Review: So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers On The Mining And Ranching Frontier

The past is riddled with discussion of how men have seen history and what it was like to be a man not only on the western frontier but all over the world.  The women of the western frontier are not necessarily the passive observers or victims they at times have been portrayed as.  As time has progressed the woman has become more and more critical in the study of the past.  The study of history must include all aspects of the past, not just certain aspects that are deemed important otherwise the whole story will not be heard.  “Public affair and notable men were the preeminent topics of historical research.  Literary scholars regarded most personal writings by women as sub-literary and most of women’s published novels and autobiographies as, at best ‘local color.’”[1]  Historians have now realized, as feminist scholarship becomes more important and opens new doors into the past, that women develop new perspectives on history and new methodologies into historiography.  As explained by David Potter in the mid-1960s, “The character of any nation is the composite of the character of its men and of its women, and though these may be deeply similar in many ways, they are almost never entirely the same.”[2]  In So Much To Be Done: Women Settlers On The Mining And Ranching Frontier this change in scholarship can be easily seen.  This paper will attempt to ascertain the value of this book and to compare and contrast the different experiences of women on the frontier.

The editors begin their book with a brief introduction that lays out the historical context within which falls the obscure sources and unprinted manuscripts they chose to use in this novel.  According to the introduction the editors found that interpretations of gender attitudes in western history came to two starkly different conclusions:  Julie Roy Jeffrey found strong continuities between Western attitudes and Eastern Victorian domesticity, Sandra Myres stressed nonconformity and adaptation among Western women.  Broadening the base of documentary evidence was clearly necessary. The editors hope that the documents they have selected will justify both interpretations, and lead readers to a more complex appreciation of the importance of time, place, social circumstance and personality to different attitudes and experiences among frontier women.  Being their thesis the editors are able to utilize numerous documents from the late nineteenth century that come from women settlers on the mining and ranching frontiers of California, Nevada, the High Plains and Rocky Mountains, and the Southwestern desert.  Giving a broad scope to the western frontier and showing how women had different experiences all over. The editors have given nineteen separate accounts of women in the west in the first edition and twenty-three different accounts in the second edition.  “Some of the accounts included here have been previously published; others have not.  Some are presented in their entirety; others are excerpted from much longer records.”[3] 

            In regards to the narratives themselves the editors do an excellent job of keeping them diverse, as stated above since they come from different regions of the west.  The problem lies within the fact that they are limited mostly to the writings of white, literate, middle-class women; leaving out many different and more diverse women.  If the editors would have been able to accommodate a more racial and class diversity they would have covered much more ground and established a much more reliable history.  The editors attempted to reference poorer, uneducated women and women of color such as an excerpt from Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, “daughter of the Piute Indians’ chief and granddaughter of chief Winnemucca, who guided the explorer John Charles Fremont across the Sierra Nevada to California.”[4]  Hopkins did much traveling and speaking out against poor treatment of the Piutes.  In the segment of the book that is about her life, which comes directly from a book that she wrote, talks about the poor treatment of her clan and how they were forced to move away from their homes.  Her segment does a fantastic job of showing a woman who does not fit the mold of the rest of the book. Another memoir that describes the frontier from another perspective is from Mary Sheehan Ronan's memoir. Though she was a white woman and someone who had quite a bit of money her husband, Peter Ronan, was appointed the government’s agent on the Flathead Indian Reservation.  The brief segment on her and her husband talks about their life in the late 1870s, specifically about how they were sympathetic the Indians, unlike many other government agents.  These two specifically show a different side to the frontier women that at times are forgotten because their voices are not always heard.  The two segments mentioned above do more than just show the variety of women’s roles and experiences in the vast western frontier.   These two describe all of that without masking the gender attitudes and the racial prejudices that women brought to or developed in frontier communities.  As the editors justly conclude, these documents together "reveal women's bravery, physical strength, and independence equal to any man's, even as they also reveal the failures, weaknesses, and tragedies that beset both sexes during the complex settlement process.”[5]

