"California Gold Diggers, Mining Operations on the Western Shore of the Sacramento River," lithograph published by Kellogg & Comstock, New York and Hartford [c. 1849-52]. 26 cm x 36 cm. Courtesy of the Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

California, 1840s-50s

Australia, 1850s

British Columbia, 1850s, 1870s

The Inter-Mountain US West, 1850s-1870s (silver too)

South Africa, 1870s-80s (diamonds too)

Chile & Argentina, 1880s-1890s

Colorado, 1890s

Klondike, 1890s-1900s – Yukon, Alaska

Western Australia, 1890s

Ontario, Canada, 1900s-1910s

Note that some were famous beyond the scale of the gold found, such as the Klondike in the 1890s; others are little known, but produced huge quantities of gold, such as the Porcupine Gold Rush in Ontario, 1909-1911.

The Great Gold Rush Era Globally, 1848-1929

Were gold rushes quintessentially American? What are reasons to say yes or no?

What characterized gold rushes globally? What notable forms of difference were there among them?

Is the story more British, and less American, from a global point of view?

Edwin Stockqueler, An Australian Gold Diggings, c. 1855

Context

Gold in history

Silver in the early modern era

Uniqueness of the era, 1840s-1920s

Technology

Connection to global economic growth

Global migration

Free trade liberalism Comparatively open borders

Western global dominance

British values of economic liberty/order vs. U.S. republican democracy

Was the gold rush vision “liberal” (i.e., classic liberal) and not American

Waning of new discoveries of gold fields combined with the onset of the Great Depression

Post-World War II context

Diamonds in Africa

"The Rhodes Colossus" – cartoon by Edward Linley Sambourne, published in Punch after Rhodes announced plans for a telegraph line from Cape Townto Cairo in 1892.

Gold Rushes and Frontier Theories

How do the various frontier theories/models we’ve looked help illuminate gold rushes globally and locally?

Merchant ships fill San Francisco harbor, 1850-51

Further Reading/Resources

Robin Winks, The Myth of the American Frontier

David Goodman, Gold Seeking: Victoria and California in the 1850s

Donald Fetherling, The Gold Crusades

Kenneth Owens, ed., The California Gold Rush and the World

The West of the Imagination (VHS)

The West (PBS; VHS & DVD)

City of Gold (NFB, 1957), Narrated by Pierre Burton http://www.nfb.ca/film/city_of_gold/

First Hand Accounts in California:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbhome.html

http://museumca.org/goldrush/

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/goldrush.html

http://www.mininghistory.asn.au/mining-history/

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/bc150/rushtobc/index.html

http://bcheritage.ca/cariboo/contents.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lab6gyWsMXo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dcsYMTyZcE&feature=related

(Pierre Burton)

“City of Gold (1950s)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGxHHAX1nOY&feature=fvwrel

http://www.nfb.ca/film/city_of_gold/