writings evoke the spirit and emotions of this legendary era. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

California considered
150 years later, we in California are still struggling to understand the legacies of the Gold Rush. How much of California's present "character" can be traced to the tumultous 1850s? GOLD RUSH: ALITERARY EXPLORATION attempts to answer this question from two directions:first, by examining the diaries, letters, and journals of the 49ers whoactually participated in the rush, and second, though the generations oflater writers who have re-interpreted the Gold Rush again and again. Thebook's many short selections and splendid illustrations provide many accesspoints; though sometimes old, the accounts are never dull. At turnshumorous, chilling, and thought-provoking, GOLD RUSH is a compelling readfor any Californian interested in the state's roots.

Reveals the grit, glory, and pain that made California.
Growing up in California you are taughtthat the future is always gold ."Gold Rush: A Literary Exploration," edited by Michael Kowalewski, pulls back the curtains on perhaps the most important event in the Golden State's history to reveal a place filled with dreams, nightmares, courage and cowardness.A place that became America's future.

Published by Heyday Books and the California Council for the Humanities, "Gold Rush" is 500 pages of short selections (1-8 pages) that lend insight to the California and American character. Writing includes:poems from Robert Frost, Gary Snyder and Wendy Rose; journal entries from William T. Sherman and John Muir; and essays from Thoureau, Dame Shirley, and Emerson.

On the eave of California's 150 anniversary of the discovery of gold (January 24, 1848), this book is a great read for anyone curious about how California shaped America. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1858, over eight decades had passed since Captain James Cook claimed the shores of what would become British Columbia for the British crown, but European settlers had shown little interest in the new lands. The non-aboriginal population was only about 700. Then gold was discovered on the shores of the Fraser River and, overnight, the lonely outpost of empire was overrun by some 30,000 fevered gold-seekers. The raucous sourdough hordes were mostly American and treated the new territory as an extension of the United States. The fragile colonial administration in Victoria was overwhelmed and the territory's future as a British possession hung in the balance. But by the time the gold rush wound down a decade later, the colony of British Columbia had come into being and BC's destiny as a part of Canada was sealed.

In The Trail of 1858, BC Almanac host Mark Forsythe and coauthor Greg Dickson augment their historical research with contributions from CBC listeners that give the gold rush story a personal, folksy feel. Making liberal use of historic photos, the authors celebrate memorable personalities from this epic time: the stern but sensible Judge Matthew Begbie; the peacemaking Chief Spintlum; Nam Sing, the first Chinese miner in the Cariboo; overlander Catherine Schubert; high-rolling miners Billy Barker and Cariboo Cameron; and a host of others.

The Trail of 1858 is a combination of fact and memory of the colourful characters who helped form this province; it is a book from which history truly jumps. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Further Use of History as Propaganda
"The Trail of 1858" seems like a good book on the outside, speaking to people's pride in British Columbian history. After all, the preface mentions that 2008 marks B.C's 150th anniversary "as a modern political state". So yes, it has an agenda. But overall, I think the historical facts are organized in such a way that it becomes historically inaccurate. If you examine closely, it contains very simple characters and narrative structure that reflect our political attitudes of today: James Douglas, the super good protagonist (even though there were some accounts of him physically hurting First Nations people...but shhh...); the United States (with her Manifest Destiny), the antagonist (like always); and coloured/non-Anglo Saxon immigrants, the helpers/static characters whom British Columbian society had to 'tolerate'. Of course, the land that B.C. occupied becomes a sort of haven or refuge for people fleeing from the US and perhaps, other 'hostile' places. This book is another one of those that promotes today's 'multiculturalism', a policy that (ahem) originally only supported bilingualism (English/French) in Canada in the early 1970s. If you want a history book that does not feel much guilt as to what happened in the past and seeks to entertain its audience a lot, I'd say go for it. If you want a more accurate historical representation of BC's Gold Rush, I'd suggest you save your money's worth. Well at least, even if you're a total history buff or major, this book gives you an opportunity to rant and complain as to why, after so many years of racial discrimination, some writings would avoid being 'politically incorrect' at the cost of silencing those who had suffered tremendous pain and hardship in B.C. history.

