A riveting true account of gold rush fever in mid-19th-century America,
rich with the thrilling exploits of daring fortune seekers and dangerous
outlaws.
America was never the same after January 24, 1848. It was on that day
that a carpenter named James Marshall discovered a tiny nugget of gold
while building a sawmill at Sutter's Fort, just east of Sacramento,
California. Marshall's find ignited a fever the nation had never known
before, drawing people from all over the country to the West Coast with
high hopes of getting rich quick.
Over the next six years, 300,000 prospectors raced to the California
gold fields to make their fortunes, leaving their lands and families
behind in order to chase a dream of easy wealth but all too often
encountering a reality of lawlessness, disease, cruelty, and death.
A former columnist for the New York Times, author Fred Rosen takes
listeners back to the seminal moment when the American dream exploded.
Chock full of fascinating details, unforgettable characters, and
shocking real-life events, the captivating true story of the California
gold rush brings an era of unparalleled change to breathtaking life.
Rosen's enthralling history of the gold rush of 1848 demonstrates how
this golden ideal was supplanted by a culture of selfishness and greed
that endures in America to this very day.