            The other segments of the book do not deviate much from one another.  Obviously women on the frontier had a wide variety of experiences but when it came down to middle-class women, they have very similar experiences.  An example of this comes from Mrs. E.A. Van Court's "Reminiscences."  This family lived in California, south of San Francisco.  Mrs. Van Court explains that they thought that, "We surely thought a hoodoo was over us."[6]  Everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong at one time or another.  Just when they thought they owned their land free and clear, it turned out to be tied up in a government treaty having to do with Mexican land-grant claims.  They leased a piece of property and fixed it up on the understanding that the owner would provide them with a herd of dairy cattle.  The cattle got wiped out by disease.  Another time, their house washed away; just bad luck all around.  Another experience similar to this comes from Mrs. Lee Whipple-Haslam's memoir, "Early Days in California." The author was a young girl who grew up in some of the Sierra mining towns.  Discussion of both the beautiful scenery and the terrible crime of her father being murdered happen.  Following that brief excerpt comes the idea of a woman being forced to take control of the family.  Mrs. Likins memoir talk about her husband taking ill, so upon her fell the task of supporting the family.  Employment opportunities to women were somewhat limited, but she obtained a position as a traveling bookseller, and worked both San Francisco and nearby towns, peddling books and engravings of General Grant's families.  Her experiences were in the 1870s.  Overall the women handled their situations rather well but were saddled with bad luck.  What is interesting about the west is that the experience with bad luck did not just fall to the women but also to the men as well.  All throughout the history of the west there is talk about how everyone was hit with bad luck.  The women’s’ experience was similar to that of man.

            The reviews on the book vary, though both reviews this reviewer looked at believed the book had merit and a place within historical literature.  Marks, from St. Edward University, explains that: “The selections do indeed show how varied were women's responses to frontier challenges and how actively they participated in the settlement phase. But while all the material is engaging and worthwhile reading, some of the pieces do not appear to relate very well to the book's subtitle.”[7]  She then goes on to explain excerpts from the book that makes this point.  She also explains that the general introduction was “gracefully written” and shows the significances of the material.  On the other hand though, “the brief biographical and analytical sketches preceding each piece are less satisfying, sometimes leaving out vital information and forcing the reader to piece together clues from the narratives…Despite this quibble, So Much to Be Done makes for richly rewarding reading for anyone interested in frontier women's history.”[8]  On the other side of things Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith from Bozeman, Montana see things a little bit differently.  They believe that “In the end, this intriguing volume has value as it stands, not only because it offers a rare glimpse into the lives of women ‘responding to their environments and thinking about their lives’,[9] but also because it serves as a strong reminder that there is indeed still "so much to be done" in the field of western women's history.”[10]  The reviews do diverge a bit in their opinions of the book, as one describes the book in much greater detail, they both believe it to be well written and a worthwhile addition to historical writings and the study of women.

            So Much to Be Done is a book that demonstrates, with the information available, the wide variety of women that were placed amongst the bad luck, pain, stress, and constant lawlessness throughout the western frontier.  The information available, though, does leave a bit to be desired in regards to the rest of the lower class women and racially distinct people who moved out west.  This is a book that shows how distinguished some of the women were who moved out west and arguably gives them a voice in explaining their hardships and what they went through.  This book is a fantastic representation of women’s experiences in the west, which is a place where the women are sometimes lost to history. 

 Bibliography

Marks, Paula M. "Review." Journal of American History 78, no. 2 (September 1991): 667-68.

Moynihan, Ruth Barnes., Susan H. Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp. So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

Smith, Ursula, and Linda Peavy. "Review." Smith Montana: The Magazine of Western History 41, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 83-84.

[1] Moynihan, Ruth Barnes., Susan H. Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp. So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. XII

[2] Ibid xii

[3] Marks, Paula M. "Review." Journal of American History 78, no. 2 (September 1991): 667-68. P.  667

[4] Moynihan, Ruth Barnes., Susan H. Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp. So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. P. 227

[5] Ibid XVI

[6] Moynihan, Ruth Barnes., Susan H. Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp. So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. P. 26

[7] Marks, Paula M. "Review." Journal of American History 78, no. 2 (September 1991): 667-68. P. 667

[8] Ibid 668

[9]Moynihan, Ruth Barnes., Susan H. Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp. So Much to Be Done: Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. P. xx.

[10] Smith, Ursula, and Linda Peavy. "Review." Smith Montana: The Magazine of Western History 41, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 83-84.

