Gold
Subtitle: firsthand accounts from the rush that made the West
By: John Richard Stephens
Publisher: TwoDot, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Guilford, Connecticut
Language: eng
Number of pages: 347
ISBN-13: 9780762791507
Subjects: Gold discoveries; Sources; Gold miners; Biography; History; Gold mines and mining; Frontier and pioneer life; In literature; Gold in literature; Miners in literature; Frontier and pioneer life in literature; HISTORY / United States / 19th Century; HISTORY / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY); HISTORY / Expeditions & Discoveries
Description: "The Gold Rush era was an amazing time in our country's history. California had just been occupied during the Mexican-American War and wasn't officially a U.S. territory yet when gold was discovered in 1848. Suddenly the whole world was electrified by the news and tales of men digging vast amounts of wealth out of the ground, even finding gold nuggets just lying around. Within five years, 250,000 miners dug up more than $200 million in gold--about $600 billion in today's dollars. Gold offers a feel for what it was like to live through the heady days of the discovery and exploitation of gold in California in the mid-1800s through firsthand accounts, short stories, and tall tales written by the people who were there. These eyewitness accounts offer an immediacy that brings the events to life"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: The World's Most Humongous Treasure Hunt; title: Part One. Nonfiction; title: Discovering Gold / James Marshall; title: My Great Plans Were Destroyed / John A. Sutter; title: "Gold! Gold!!!" / General William Tecumseh Sherman; title: The Californian Ceases Publication / The Californian; title: Official Report to the US Government / Colonel Richard Mason; title: Trading for Dust / Franklin Buck; title: The Rush Begins / Elisha Oscar Crosby; title: A Flood of Pioneers / Alonzo Delano; title: Rich Diggings / James Ayers; title: Of Miners and Gold / Carl Meyer; title: Living Dead in Califor-nee / Alonzo Delano; title: Seeking Richer Diggings / John S. Hittell; title: California's Strange Society / Henry Coke; title: The Fast Life in San Francisco / J.D. Borthwick; title: To Live by Luck / Henry David Thoreau; title: A Woman at the Mines / Dame Shirley; title: Gold Made Misery My Companion / Alonzo Delano; title: Christmas and New Years' in Mud Springs / Andrew Gilmore; title: San Francisco and Its Corrupt Government / Mifflin Wistar Gibbs; title: Flush Times in California / Ulysses S. Grant; title: Lost in Snow / Anonymous; title: The Strangest Population / Mark Twain; title: Part Two. Fiction; title: All Gold Cañon / Jack London; title: The Banks of the Sacramento / Jack London; title: Scorpion Gulch / Nathan Urner; title: The Luck of Roaring Camp / Bret Harte; title: How I Went to the Mines / Bret Harte.