Informed and informative as it is engaging and entertaining.
Mark Forsythe is the long-standing host of CBC Radio One's 'BC Alamanc'. Greg Dickson was a journalist and producer at CBC radio and television for more than twenty years. Together they have collaborated to write "The Trail Of 1858: British Columbia's Gold Rush Past. In what was to become British Columbia, the non-aboriginal population was only about 700 in 1858 when gold was discovered along the shores of the Fraser River. Almost overnight some 30,000 prospectors (mostly American) descended upon the landscape and treated the territory as an extension of the United States. The colonial administration in Victoria was overwhelmed and the future of the area as a British possession was in doubt. But by the time the gold rush petered out about a decade after it had begun, the colony of British Columbia had come into existence and its destiny as a province of Canada was assured. "The Trail Of 1858" is the fascinating story of those turbulent times and showcases the personalities and issues through the use of period photography, anecdotal stories, and narratives drawn from fact and memory. The result is a very highly recommended book of Canadian history that is as informed and informative as it is engaging and entertaining. ... Read more

Product Description
An avid Santa Barbara surfer gets into sea urchin diving as a means to explore the waves of the Channel Islands. His travels take him from the harbor at Santa Barbara to the harsh waters of the North Coast, and the shark-infested Farallon Islands. This intimate snapshot follows a unique group of underwater pioneers from 1978 through 1996, chronicling the adventure, humor, and tragedy of the people involved in this fascinating way of life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Interesting subject, easy read
As an avid So Cal diver, I'm familiar with California's important urchin fishery.I've also lived and traveled over much of the state.As such, this was an interesting read.

That said, the book is very simply written, occasionally repetitive, and could have been more tightly edited.The book is somewhat autobiographical, and was a bit slower as a result.However, the author's Farallone experience and tales of Ron Elliot were standouts.

If I had the option, I would've given the book 3 1/2 stars, 4 was generous.I'd say if you're particularly interested in the subject matter, you'll probably enjoy this book.Otherwise, it's not the most compelling read.I'd recommend The Devil's Teeth by Susan Casey.

A book any ocean lover should have.
This book was an excellent journey through one mans life lived on and off the California coast, diving for urchins.It is a story about a simple life that centered around tides, weather, water conditions and other unseen hazards.It is a life that although is hard work, may prove envious to many (especially those whose daily trials and tribulationscenters around traffic, spreadsheets, middle managers and sales quotas).

It is also telling of the way the California urchin (and fishing) industry has changed as a whole, from single owners and family owned businesses to the large commercial companies.From the days of no restrictions and limitless limits to the present day regulations that are needed to keep people from expiring the very items that provide them with a livelihood.It is also telling of the transformation of the person in the industry from someone who is mostly carefree and just works and surfs, to that of family man, to that of someone who has responsibilities and others that depend on them, to someone who has become jaded by the business aspect and competition of the industry, to finally someone that has come to grips with their own mortality through the deaths of those he respected and cared for.Mixed in are great characters, good stories and memorable adventures to virgin coast lines and reefs.

This book does not sound like an exciting book, but it was a book that I looked forward to reading.It is the type of book that is good to read if you want to clear your head and take a trip without going anywhere.Finally, it is a very good book that centers around the ocean.

An amazing story that you'll find yourself sharing with others
As the last reviewer said, if your heart is in any way connected to the ocean, be it through surfing, boating, diving, fishing, or just spending time around the beach, you'll have a profound appreciation for this book.

Tom is an amazing story teller and Bluewater Gold Rush is an wonderful mix of adventure, friends, love, and loss.I often find myself retelling Tom's stories to friends, recounting them while I'm diving, or using new terms that I picked up from the book like "white buffalo".There are stories in the book that are laugh-out-loud funny and stories where you can't help but share the loss along with Tom when bad things happen to good people.

My one regret was purchasing the book in the middle of a particularly harsh work week.My job kept me really busy during the days and the book keep me up most of the nights.I simply couldn't put it down.I made it through the book by the end of the week but sleep deprivation almost did me in!

I had the opportunity to visit one the main settings in the book after I read it and I felt compelled to send Tom an email afterwards.I would like to close by sharing this email.

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I found myself in Santa Barbara for work a few weeks ago.I had some spare time one evening so I went down to the dock and stood there with a few dozen other spectators as the urchin boats unloaded.I couldn't help but wonder if any of the characters that I read about in your book were right there in front of me.I had a tremendous appreciation for the whole process after reading your book and found myself telling my coworkers tales from the book later that night at dinner.

The next night I managed to drag 3 of my buddies over to Brophy Bro's Bar.We went upstairs and I showed everyone the picture of Wiener.I volunteered to buy the drinks that night on the condition that they listen to a few stories first.I told them a little about your book and some of the adventures that you guys had.I told them about Wiener and how he got his nickname.I also told them about the shark.Of all of the things that you said about Wiener in your book and during your talk, the one that I always remember first was that he was the kind of guy would go up to his friends and give them a big hug and tell them that he loved them.We enjoyed our shots of tequila with the toast, "To Weiner - a man who wasn't afraid to tell his friends that he loved them!".It was a neat experience!