Review: Pirate Latitudes

First thing is first, I looked this up online before I started reading it. I don't really know why I did that but I did, and I found some interesting things. This book is rumored to have been found on Michael Crichton's computer after he died. This is interesting because it does not seem to be finished, a ghost writing kinda of idea here. I think a couple of other reviews online have it right, this book would not have been turned in by Crichton. Not really a finished product here. Character development is lacking a bit, though the story line is great. Captain Hunter and his gang constantly get hit with bad luck and this is the story of their bad luck, one right after the other. I found the story of the privateers rather interesting. Crichton lacks the history of privateers which really would have given this book more flair. I would have loved to find more about the women characters too. All-In-All I didn't find this book fitting for Crichton's final book but I think if he had lived this book would have had a much different final product. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Michael Crichton's books but don't expect the same outcome as say with "Jurassic Park" or "Prey." Good book and a worthwhile read.

3 Stars ***

Review: Empire of the Summer Moon

Manifest destiny lead white settlers west towards what they believed to be their “American Dream,” but a violent and dangerous aboriginal tribe was awaiting them. One that was incredibly powerful, even more powerful than most of settlers believed. This force was the Comanche nation. Empire of the Summer Moon, written by S. C. Gwynne is written as the story of Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanche nation. In this chronicle Gwynne wrote about a reclusive and warlike tribe, the Quahidis, and he brilliantly placed them into an intricately woven timeline. This book describes the life of the famous Indian abductee Cynthia Ann Parker, who is Quanah’s mother. It describes in great detail her life from the moment of capture until her return to “civilized” life after many years amongst the Comanches. Quanah’s rise to power in the Comanche tribe by the early 1870s is also elegantly described. This rise to power was coupled with a history of the U.S. army’s attempt, as well as the Texas Ranger’s attempts at hunting down the Comaches and preventing settlers from being. These U.S. army commanders were ordered to hunt down and kill Quanah or bring him and his followers to the reservation. Gwynne chooses to give histories not only of the Comaches but also of the army leaders, who hunted Quanah and his tribe. Gwynne describes the many different aspects that make the west such an interesting phenomenon while brilliantly covering one of the most argued viewpoints that lay within the bloody history of the west, manifest destiny versus aboriginal destruction.

S.C. Gwynne is an accomplished author who has authored three books, Selling Money, about his years as an international banker, and The Outlaw Bank about the $20 billion BCCI bank fraud. Outlaw Bank was named one of Business Week Magazine’s Top Ten Books of the year. In May 2010 his book Empire of the Summer Moon was published by Scribner. The book spent four months on the New York Times top 10 Bestseller list. It was later a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award. His 2005 story on lethal Houston surgeon Eric Scheffey was published in The Best American Crime Writing, 2006 by Harper Perennial Press. In 2008 he won the National City and Regional Magazine Award for “Writer of the Year.”[1] He is known not necessarily as a historian but a journalist, which gives him a unique perspective on this matter. His writing style is wonderful and really lends itself to the story of Quanah and the Native American tribe.

Arguably the most vexing question that lies within the history of the west is the underlying theme of Gwynne’s books. Empire of the Summer Moon has a complete lack of sentimentalism in regards to either side of the argument but Gwynne does a great job of giving the history as it was. Gwynne describes each side as wrong; an example of this for both sides explained is that when the U.S government is guilty of appropriating from the native peoples, that action is actually called stealing. And when the Comanches are guilty of destruction and cruelty towards their captives as well as the people who they killed and mutilated all throughout the plains, it is laid out in an incredibly descriptive detail and told truthfully for what it was, a terrible act. This theme is wrapped intricately around Gwynne’s focal point, Quanah Parker. Through this “half-breed” Gwynne is able to spawn many distinct stories that will eventually come to a close with the Comanches assimilating into white culture or dying on the open plain at the hands of U.S. army men/Texas Rangers.

Quanah was the son of Cynthia Ann Parker, who in 1836 was taken captive by Comanches in North Texas. She subsequently married the prominent chief Peta Nocona and bore him three children. Quanah, the eldest, was born in the Wichita Mountains of southern Oklahoma in about 1850. The book gives great detail into his life as a Comanche “half-breed” and delves into how he became the man he was when he died in 1911. Living where the Comanches did, “in the depths of Palo Duro Canyon” gave them a natural defense that was “nearly impregnable.”[2] Hardships arose all through Quanah’s life: he lost his father was he was killed, his mother was taken away, his brother died of disease, and he was left alone in the world. Even through all of that Gwynne explains that the band he was a member of came to exemplify the Comanche’s “drastic transformation,” from “skulking pariah to dominant power.”[3] This band, the Quahadis, became the “hardest, fiercest, least yielding component of a tribe that had long had the reputation as the most violent and warlike on the continent.”[4]

