Product Details

• Directors: Mike Trinklei, Steve Boettcher
• Format: Color, NTSC
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 1883691060
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,305 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

First televised in 1998 to mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the California gold rush, this excellent, entertaining PBS documentary begins with the 1848 discovery of gold nuggets on the banks of the American River. What follows is nothing less than the birth of the first entrepreneurial movement in the U.S., an era with striking similarities to the economic reinvention of the Information Age. Filmmakers Michael Trinklein and Steven Boettcher (the team behind The Oregon Trail) show us how the country shifted from a steady agrarian society to one in which adventurous young people headed West (many of them from Europe) in hopes of building a fortune. Typically, some won and many failed, and Trinklein and Boettcher introduce a number of individuals from both camps. But the most interesting aspect of the program is the way a new economy was built upon the needs of the miners themselves: we meet a clever fellow named Sam Brannan, for example, who bought up every mining pan around for 30 cents apiece and resold each for a whopping $15. Levi Strauss, Studebaker, Armour Meats, and Wells Fargo Bank were all born during the gold rush, and an extraordinary number of women found economic freedom by starting laundry and cooking businesses patronized by weary miners. Narrated by John Lithgow, The Gold Rush is an all-American story about dreams and profits in a changing landscape--something with which we can surely identify today. --Tom Keogh

Sacramento Bee, 1998

"Polished... fast-paced... consistently interesting."

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars slides, maps and lectures, May 25, 2009

By 

R. Bagula "Roger L. Bagula" (Lakeside, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gold Rush [VHS] (VHS Tape)

What greed and politics made of the new territory of California
when gold was discovered there.
The Mexican war for Texas had spoils,; one of which was California.
The political problem was how to get enough Americans there to really make the claim valid.
That the Indians were killed and the land was grabbed from the Mexican-Spanish landholders is a side story to
thousands of people crossing by ship or land in a very few years
to California. They literally took over the place and changed the face of history all for the idea of getting rich quick.
This documentary points out that the big winner wasn't
the gold miner as you would have suspected, but
merchants like Samuel Brannan of San Francisco.