Week 4: Roaring Camp by Susan Lee Johnson
When white men came to Virginia in the seventeenth-century, they were filled with ambition. They found plenty of land, and potential for profiting from it. All they lacked was labor. Then eventual solution for this was slavery. When white men rushed into California in the late 1840’s, in response to the gold strikes, the same factors were in play, and the same result occurred. Which is not to say that chattel slavery enable the fortunes that came out of the gold rush, but rather that a socio-economics system was developed which suppressed the many in virtual servitude to the cause of enriching the few….This, in a nutshell, is the central argument of Johnson’s book.
She remarks on the historical biase which has characterized coverage of the period; latin America sent an enormous # of settlers into the gould fields of southern California, yet this facet of the subject has been largely ignored by traditional accounts. Attention seems more focused on the northern gold fields, and the social/economic structure of the gold rush there.
Johnson’s vision of the gold rush is one where Lations move north, Whites move west, & Chinese moved east. They all met in California, and this transient character of the landscape spurred new social norms had to be formed. More powerful elements in this demographic hodge-podge scrambled to assert their lofty position over less affluent quarters. This stratification was particularly evident in contests that involved a field of mixed ethnicity. Gender-based roles and influences were modified to accomdate the lack of women, especially in the early years of the rush.
Johnson’s work points out the irony of the gold rush in that most of the people who went west and got rich did not do so digging for gold, but rather from providing domestic services for those who did. This eventuality was brought about by the fact that when the rush began, the supporting infrastructure of California was so meager, that the real opporutinies lay in providing the foundations of Maslow’s pyramid. Miners also engaged in some rather base social entertainments; how much of this was due to the absence of their women should spur considerable discussion tomorrow night!
Gold appears to have a unique place in the human mind. Amoung minerals, it posseses the greatest ability to warp normal perceptions and mores. In the case of California, it raised a large and diverse community in about the amount of time it takes to make a good bottle of Bordeaux. Like the wine, gold creates character in California; this character lacked a smooth full bodies taste, but it sure had a kick to it.
When white men came to Virginia in the seventeenth-century, they were filled with ambition. They found plenty of land, and potential for profiting from it. All they lacked was labor. Then eventual solution for this was slavery. When white men rushed into California in the late 1840’s, in response to the gold strikes, the same factors were in play, and the same result occurred. Which is not to say that chattel slavery enable the fortunes that came out of the gold rush, but rather that a socio-economics system was developed which suppressed the many in virtual servitude to the cause of enriching the few….This, in a nutshell, is the central argument of Johnson’s book.
She remarks on the historical biase which has characterized coverage of the period; latin America sent an enormous # of settlers into the gould fields of southern California, yet this facet of the subject has been largely ignored by traditional accounts. Attention seems more focused on the northern gold fields, and the social/economic structure of the gold rush there.
Johnson’s vision of the gold rush is one where Lations move north, Whites move west, & Chinese moved east. They all met in California, and this transient character of the landscape spurred new social norms had to be formed. More powerful elements in this demographic hodge-podge scrambled to assert their lofty position over less affluent quarters. This stratification was particularly evident in contests that involved a field of mixed ethnicity. Gender-based roles and influences were modified to accomdate the lack of women, especially in the early years of the rush.
Johnson’s work points out the irony of the gold rush in that most of the people who went west and got rich did not do so digging for gold, but rather from providing domestic services for those who did. This eventuality was brought about by the fact that when the rush began, the supporting infrastructure of California was so meager, that the real opporutinies lay in providing the foundations of Maslow’s pyramid. Miners also engaged in some rather base social entertainments; how much of this was due to the absence of their women should spur considerable discussion tomorrow night!
Gold appears to have a unique place in the human mind. Amoung minerals, it posseses the greatest ability to warp normal perceptions and mores. In the case of California, it raised a large and diverse community in about the amount of time it takes to make a good bottle of Bordeaux. Like the wine, gold creates character in California; this character lacked a smooth full bodies taste, but it sure had a kick to it.
posted by ksturcken at 2:30 PM
1 Comments:
Kent, like you I'm sure we'll be discussing the social realm of a nearly womenless society with a great deal of enthusiasm. It should be interesting! But thinking ahead to that conversation, you spurred a thought that didn't make it into my blog: how much do we, as historians, want/need to "go there?" I loved Johnson's chapters on gender roles, and the ramifications of a homosocial universe. There is good, important scholarship in those chapters. But did we really need to know how a certain miner entertained himself while lying in his hammock? How much information is too much information, and when does it cease to be historically relevant and just become gratuitous. Lord help me if I'm becoming a prude, but I'll be curious in our discussion if anyone else thought about the boundaries and lines historians should consider.
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