The California Gold Rush in American History [Library Binding]

Linda Jacobs Altman (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Series: In American History

Describes adventures and disasters in the lives of people who rushed to the gold mines of California in 1848 and explains how this event sparked the state's development.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 4 Up--Using broad strokes, this book paints a vivid--at times lurid--picture of the California Gold Rush. Fast-paced chapters and historical illustrations tell how gold was discovered by accident, how the word spread, and how adventurers arrived from all over the world. The second half of the book examines frontier injustice, racial discrimination, and the lives of women at the time. The writing is colorful but brief; the transition of California from a Mexican territory to a state in the Union is covered in half a sentence and the section on Native Americans is scant. The book does better with African Americans, giving thumbnail sketches of frontiersman James Beckwourth, journalist Mifflin Gibbs, and activist and madam Mary Ellen Pleasant. Social ills of the times are attributed to "violent Americans and their bottomless greed." Liza Ketchum's The Gold Rush (Little, Brown, 1996), based on a segment of Ken Burns's public television series on the West, is more balanced and informative, telling the story through the eyes of individuals from different racial and social groups, including several children who lived through this tumultuous time.

Carolyn Lehman, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Library Binding: 128 pages
• Publisher: Enslow Pub Inc (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894908782
• ISBN-13: 978-0894908781
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,229,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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