A large and powerfully built chief led the bunch, on a coal black racing pony. Leaning forward upon his mane, his heels nervously working in the animal's side, with six-shooter poised in the air, he seemed the incarnation of savage, brutal joy. His face was smeared with black war-paint, which gave his features a satanic look…A full-length headdress or war bonnet of eagle's feathers, spreading out as he rode, and descending from his forehead, overhead and back, to his pony's tail, almost swept the ground. Large brass hoops were in his ears; he was naked to the waist, wearing simply leggings, moccasins and a breechclout. A necklace of beare's claws hung about his neck. . . . Bells jingled as he rode at headlong speed, followed by the leading warriors, all eager to outstrip him in the race. It was Quanah, principal war-chief of the Qua-ha-das.[5]

Quanah is shown here a great war-chief and leader of his people, specifically his braves. He was feared and so were his braves. What made these Quahadis so drastically important and feared was that they possessed the riches that every native tribe wished to possess, “the currency by which Indians measured wealth – horses.”[6] In this regard the Comanches became the unrivaled experts on horse breeding, riding, breaking, and of course stealing; which gave them an edge over other tribes who generally feared them.

Through the life of Quanah Parker we are able to learn a great deal about the lives of the men who became Indian-fighters. Gwynne not only shows the lives of these “great” men, who were not necessarily shown in the best light, but also follows the agonizing campaigns of the ordinary men who travelled alongside these “great” men. Something changed as the settlers began to move west. On October 3, 1871, there was a change from having “no stomach for it” (attempts to destroy the tribes on a larger scale) to the barking of an order. “Barked out through the lines of command to the men of the Fourth Calvary and Eleventh Infantry, to go forth and kill Comanches. It was the end of anything like tolerance, the beginning of the final solution.”[7] This reference to a final solution is an interesting idea because the “final solution” has multiple meanings and really opens the eyes of most historians. Most historians see the “final solution” as a Nazi idea, coupled with the Holocaust during World War II. This shows a distinct change in U.S. policy and really is indicative of the whites move west.

Men like George Armstrong Custer, Kit Carson, and the man Gwynne calls the “anti-Custer, “Ranald Slidell Mackenzie became famous. Gwynne gives vivid accounts of the atrocities committed by these men and the men under their command. Showing not only their blunders and mistakes either strategically or militaristically but also showing them as the heroes that the U.S. believes them to be. The standout though, besides of course Quanah, is of course his great nemesis in the Red River War of 1874, Colonel Ranald Slidell Mackenzie who was “dispatched to kill Comanches in their Great Plains fastness.” This brilliant but "difficult, moody, and implacable young man ... the most brutally effective Indian fighter in American history," eventually lost control of his normally stoic life, descended into madness and died at age 48 in 1889. [8]&[9] This aspect is a strength of this book because not only has Gwynne chronicled the history of the Comanche nation and Quanah but also he has given a general history of the men who hunted him and his kind across the west.

The same can be said of Cynthia Ann Parker and what became of her. Her family lived on a property that was on “the absolute outermost edge of the Indian frontier”; the Parkers built a one-acre fort around their new homes. It did not work. In May of 1836, a band of Comanche and Kiowa warriors attacked. Within minutes, the Indians had killed five men, wounded two women, and taken another two women and three children captive. Among those kidnapped was Cynthia Ann Parker, a blue-eyed nine-year-old. This chronicle is exhaustive in its replication by Gwynne. Very little is known about Cynthia Ann Parker’s “captivity,” because the Comanches kept very few records. The only record we have of her time with them is when she is spotted by white settlers, traders, captives and other white travelers who ran into the tribe. According to Gwynne there were times when her husband in the tribe actually kept her hidden when white people came amongst them. In general the Parker family is described in great detail, from the moment Parker’s Fort was attacked to the end of the book. Gwynne does an excellent job of giving the history that leads up to Quanah becoming the sole chief of the entire Comanche nation. Cynthia Ann Parker is where the bulk of the strength of this book is laid. Gwynne has given an excellent historical timeline of her whereabouts and generally given a historically accurate depiction of her life amongst the Indians as well as her life amongst the white civilization. This aspect of the book really shows his journalistic side and his ability to research.