First rate, a must for lover's of the ocean and ocean lore
After reading excerpts in The Surfer's Journal and hearing friends in the West Coast water world rave about this gem of a book, I bought it and devoured it a weekend. This is a terrific read, at once an honest, deeply personal memoir and an entertaining swash-buckling tale of adventure. Kendrick writes in a clear, deceptively easy style that grabs you off the dock on the first page and the next thing you know, you're down 85 feet deep on a big money dive in the gin clear waters of a virgin reef by the Channel Islands. And it doesn't let up.

Kendrick was a member of the Santa Barbara, California-based sea urchin divers who pioneered this offbeat fishery, reaping its rewards and facing lethal dangers, opening new waters in NorthernCalifornia, even--and this is insane--harvesting urchins at the Farallon Islands, the stalking ground of the Great White Shark. There are some great stories here, moments of danger and reward, death and laughter, all told with great insight. This is a memorable book that deserves to be in the book collection of anyone who loves the ocean and the lore of the sea.
Rumor has it that the author has been hired to write a screenplay adaptation. This book is an absolute natural for the big screen. Highest recommendation.
John Grissim, author,Pure Stoke and The Lost Treasure of the Concepcion

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Picked this up from the author at a party recently. We had met for the first time & we found that we had quite a few similar experiences. Set about to read this book immediately it and finished it today.

Reading this book was a nostalgic experience for me. His writing style is friendly, accurate and fast. His years in the Urchin harvesting business were heady-times and he loved those years intensely; it comes across in many ways and makes this book a joy to read.

His take on things is not polished, gender neutral or politically correct which is absolutely refreshing.This is not a dull, chronological report of the evolution of a commercial diver, but a fast paced, personal account that will hold your interest and provide an education regarding one of the most interesting activities on the west coast in the last 50 years.

If you like diving, surfing, boats, fishing, interesting coastal stories or you just like to go out to the coast every once in a while, this is a book that I highly recommend. ... Read more

Product Description
Historical insight is the alchemy that transforms the familiar story of the Gold Rush into something sparkling and new. The world of the Gold Rush that comes down to us through fiction and film--of unshaven men named Stumpy and Kentuck raising hell and panning for gold--is one of half-truths. In this brilliant work of social history, Susan Johnson enters the well-worked diggings of Gold Rush history and strikes a rich lode. She finds a dynamic social world in which the conventions of identity--ethnic, national, and sexual--were reshaped in surprising ways. She gives us the all-male households of the diggings, the mines where the men worked, and the fandango houses where they played. With a keen eye for character and story, Johnson restores the particular social world that issued in the Gold Rush myths we still cherish. Maps, illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Superb background to support Gold Rush study
This author has compiled an impressive work (well, after all it is her PhD dissertation)of lots of information. After a 20-page preface where she delineates her background and indebtedness to a long array of authorities and repositories, and a prologue that sets the stage, it gets going. There is a massive notes section at the end, and similarly thorough bibliography, and a good index. This is a fine scholarly study.

I am not all the way through, but I am finding precisely the type of background that I sought for my own study. I have chosen to write this notice primarily because I am outraged at the one-star reviews that are entered twice and demonstrate nothing but prejudice and failure to appreciate a work that isn't supportive of the idea that the white men were the heroes of all stories.

Wonderful Book
Very well researched book that is fascinating to read. It gives a whole new perspective to life in the gold mines of CA during the mid-1850s.

Four stars for content, one star for book design
Look, the content of this book is awesome and provides a vital link to the history of the gold rush in California!But the book design is terrible, because the paragraph length on average, is about three times normal, and this error in design makes the text quite difficult to read.

If you really care about the history of California, you should read Roaring Camp, but it won't be easy, simply due to the overly long paragraph structure.

Truth is, this book shows just how much we take good book design and layout, for granted. I'll never do that again, after reading Roaring Camp.

How such a supposedly good publisher could allow this kind of flawed paragraph editing to be allowed, that's the real mystery here.

Good book, if you're looking for history
If you're looking for a rip-roaring yarn of hoary old prospectors jumping claims and battling over gold nuggets, this is not it. Johnson's book is a thoughtful work of social history that reexamines the collective memory many people have of the gold rush (all-American gold-diggin' brawl) in the context of the letters, diary entries, legal cases and ballads that people who were actually *in* the gold rush used to document their lives.

