California’s Calaveras County—made famous by Mark Twain and his celebrated Jumping Frog—is the focus of this comprehensive study of Mother Lode mining. Most histories of the California Mother Lode have focused on the mines around the American and Yuba Rivers. However, the “Southern Mines”—those centered around Calaveras County in the central Sierra—were also important in the development of California’s mineral wealth. Calaveras Gold offers a detailed and meticulously researched history of mining and its economic impact in this region from the first discoveries in the 1840s until the present. Mining in Calaveras County covered the full spectrum of technology from the earliest placer efforts through drift and hydraulic mining to advanced hard-rock industrial mining. Subsidiary industries such as agriculture, transportation, lumbering, and water supply, as well as a complex social and political structure, developed around the mines. The authors examine the roles of race, gender, and class in this frontier society; the generation and distribution of capital; and the impact of the mines on the development of political and cultural institutions. They also look at the impact of mining on the Native American population, the realities of day-to-day life in the mining camps, the development of agriculture and commerce, the occurrence of crime and violence, and the cosmopolitan nature of the population. Calaveras County mining continued well into the twentieth century, and the authors examine the ways that mining practices changed as the ores were depleted and how the communities evolved from mining camps into permanent towns with new economic foundations and directions. Mining is no longer the basis of Calaveras’s economy, but memories of the great days of the Mother Lode still attract tourists who bring a new form of wealth to the region.

Many books have been written about the California Gold Rush, but a geographical-historical dictionary has long been lacking. With the publication of California Gold Camps, a monumental project has been completed. California Gold Camps is a basic reference that will be indispensable to the historian, the geographer, and to the general reader interested in California's colorful past.

The history of the olive in the Gold Country of Northern California is a story of the Spanish in the New World, of the Gold Rush, of immigrants from Italy and other Mediterranean countries, of bold pioneers, enterprising farmers and scientists, and of businessmen and businesswomen. Focusing on Calaveras County in the south and Placer County in the north, but also exploring the olive throughout most of Northern California, including olive havens such as Corning and Oroville, that story is told within these pages through rare and fascinating photographs. For those who wish to explore the olive in Northern California, whether its history, industry or technology, this volume provides both an appetizer and a satisfying entre. As love of the olive grows, for the first time a book tells the tale of the olive tree, the king of trees, in the Mother Lode of California.

Winner of the Bancroft Prize The world of the California Gold Rush that comes down to us through fiction and film is one of half-truths. In this brilliant work of social history, Susan Lee Johnson enters the well-worked diggings of Gold Rush history and strikes a rich lode. Johnson explores the dynamic social world created by the Gold Rush in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Stockton, charting the surprising ways in which the conventions of identity—ethnic, national, and sexual—were reshaped. With a keen eye for character and story, she shows us how this peculiar world evolved over time, and how our cultural memory of the Gold Rush took root.

Discusses the everyday life, cooking methods, common foods, and hardships and celebrations during the Gold Rush in California. Includes recipes.