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American Alchemy

The California Gold Rush and Middle-Class Culture

By: Brian Roberts

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Paperback | 31 May 2000

At a Glance

Paperback
360 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
24.13 x 14.61 x 2.54

Paperback

$118.75

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California during the gold rush was a place of disputed claims, shoot-outs, gambling halls, and prostitution; a place populated by that rough and rebellious figure, the forty-niner; in short, a place that seems utterly unconnected to middle-class culture. In American Alchemy , however, Brian Roberts offers a surprising challenge to this assumption. Roberts points to a long-neglected truth of the gold rush: many of the northeastern forty-niners who ventured westward were in fact middle-class in origin, status, and values. Tracing the experiences and adventures both of these men and of the ""unseen"" forty-niners--women who stayed back East while their husbands went out West--he shows that, whatever else the gold seekers abandoned on the road to California, they did not simply turn their backs on middle-class culture. Ultimately, Roberts argues, the story told here reveals an overlooked chapter in the history of the formation of the middle class. While the acquisition of respectability reflects one stage in this history, he says, the gold rush constitutes a second stage--a rebellion against standards of respectability. |A colorful investigation of the California Gold Rush that overturns the myth of the rebellious Forty-niner and reveals the middle-class values and origins of those who travelled west to seek adventure and fortune.

Industry Reviews

[This book] achieves a "gold standard" by making something as familiar as the Gold Rush uncomfortably new. "American Historical Review" A welcome addition to work on the California gold rush and on nineteenth-century white, middle-class culture. "Journal of American History" ï¿½This bookï¿½ achieves a "gold standard" by making something as familiar as the Gold Rush uncomfortably new. "American Historical Review" An important book, convincingly relocating the opening cultural crisis of the American middle class."Harvard Business History Review" "A welcome addition to work on the California gold rush and on nineteenth-century white, middle-class culture. "Journal of American History"" "[This book] achieves a ""gold standard"" by making something as familiar as the Gold Rush uncomfortably new. "American Historical Review"" "An important book, convincingly relocating the opening cultural crisis of the American middle class."Harvard Business History Review"" Offers a fresh look at a familiar episode in U.S. history. "Journal of the Early Republic" An important work within the context of gold rush studies."Enterprise & Society"

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction History Regional & National History History of the Americas Society & Culture Cultural Studies Specific Events & Topics in History Social & Cultural History Social Groups Social Classes

Acknowledgments
Introduction
California Gold and Filthy Lucre
Gold Fever as a Cure
Husbands and Wives
Numberless Highways to Fairy Grottos
A Great and Perverse Paradise
California Is a Humbug
Widows and Helpmates
A Wild, Free, Disorderly, Grotesque Society
The Prude Fails
The End of the Flush Times
Conclusion
Notes
Index
A section of illustrations follows
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

American Alchemy

The California Gold Rush and Middle-Class Culture

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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