The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream

Well written history of California

Dr. Brands' "Age of Gold" is a fascinating, insightful and alluring read of the 1849 California gold rush and how this gluttonous thirst for quick wealth ignited rippling effects on the futurity of our country politically, economically, technologically, sociologically, etc. They came from all over the world: Europe, South America, Australia, Asia and overland from east of the Mississippi. Through journals and diaries of these wealth seekers, Brands takes the reader from their places of origin to their final destination. Exceptional portrayals of the hardships, misfortunes and fortitude these pioneers endured: crossing the oceans, trudging through the Panama Isthmus, overland across the United States, etc. With the population explosion in northern California, we read of the wild and unpredictable life in early San Francisco, Sacramento and the mining camps. Brands then follows up on how California establishes itself with a state Constitution, which among other things opens up the whole issue of slavery and the ramifications thereof. The gold rush influenced so much history, not only of California itself, but the entire United States. Excellent read and extremely well researched, couldn't put it down.

If you are fascinated with U.S. history and appreciate good storytelling, H.W. Brands' glittering new work is worth its weight in gold. In "The Age of Gold," Brands, an acclaimed biographer of Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, trains his considerable narrative talents on the California Gold Rush. We learn of the worldwide flight to California catalyzed by gold's 1848 discovery, and the role of central figures, such as John Fremont, Leland Stanford, and many lesser known characters, in shaping the Golden State in its early years. I found Brands' central thesis particularly interesting. The Gold Rush, he says, can be seen as a demarcation line in the forging of a new American Dream. Prior to the gold strike at Coloma, most Americans held to a Puritan belief in the value of thrift, hard work and gradual wealth accumulation. A deep-seated aversion to failure made risk-taking something to be strenuously avoided. After Coloma, failure began to lose its stigma. Americans became more comfortable with the concept of risk. A failed gold strike -- or the demise of any business venture -- became a learning experience, an accepted setback in the inexorable quest for ultimate success. The Gold Rush can be seen as the Mother of the American entrepreneurial spirit, and Brands says its no coincidence that the same northern California region that yielded gold in abundance 150 years ago is home to today's Silicon Valley.An excellent read. Highly recommended.

H.W. Brands shows again why he is one of America's foremost historians with his compellingly readable account of the 1849 California Gold Rush and the early history of the state. Brands digs down through the myths about the Gold Rush and unearths the fascinating stories of the people (immigrants and Americans alike) who caught America's first big burst of gold fever. Among the key players were William T. Sherman (later the famous Civil War General), explorer John C. Fremont (later the first Presidential nominee of the Republican Party), and Leland Stanford (founder of the University that bears his last name). They all come together at what was truly one of American history's major crossroads.Brands does not limit himself to just recounting the adventures in the gold fields. He focusses on the larger political, social and even military effects of the gold rush. The chapters recounting the lengthy, perilous journeys by land and sea that the gold miners took to get to Califorinia are particularly compelling. Brands also discusses at length the growth of San Francisco into a major city and the establishment of California's state government. Additionally, he devotes time examining the U.S. congresional Compromise of 1850, which allowed California to be admitted as a state only after a bitter and acrimonious sectional feud over slavery.Brands is an excellent writer with that rare ability among historians to make his historicals accounts read like fiction. His book is well-researched and the author has a flair for capturing the essence of the historical figures involved. He also argues strenuously that the gold rush's effects on American politics as a whole, including pushing the country toward Civil War, should not be underestimated.Overall, an outstanding work of history that can be enjoyed by serious students and casual readers alike.

H.W. brands has done it again. His Franklin was brilliant in humanizing a mythic American figure. Age of Gold reads like a novel. This story of the 1848 California gold rush is beautifully told. Brands has a way of maximizing the human element of his story. His portrayal of the mania of gold fever is mesmerizing. Today we have little appreciation of the difficulty faced in just getting to California, let alone the crude conditions faced by those who survived the trip. Brands weaves in the political overtones of how California's position on slavery contributed to the Civil War. He also gives us the story of the development of San Francisco, our most cosmoplitan city today but then a lawless backwater. Read Mr. Brands book and then discover his book on Franklin.

In January 1848, James Marshall was checking on the progress of construction of his sawmill on the American River in California. In the tailrace of the mill, he found quartz that bore flakes of gold. It might have meant nothing. His crew had spent months moving dirt and rocks around for the mill, but no previous shiny yellow specks had shown up. The discovery was kept quiet for a while, but then Sam Brannan heard about it. He owned a general store at Sutter's Fort nearby, and he pondered whether to start digging for the gold himself, or to make his fortune selling supplies to others doing the digging. He went with the latter strategy (the one that more reliably made eventual fortunes from the gold mines) - he filled a jar with gold dust, and paraded it around San Francisco. The word was out; the Gold Rush was on. According to H. W. Brands, the effect of the discovery of gold in California was to change local, national, and international history. He describes the effects in a long, entertaining narrative of individual stories, _The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream_ (Doubleday).There had never been anything like this before. The world had had a long lust for gold, but it was so rare and finds were so haphazard that there had never before been a rush for gold. The international effects of the gold discovery preceded even the national ones, for the word went out over the ocean to Chile, Australia, and China before it could be carried overland, or via the Panama land bridge, to Washington DC and other east coast cities. The gold veins of California and Nevada were big and rich, and there were new technologies to bring them out. There were different variations of the famous panning for gold to start off with, and then miners became true miners by digging for it. Eventually, large operations were launched to uncover the gold hydraulically, aiming water cannon at the mountains and bringing them low. The huge population boom was like nothing the world had seen. It had been assumed that California would slowly fill up with people, just as the lands purchased from France had done, and this was the process up until 1848. By 1849, however, California overtook many existing states in population, and the new Californians were interested in admission to the Union, skipping the usual territorial stage. Brands argues that the admission affected the national debate on slavery versus abolition, and may have accelerated the Civil War. Be that as it may, it is clear that transcontinental railroad was probably the most significant result of the Gold Rush. There had never been a larger construction enterprise, and it created "the largest unified market in the world, the market that allowed the American economy to grow into the colossus it became by the beginning of the 20th century." It is fitting that Brands winds up this illuminating and wide-ranging book with Silicon Valley. Silicon is everywhere in sand, and entr