Description:
The world of the California Gold Rush that comes down to us through fiction and film is one of half-truths. In this brilliant work of social history, Susan Lee Johnson enters the well-worked diggings of Gold Rush history and strikes a rich lode.
Johnson explores the dynamic social world created by the Gold Rush in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Stockton, charting the surprising ways in which the conventions of identity--ethnic, national, and sexual--were reshaped. With a keen eye for character and story, she shows us how this peculiar world evolved over time, and how our cultural memory of the Gold Rush took root.
Brief description: Susan Lee Johnson is Harry Reid Endowed Chair for the History of the Intermountain West at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Review Quotes: Johnson puts forward a perspective on the Gold Rush far different from many stories and legends of yore...A provocative, eye-opening book.-- "Sacremento Bee"