The picture that emerges is one of a complex society that grew up around the promise of instant wealth. For one thing, Americans were not (in Johnson's account) always the largest group of miners in the Southern mines: French guardsmen expelled by their country, Chilean aristocrats, Mexican families, Canadian traders, Chinese sailors, and the Indian tribes that lived in the area before the gold rush began - everyone got in on the action. This cultural meeting place brought interactions both peaceful (lessons on how to use chopsticks) and violent (the practise of "frontier justice" usually targeted non-whites without caring whether the person hanged had anything to do with the original crime, if in fact an original crime took place.) Johnson's book sketches a believable portrait of the evolvoing politics of the region, and along the way explains everything from the origin of Chinese landromats to Antonio Bandaras's character in _The Mask of Zorro_ (suddenly a much more interesting movie since I read this book).

Johnson's writing from a gender-studies perspective, so she's particularly interested in the issues that sprung up in a (mostly) all-male mining society. If you're from a culture that considers women's work "unmanly," and have thus never been taught to cook or clean for yourself, how do you survive in a frontier environment? For some, the answer was you didn't (miners got sick a lot, and scurvy was one of the killers). For others you either learned to practise domestic chores yourself (which you could then sell or split with others), and/or you paid a lot of money for help. In other words, the gold rush not only attracted men after gold, but women who saw they could make money selling services (of all kinds) to the gold miners. Johnson's section on the French prostitutes, for example (who were going to get taxed and inspected for veneral disease if they stayed in France), explains how the real money-makers of the gold rush were often not the miners (who depended on luck to strike it rich) but the merchants who sold to them.

The thing I admired the most about this book was the author's voice. Johnson presents us with a bunch of stories, but instead of offering just one interpretation, she gives us many possible readings of stories and also reminds us whose voice is being left out. For example, in her section on miners diaries she reminds the reader that diary-writing was an important part of 19 C Protestantism, so most available diaries are written from a very religious, Protestant perspective. An older historical approach would have claimed that this meant most people in the camp were religious Protestants: Johnson, on the other hand, reminds us that the Catholics, non-religious Protestants and illiterates were there too, but they weren't writing diaries.

Overall, I thought Johnson's book was very impressive. It won't necessarily give you a complete picture of the gold rush (Johnson's only looking at the southern mines), but it will give you a more complete picture than you'd have if all you'd ever heard was the Hollywood version of history. Looking at some of the other reviews on this site, I gather that some people get mad at this book because it doesn't squish history into an adventure story, while others get mad because they see it as "liberal revisionism." I actually thought Johnson was really fair in her presentation of history: she spends a lot of time looking at the raiding and fights that were going on between *all* the racial groups in this area, and she makes it clear that the fact American miners came to dominate the mines had a lot to do with the fact the mines were in the USA, and the government tended to (but did not always) side with natives over foreigners. As for the revisionist angle, yes, Johnson's challenging a popular perception of what the gold rush was (an all-American bonanza) but she's doing so based on what seems to be a lot of historical evidence and the testimony of the miners themselves. In other words I'm gathering most of the people who hated this book were looking for something completely different than what I would look for in a history book. If you, like me, are looking for well-written interpretation of historical evidence that acknowledges when the author *doesn't* know something, this is a good history book.

Inteligent and Thoughtful
In my opinion, Susan Johnson's research and demonstration of scholarship makes it inevitable for her to prove and defend her hypothesis throughout her book, ultimately confirmed in a solid thesis statement.What I find most intriguing about this book is the utilization of sources available to bring an "unheard" story, the "othered" story, to print.In Johnson's preface, she discusses the ideas for possible worlds of social justice.By choosing to undertake writing this book, Johnson deconstructs the social space of the California Southern Mines and through her thoughtful, inclusive reconstruction she gives a place to "others" whose testimonies and experience previously went unheard in a "mainstream" historical world.However, it is the stories that Johnson brings to life in this piece that truly `paints a historical picture' of the California Gold Rush. ... Read more

Product Description
Paha Sapa, the Black Hills, sacred land of the Lakota Indians, had long been the destination for prospectors. In 1874, Gen. George Armstrong Custer conducted an expedition into the Black Hills confirming rumors of gold. The findings of the expedition were widely publicized and the gold rush began. Unable to stem the tide of prospectors seeking their fortunes, the federal government opened Black Hills Native American land to settlement in 1877. During the rush, from 1874 to 1879, unknown numbers of mines were worked and more than 400 mining camps and towns sprang up in the gulches overnight. When the mines played out, most of the settlements died. Black Hills Gold Rush Towns looks at the mining towns that once flourished. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Book Review
I bought this book as it has pictures of our ancestors in it during the height of the mining in the Black Hills. The seller shipped it promptly and it was a good transaction.Thanks! ... Read more