Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People Culture and Community in Gold Rush California (California History Sesquicentennial Series)

About this book

Perhaps never in the time-honored American tradition of frontiering did "civilization" appear to sink so low as in gold rush California. A mercurial economy swung from boom to bust and back again rendering everyones fortunes ephemeral. Competition jealousy and racism fueled individual and mass violence. Yet in the very midst of this turbulence social and cultural forms emerged gained strength spread and took hold. Rooted in Barbarous Soil Volume 3 in the four-volume California History Sesquicentennial Series is the only book of its kind to examine gold rush society and culture to present modern interpretations and to gather up-to-date bibliographies of its topics. Chapters by leading scholars in their respective fields explore a range of topics including migration and settlement; ethnic diversity assimilation cooperation and conflict; the dispossession of Indians and the Californios; the founding of schools and universities; urban life; women in early California; the sexual frontier; and the development of religion art literature and popular culture. Many rarely seen illustrations supplement the text.