Main entry:

Blodgett, Peter J. (Peter John), 1954- author.

Title & Author:

Land of golden dreams : California in the Gold Rush decade, 1848-1858 / Peter J. Blodgett.

Publication:

San Marino, California : Huntington Library, [1999]
©1999

Description:

147 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 28 cm

Notes:
"Published in conjunction with the exhibition Land of Golden Dreams ... at the Huntington Library from September 28, 1999, through September 10, 2000."--Title page verso.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
I: The adventure begins. Paths to El Dorado ; A society on the brink : Mexican California before the Gold Rush ; Gold fever -- II: Days of '49. Planning the trek to El Dorado ; The great migration ; Life in the gold country -- III: California transformed : organizing a new society, 1850-58. Accommodating social change ; Defining a new California : the Constitution of 1849 and political life -- IV: The legacies of El Dorado. Building the Commonwealth: gold discovery and California's development ; Making sense of it all: interpreting the Gold Rush experience.

Summary:

"The year 2000 ... marks the sesquicentennial of California's statehood. California entered the Union on September 9, 1850--fewer than three years after the discovery of gold at Sutter's sawmill on January 24, 1848. Such a transformation in so short a span of time seems remarkable itself but not unanticipated, given the great interest shown by the English, French, Russians, and Americans during the 1830s and 1840s in exploiting Mexican California's abundant natural resources. Even before the discovery of gold, the Englishman Sir George Simpson wrote in 1847 that 'the English race, as I have already hinted, is doubtless destined to add this fair and fertile province to its possessions on this continent. ... The only doubt is, whether California is to fall to the British or the Americans.' Gold only hastened what some saw as inevitable. In contemplating California's fate, Simpson referred to what was 'destined' to happen. 'Manifest destiny' became the cliché of many American historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who saw the acquisition of California as both the logical and appropriate conclusion to the conquest of North America begun two centuries earlier by the first European colonists. The Huntington's exhibition Land of Golden Dreams takes a broader look at the impact of the Gold Rush on California, the nation, and the world. Like other contemporary historians, Peter Blodgett, curator of Western American historical manuscripts, examines the complete social fabric of California in the decade 1848-58 and its radical transformation, catalyzed by gold discovery, from 'a captured Mexican province to the thirty-first state of the American Union.' He notes that 'the events of the Gold Rush would remain a touchstone for generations of later Californians.' "--From Foreword, page 7.

Resources:
Table of contents
Book review (H-Net)
Book review (H-Net)
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description

ISBN:

0873281837 (cloth)
9780873281836 (cloth)
0873281829 (paper)
9780873281829 (paper)

Subject:

Frontier and pioneer life California.
Frontier and pioneer life California Pictorial works.
Gold mines and mining California History 19th century.
Gold mines and mining California History 19th century Pictorial works.
Frontier and pioneer life.
Gold mines and mining.
Bergbau
Goldbergbau
Goldrausch
Gold mines and mining California 19th century.
California Gold discoveries.
California Gold discoveries Pictorial works.
Californie Découvertes d'or.
Californie Découvertes d'or Ouvrages illustrés.
California.
Kalifornien
USA

Form/genre:

illustrated books.
Illustrated works.
History.
Pictorial works.
Ouvrages illustrés.

Added entries:

Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 288260
Call No.: BIB 229893
Status: Available