The reviews on Empire of the Summer Moon are almost all favorable. The New York Times Book Review says that “Transcendent…Empire of the Summer Moon is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans.”[10] Others such as the Kirkus Review says “A welcome contribution to the history of Texas, Westward expansion and Native America,” and Library Journal writer Deb West says that it is “an unforgettable story of the Comanches.”[11] Not all of them are so generous though as Nathan Bender of the same journal says that, “it is at its best as a Texas-centric militaristic interpretation of the 19^th century Comanche wars of the Southern Plains.”[12] Overall though the reviews were positive and left anyone who was about to pick up the book with a good taste before delving in.

There are anecdotes placed throughout the book but the one that stands out as incredible is near the end of this mesmerizing novel when Quanah Parker is explaining to a friend named Miller how “the white man had pushed the Indian off the land.” By this point of the story Quanah had already surrendered to the U.S. government in 1875 and moved onto the reservation land set aside for them. “He (Quanah) dined often with a family named Miller, and at one meal he stated that the white man had pushed the Indian off the land. When Mr. Miller asked how the whites had done this, Quanah told him to sit down on a cottonwood log in the yard. Quanah sad down close to him and said ‘move over.’ Miller moved. Parker moved with him, and again sad down close to him. ‘Move over,’ he repeated. This continued until Miller had fallen off the log. ‘Like that,’ said Quanah.”[13] Quanah came to embrace the wishes of the white man and chose to assimilate into white culture; this is shown in a speech he gave in February of 1911: “I used to be a bad man, now I am a citizen of the United States. I pay taxes same as you do. Were the same people now.”[14]

The book itself is depicted as a history of the Comanche nation and specifically Quanah Parker. If it has a weakness it lies in the fact that it is not just that but a Parker family history, a history of the Indian-hunters, a Comanche history, and U.S. army technical book of what-not-to-do. Overall though the book is a fantastic representation of what actually happened between the United States and the Comanche nation as well as covering the life of a fairly forgotten Indian chief. Though the ending is of course known, Gwynne still is able to make the entire book dramatic through to the end. This fierce and expertly mounted nomadic warrior culture was confronted with settlers who seemed to have endless numbers. Their hunting grounds were destroyed as homesteads went up and the buffalo were exterminated by hunters. Railway lines moved out west and the people continued to follow in droves. The book does not have a happy ending for anyone involved and Gwynne leaves his readers with an explanation of who Quanah was, the legend through the eyes of his daughter: Resting here until day breaks, and shadows fall, and darkness disappears, is Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Comanches.[15]

Bibliography

Bender, Nathan. "Review: Empire of the Summer Moon." Library Journal, February 15, 2010.

"Empire of the Summer Moon." Kirkus Reviews. February 15, 2010. Accessed February 28, 2012. http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sc-gwynne/empire-of-the-summer-moon/.

"'Empire of the Summer Moon'" The New York Times Book Review. June 10, 2010. Accessed February 28, 2012.

Gwynne, S. C. "Author S. C. Gwynne Bio." Official Web Site for Pulitzer Prize Finalist S. C. Gwynne. 2011. Accessed February 28, 2012. http://scgwynne.com/bio.html.

Gwynne, S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. New York: Scribner, 2010.

West, Deb. "Review: Empire of the Summer Moon." Library Journal, September 15, 2010

---

[1] Gwynne, S. C. "Author S. C. Gwynne Bio." Official Web Site for Pulitzer Prize Finalist S. C. Gwynne. 2011. Accessed February 28, 2012. http://scgwynne.com/bio.html.

[2] Gwynne, S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. New York: Scribner, 2010. 6.

[3] Ibid 28

[4] Ibid 6

[5] Ibid 11

[6] Ibid 11

[7] Gwynne, S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. New York: Scribner, 2010. 1-2

[8] Gwynne, S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. New York: Scribner, 2010. 3.

[9] Ibid 287

[10] "'Empire of the Summer Moon'" The New York Times Book Review. June 10, 2010. Accessed February 28, 2012.

[11] West, Deb. "Review: Empire of the Summer Moon." Library Journal, September 15, 2010.

[12] Bender, Nathan. "Review: Empire of the Summer Moon." Library Journal, February 15, 2010.

[13] Gwynne, S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. New York: Scribner, 2010. 303 - 304

[14] Gwynne, S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. New York: Scribner, 2010. 317.

