Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press Vardis Fisher and Opal Laurel Holmes bring together the stories of all of the remarkable men and women and all of the violent contrasts that made up one of the most entrhalling chapters in American history. Fisher, a respected scholar and versatile creative writer, devoted three years to the writing of this book.
The classic history of women on America's frontiers, now updated and thoroughly revised. FRONTIER WOMEN is an imaginative and graceful account of the extraordinarily diverse contributions of women to the development of the American frontier. Author Julie Roy Jeffrey has expanded her original analysis to include the perspectives of African American and Native American women.
Here, for the first time, is a clear account in words and pictures of the methods by which gold and silver were extracted and processed in the Old West. The author describes the early days of Spanish and Indian mining and the wild era inaugurated by the American prospector who rushed west to get rich quick, ending with the year 1893, when repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act virtually closed the mining frontier. The account gives in laymen’s language the techniques employed in prospecting, placering, lode mining, and milling, particularly those employed by the Spaniards, Indians, and Cornishmen, and shows how the ever-practical Americans adapted and improved them. Special attention is given to the methods employed in the California and Montana gold fields, Colorado and the Comstock Lode, the Black Hills, and Tombstone, Arizona. In these pages the reader also meets some of the unforgettable personalities whose lives enriched (and sometimes impoverished) the mining camps.
Historical insight is the alchemy that transforms the familiar story of the Gold Rush into something sparkling and new. The world of the Gold Rush that comes down to us through fiction and film--of unshaven men named Stumpy and Kentuck raising hell and panning for gold--is one of half-truths. In this brilliant work of social history, Susan Johnson enters the well-worked diggings of Gold Rush history and strikes a rich lode. She finds a dynamic social world in which the conventions of identity--ethnic, national, and sexual--were reshaped in surprising ways. She gives us the all-male households of the diggings, the mines where the men worked, and the fandango houses where they played. With a keen eye for character and story, Johnson restores the particular social world that issued in the Gold Rush myths we still cherish.
On a frigid day in Coloma, California, James Marshall's heart pounded. An excitable man, he held a shiny, metal nugget in his hand. Could this be gold? To test the metal, he hammered it with a rock. It flattened easily, as gold should. When news spread of Marshall's golden discovery, thousands of people traveled to the Wild West in search of fortune. Author Jeff Savage explores the miners, prospectors, and families, who went great distances to find gold. Although most people never found it, the gold rush would change the landscape of the United States forever.
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)
First Published in 2015. This encyclopaedic collection includes Volumes 1 (A-L) and 2 (M-Z) as well as essays on the settlement of America. It can be argued that the westward expansion occurred only one week after the English landfall at Jamestown, Virginia, on May 14, 1607. Beginning on May 21, Captain John Smith, one of the colonization company’s leaders, and twenty-one companions made their way northwest up the James River for some 50 or 60 miles (80 or 96 km).
Literary histories, of course, do not have a reason for being unless there exists the literature itself. This volume, perhaps more than others of its kind, is an expression of appreciation for the talented and dedicated literary artists who ignored the odds, avoided temptations to write for popularity or prestige, and chose to write honestly about the American West, believing that experiences long knowns to be of historical importance are also experiences that need and deserve a literature of importance.
