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Apr. 7 | MAASA Joint Conference—April, 2011
Joint conference on material culture, April 7-11, 2011, UW-Madison
Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Barksdale, J. Allen. "A Construction of Community Among Miners During the California Gold Rush," Bowling Green State University, April 2002.
While the California gold rush has been widely studied as an episode within American history, less attention has been given to the creation of community within the mining region. The purpose of this study is to approach the gold rush through the methodology of ethnography in order to gain an anthropological vision of the miner’s world. Following the example set by scholars such as Clifford Geertz, this study operates under the premise that culture is best studied at the most local level. Therefore, the aim is to decode the significance of the gold rush through the writings of the participants themselves. The ultimate intention is to gain a clearer picture of how the unusual particulars of the mining communities affected the experiences of the miners. To assist in this, the study will focus on the mining region as a involuntary meeting place-a location where inhabitants were forced to confront the unfamiliar. Through considering regional and ethnic differences among the miners as well as the distinctiveness of California’s environment, the miners’ responses to what was alien and unknown will be used as clues to understand their unique reaction to a frontier situation.
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