On the morning of January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold in California. The news spread across the continent, launching hundreds of ships and hitching a thousand prairie schooners filled with adventurers in search of heretofore unimagined wealth. Those who joined the procession—soon called 49ers—included the wealthy and the poor from every state and territory, including slaves brought by their owners. In numbers, they represented the greatest mass migration in the history of the Republic. In this first comprehensive history of the Gold Rush, Malcolm J. Rohrbough demonstrates that in its far-reaching repercussions, it was the most significant event in the first half of the nineteenth century. No other series of events between the Louisiana Purchase and the Civil War produced such a vast movement of people; called into question basic values of marriage, family, work, wealth, and leisure; led to so many varied consequences; and left such vivid memories among its participants. Through extensive research in diaries, letters, and other archival sources, Rohrbough uncovers the personal dilemmas and confusion that the Gold Rush brought. His engaging narrative depicts the complexity of human motivation behind the event and reveals the effects of the Gold Rush as it spread outward in ever-widening circles to touch the lives of families and communities everywhere in the United States. For those who joined the 49ers, the decision to go raised questions about marital obligations and family responsibilities. For those men—and women, whose experiences of being left behind have been largely ignored until now—who remained on the farm or in the shop, the absences of tens of thousands of men over a period of years had a profound impact, reshaping a thousand communities across the breadth of the American nation.
The first American frontier lay just beyond the Appalachian Mountains and along the Gulf Coast. Here, successive groups of pioneers built new societies and developed new institutions to cope with life in the wilderness. In this thorough revision of his classic account, Malcolm J. Rohrbough tells the dramatic story of these men and women from the first Kentucky settlements to the closing of the frontier. Rohrbough divides his narrative into major time periods designed to establish categories of description and analysis, presenting case studies that focus on the county, the town, the community, and the family, as well as politics and urbanization. He also addresses Spanish, French, and Native American traditions and the anomalous presence of African slaves in the making of this story.
The California Gold Rush attracted 300,000 gold seekers in the mid-1800s, and it is the story of 30,000 Frenchman who came by sea that is told in The Rush to Gold. This is the first book to give an international focus to this pivotal time.
The first American frontier lay just beyond the Appalachian Mountains and along the Gulf Coast. Here, successive groups of pioneers built new societies and developed new institutions to cope with life in the wilderness. In this thorough revision of his classic account, Malcolm J. Rohrbough tells the dramatic story of these men and women from the first Kentucky settlements to the closing of the frontier. Rohrbough divides his narrative into major time periods designed to establish categories of description and analysis, presenting case studies that focus on the county, the town, the community, and the family, as well as politics and urbanization. He also addresses Spanish, French, and Native American traditions and the anomalous presence of African slaves in the making of this story.
In 1987 Franklin College of Indiana hosted an observance of the bicentennial of the Northwest Ordinance. Professional and amateur historians, folklorists, scholars in the arts, teachers, and students gathered to examine the provisions of that historic document and the governmental structure it created for the frontier lands north of the Ohio River. Pathways to the Old Northwest: An Observance of the Bicentennial of the Northwest Ordinance presents six of the lectures delivered at the conference. These lectures represent current knowledge about the early history of the Ohio River-Great Lakes area, the circumstances surrounding passage of the Ordinance, the beginnings of government and society, and the ethnic diversity of the region's people.
On the morning of January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold in California. The news spread across the continent, launching hundreds of ships and hitching a thousand prairie schooners filled with adventurers in search of heretofore unimagined wealth. Those who joined the procession—soon called 49ers—included the wealthy and the poor from every state and territory, including slaves brought by their owners. In numbers, they represented the greatest mass migration in the history of the Republic. In this first comprehensive history of the Gold Rush, Malcolm J. Rohrbough demonstrates that in its far-reaching repercussions, it was the most significant event in the first half of the nineteenth century. No other series of events between the Louisiana Purchase and the Civil War produced such a vast movement of people; called into question basic values of marriage, family, work, wealth, and leisure; led to so many varied consequences; and left such vivid memories among its participants. Through extensive research in diaries, letters, and other archival sources, Rohrbough uncovers the personal dilemmas and confusion that the Gold Rush brought. His engaging narrative depicts the complexity of human motivation behind the event and reveals the effects of the Gold Rush as it spread outward in ever-widening circles to touch the lives of families and communities everywhere in the United States. For those who joined the 49ers, the decision to go raised questions about marital obligations and family responsibilities. For those men—and women, whose experiences of being left behind have been largely ignored until now—who remained on the farm or in the shop, the absences of tens of thousands of men over a period of years had a profound impact, reshaping a thousand communities across the breadth of the American nation.
All those who delight in modern Aspen as a ski resort and cultural center, as well as those who enjoy reading about all the old Wild West, will be charmed by this book. In its heyday as a mining town, Aspen rivaled the camps of the California Gold Rush, Virginia City in Nevada's Comstock Lode, and Leadville in Colorado, and from 1887 to 1893 it was the riches silver-mining center in America. Aspen's story begins in 1879 with seven prospectors camped in tents by the intersection of the Roaring Fork River and Castle Creek at the foot of Aspen and Smuggler Mountains. The first great spurt of growth came in 1883, when Jerome B. Wheeler, a partner in Macy's Department Store, bought several claims and built roads and a smelter. The arrival of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1887 transformed Aspen into a major metropolis by the standards of the day, with some 12,000 inhabitants and services that included six newspapers, two banks, an opera house, electric lights and telephones, a street car system, a waterworks, and schools and churches. The city became home to colorful personalities like B. Clark Wheeler, grandiose promoter and editor of the Aspen Times, and Davis H. Waite, his father-in-law and a local reformer who was elected governor of Colorado in 1892. Rohrbough brings to life the dynamic entrepreneurs such as David M. Hyman and Henry B. Gillespie who made the town and profited from it, the vicious court fights that resulted from mining disputes, and most effectively of all, the atmosphere of a booming mining community. In July 1893 the price of silver dropped sharply and within a week, all the mines in Aspen closed. By 1930, Aspen was virtually a ghost town, with a population of 705. But then a new generation of entrepreneurs discovered another natural resource in this former mining camp. It was snow.
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