American Alchemy: The California Gold Rush and Middle-class Culture

Front Cover
Univ of North Carolina Press, 2000 - 328 pages
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.
 

Contents

California Gold and Filthy Lucre
17
Gold Fever as a Cure
43
Husbands and Wives
69
Numberless Highways to Fairy Grottos
93
A Great and Perverse Paradise
119
California Is a Humbug
143
Widows and Helpmates
169
A Wild Free Disorderly Grotesque Society
197
The Prude Falls
221
The End of the Flush Times
243
Conclusion
269
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About the author (2000)

Brian Roberts is assistant professor of history at California State University in Sacramento.

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