"California Gold Diggers, Mining Operations on the Western Shore of the Sacramento River," lithograph published by Kellogg & Comstock, New York and Hartford [c ]. 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,

The Great Gold Rush Era Globally, 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 weve looked help illuminate gold rushes globally and locally? Merchant ships fill San Francisco harbor,

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 First Hand Accounts in California:

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