The California Gold Rush

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2015

⏱️ 46 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the California Gold Rush. In 1849 the recent discovery of gold at Coloma, near Sacramento in California, led to a massive influx of prospectors seeking to make their fortunes. Within a couple of years the tiny settlement of San Francisco had become a major city, with tens of thousands of immigrants, the so-called Forty-Niners, arriving by boat and over land. The gold rush transformed the west coast of America and its economy, but also uprooted local populations of Native Americans and made irreversible changes to natural habitats. With: Kathleen Burk Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London Jacqueline Fear-Segal Reader in American History and Culture at the University of East Anglia Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time for more details about In Our Time
0:04.1	and for our terms of use, please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio for.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.2	Hello, in California in January 1848, James Marshall was building a sawmill by the American
0:16.4	river.
0:17.4	When he spotted something shiny in the water, it turned out to be gold.
0:20.9	At first there were doubts, but in December, the United States President James Polk announced
0:25.2	accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory out of such an extraordinary character as
0:30.2	would scarcely command belief, where they are not corroborated by officers from personal
0:34.8	observation.
0:36.0	The rush was on.
0:37.0	Over the next decade, hundreds of thousands from around the world made the long and dangerous
0:41.2	journey to California in the hope of getting rich quick.
0:44.6	The prospectors, their gold and the trade that grew up around them, transformed this remote
0:49.4	area, the American economy surged, overtaking Britain by the end of the century.
0:54.5	Between 1848 and 1850, on the amount of gold, coinage in the OSA increased 20 fold.
1:01.3	With me to discuss the California gold rush hour, Kathleen Burke, professor of modern and
1:05.8	contemporary history at the University College London, Jacqueline Fierceagle, reader in American
1:10.6	history and culture at the University of East Anglia, and Frank Kogliano, professor of
1:14.6	American history at the University of Edinburgh.
1:17.6	Frank Kogliano, who owned California when Marshall discovered the gold?
1:22.4	Thank you, Melvin.
	...

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