[15] Ibid 314

Review: Antony and Cleopatra

I had to read this for my Shakespearean Tragedy class. I was not going to read it because I already knew the story about Antony and Cleopatra but I had a little extra time and figured it would be good for the me and my grade in the class to actually read it. I found Shakespeare's version of this rather historically farce and rather sexual. Shakespeare's Cleopatra is not exactly what I have learned about Cleopatra before and more as the popular Cleopatra. It is possible that the popular version of Cleopatra that is out there right now stems from Shakespeare's Cleopatra, an interesting idea for study for sure. Historically this play is obviously inaccurate but classically it is a great play and is incredibly messy. It is an easy read and Shakespeare really underlines, through Antony and Cleopatra, the Roman concept of honor and love. Shakespeare humanizes a timeless love that is known throughout history by showing them rise above the petty fighting to love and care for one another deeply. The language and imagery transforms Antony and Cleopatra into the timeless and popular figures that we see them as today. Overall I would rank this as a four star book because it is a classic but also because it is a deeply moving romantic tragedy. I enjoyed the book but wouldn't recommend it as my favorite Shakespearean play.

Review: Age of Gold

The ‘California Gold Rush’ is known as one of the most iconic time periods in American history not only because of the economic boom that it brought west but because of the idealistic American values that came with it. ‘Manifest Destiny’ is an idea that has caressed the minds of some of the greatest people in history. These people have been in different circumstances and no two experiences are exactly alike. Even though the term was coined in the United States it is still an ideal that has been passed from Western Civilization over to the United States, where the terminology was finally perfected in 1845 by John L. O’Sullivan. When gold was discovered in California in 1848, only 40 miles from Sutter’s Fort, a gold fever was to follow that would change America and the west forever. “…Starting on that day, a powerful engine—the engine of fate, or perhaps merely of human nature—began winding them (distinct individuals) all in.”[1] In the book The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and The New American Dream, H. W. Brands examines this iconic period of American history and the implications that it wrought on American society and the west. He utilizes the stories of individuals who travelled west as well as the economics and industry of the time to show the far-reaching implications of the gold rush. But he does not stop there, he also covers aspects such as national issues; ratification of California to statehood, slavery (dealing with the coming Civil War) and gender issues, ethnic and immigration laws. Brands believes that this event was a “seminal” moment in American history, “one of those rare moments that divide human existence into before and after.”[2] His book attempts to show the immense impact the California gold rush had on American industry, society, expansion, Native Americans, and the world.

H.W. Brands is an Oregon born boy who stayed out west and went to College in California. He then went on to earn his graduate degrees in mathematics and history from Oregon and Texas. He then went on to teach at Vanderbilt University and Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, there he is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History. Known as an author of American history and politics with many books to his name, including: Traitor to His Class, Andrew Jackson, The First American, and TR. Several of his books have been bestsellers and two were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.[3] Brands’ resume leads this writer to believe he has the credentials to be a great writer and Age of Gold shows just that. Brands spends almost forty percent of the book allowing the Argonauts time to get west. A few of those descriptions are intriguing, especially in regards to John C. Fremont, one of the most exciting figures of the American west during the gold rush. Brands’ knack for story telling in regards to the Argonauts is absolutely stunning. He gives lucid details about each individual and their struggles to cross the great expanse of the United States. Not only does he give accounts of the travelers moving across the country by land but he gives great care to also cover the ship-goers who travelled through either the Isthmus of Panama or around Cape Horn. To this end he also covers the shipping business and the economic and technological effect the gold rush had on it. The problem with this aspect is that since Brands spends so much time on the Argonauts it really could be considered a biography instead of an overview of the gold rush.

Analyzing the gold rush though does take historians far from the actual gold fields so Brands’ premise, to show the impact of the gold rush on America, must not stop at the borders of the gold fields, but must include the people as well. He does this incredibly well and is able to tie the individuals to some aspect of the gold rush that he wants to examine. For example, when Brands describes the overland journey of Hugh Heiskell he is able to explain how not everyone reached their destination. “Heiskell, after conquering the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Humboldt River, the Carson Desert, and the Sierra Nevada, died at the very entrance to the goldfields.”[4] Brands goes into detail about the different aspects of the journey that contributed to his death as well as others that died too. “Doubtless the fatigue and unbalanced diet of the overland journey had lowered his resistance to disease; certainly the unsanitary conditions at Weaverville, the first gold camp many of the immigrants encountered…were the source of the infection that claimed him…Cholera being the most likely culprit.”[5] Other aspects that Brands covers is the records of the dead, the only account of Heiskell’s death is from his cousin Tyler, who did not even see him during the illness. This provides somewhat of an unreliable source but it is all that we as historians have to mark his death. Brands does an excellent job of explaining the problem with numbers during this time because the records kept are few and far between. Letters barely even reached their destinations without some sort of hassle.

