An event of international significance, the California gold rush created a more diverse, metropolitan society than the world had ever known. In Riches for All, leading scholars reexamine the gold rush, evaluating its trajectory and legacy within a global context of religion and race, economics, technology, law, and culture. The opportunity for instant wealth directly influenced a dynamic range of peoples, including Mormon military veterans, California Indian workers, both slave and free African Americans, Chinese village farmers, skilled Mexican miners, and Chilean merchants. Riches for All gives attention to the varying motivations and experiences of these groups and to their struggles with both racial and religious bigotry. Emphasizing gold rush social history, some contributors examine the roles and influence of women, workers, law-breakers, and law-enforcers. Others consider the long-term impact of this episode on California and the American West and on subsequent gold rushes in Pacific Rim countries and the Klondike. With lively and incisive strokes, these historians sketch the most broadly contextualized and nuanced portrait of the California gold rush to date.

A History of Gold Dredging in Idaho tells the story of a revolution in placer mining—and its subsequent impact on the state of Idaho—from its inception in the early 1880s until its demise in the early 1960s. Idaho was the nation’s fourth-leading producer of dredged gold after 1910 and therefore provides an excellent lens through which to observe the practice and history of gold dredging. Author Clark Spence focuses on the two most important types of dredges in the state—the bucket-line dredge and the dragline dredge—and describes their financing, operation, problems, and effect on the state and environment. These dredges made it possible to work ground previously deemed untouchable because bedrock where gold collected could now be reached. But they were also highly destructive to the environment. As these huge machines floated along, they dumped debris that harmed the streams and destroyed wildlife habitat, eventually prompting state regulations and federal restoration of some of the state’s crippled waterways. Providing a record of Idaho’s dredging history for the first time, this book is a significant contribution to the knowledge and understanding of Western mining, its technology, and its overall development as a major industry of the twentieth century.