"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://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/goldrush.html
http://museumca.org/goldrush/
http://www.mininghistory.asn.au/mining-history/
http://bcheritage.ca/cariboo/
contents.htm
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/b
c150/rushtobc/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lab
6gyWsMXo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
1dcsYMTyZcE&feature=related
(Pierre Burton)
“City of Gold (1950s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGxHHAX
1nOY&feature=fvwrel
http://www.nfb.ca/film/city_of_gold/