The extensive detail given to the techniques for mining extractions, such as: placer mining, panning cradling, sluices, plumes, river mining, and hydraulic mining is also a big part of Brands’ book. All of which, especially hydraulic mining, were technological advances of the time and are incredibly important to the rise of the Gilded Age in the United States. But he misses some of the most important aspects of the time such as: land ownership issues (which he barely examines), violent crimes, prostitution, and the ever important oppression of the Chinese and other minorities. All of these he mentions briefly but does not come to any conclusion about their effect on social changes of the time. Brands’ goal being to examine the far-reaching effects of the gold rush, these are aspects that probably should have been covered to a greater extent. Especially in regards to the Chinese, they had a dramatic effect on the later “open door” policy that the United States attempted to implement. It also affected how the Chinese immigrants were continually treated in the west. Their treatment would get steadily worse and would ultimately affect how the Chinese view Americans as well as the United States government on the whole. These were the only aspects of historical content that seemed to be lacking in this intensive study of the American west and the California gold rush.

Brands does delve into the territorial acquisitions of the United States and the suffering of the Mexicans that followed the Manifest Destiny war against Mexico. The Americans believed that they held rights to this new acquisition of land and as land speculators and lawyers headed out west to establish this right, the Mexicans were thrown and swindled from their land. Brands’ look into the consequences of the gold rush is absolutely the most stunning aspect of the work. The gold rush changed the ethnicity of the west and brought new immigrants from all across the world. Dispersing the Native American population, inevitably beginning the “Indian Wars,” and dwindling their numbers to nearly a fifth of what they were in 1849. The Americans saw this movement west as not only a chance to acquire the “new” American dream, the get-rich-quick-schemes, but to continually abhor the other ethnicities arriving and make their lives miserable whenever possible. Brands’ analysis of the effects of the gold rush on the Civil War, especially how the gold rush precipitated the clash of the slave states and the non-slave states, brings out the political aspect of this work and shows how diverse a writer he is. The same can be said of his talk about how the gold rush also accelerated the Industrial Revolution in the United States, compelling a push for a transcontinental railway.

In regards to reviews written about Age of Gold, there are very few but the ones this writer found involve praise and adoration. “Brands has produced a work that stands far above the tide of mostly forgettable titles that accompanied the 150th anniversary of the Gold Rush three years ago.”[6] Allen Weakland says, “In an almost cinematic style, Brands uses a secondary cast of characters to unreel this story that has had ramifications throughout the rest of U.S. history—as he demonstrates, it changed the demographic face of California forever. An important work of history.”[7] Publishers Weekly posted a review that stated “With solid research and a sprightly narrative, Brands's portrait of the gold rush is an enlightening analysis of a transformative period for California and America.” Each of these reviews presented above give a different aspect that they found to be the most compelling argument or thesis that Brands has excelled at, but overall they found the book easy to read, full of life, exciting, and generally a good source for historical study.

But what makes Brands’ analysis so compelling is that he explains the gold rush as a catalyst for the American value system being changed from a traditional agrarian spirit or ideology in favor of the get-rich-quick schemes, which would forever change American society from a Protestant work-ethic to a more “lazy and arrogant” approach that would according to Brands, destroy the true north American character, "El Dorado, not some Puritan city on a hill, was the proper abode of the American people."[8] The book itself covers massive amounts of content and does a very good job of covering that content. Brands has missed a few things but overall does an excellent job of explaining the gold rush through the purview of popular history.

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[1] Brands, H. W. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. New York: Doubleday,

2002. P. 24

[2] Ibid 23

[3] "Bio." H.W. Brands Biography. Accessed February 01, 2012. http://hwbrands.com/bio.htm.

[4] Brands, H. W. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. New York: Doubleday,

2002. P. 210.

[5] Ibid 210

[6] Kirkus Reviews; 6/1/2002, Vol. 70 Issue 11, p 780.

[7] Weakland, Allen. Booklist; 9/1/2002, Vol. 99 Issue 1, p 49.

[8] Brands, H. W. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream. New York: Doubleday,

2002. P. 442.