An Analysis of "Roaring Camp"

An An

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN- MADISON

AN ANALYSIS OF ROARING CAMP

HI461: THE AMERICAN WEST TO 1850

PROF SUSAN L. JOHNSON

BY

JAIDEE K. MOORE ’09

MADISON, WISCONSIN

10 DECEMBER 2009

When it comes to the 1849 California Gold Rush, American popular memory tends to narrowly focus on the stories of all-American males who boldly headed for the West in search of wealth and new beginnings. Indeed, the simple concept of the hardy sourdough striking it rich in Central California makes for an incredibly convenient tale to pass along from generation to generation. In her work Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush, Susan Lee Johnson offers a far more diverse and complex Gold Rush Story. In it, Johnson posits that the Gold Rush represented a unique mixture of gender and culture where anything was possible.

Just as typical histories of the Gold Rush era tend to focus on the stories of American males, these histories also tend to focus on the Sierra Nevada foothill area around the lower Sacramento River known as the Northern Mines. In Roaring Camp, Johnson instead chose to look at an oft-ignored area of the Gold Rush, known as the Southern Mines. The Southern Mines, encompassing an area of the foothills dominated by the San Joaquin River, were not as easy to mine as richer parts of the Mother Lode. Consequently, this area attracted a much more diverse cross-section of miners than elsewhere, who also typically stayed on longer than miners who only desired easy money. As Johnson notes, this social mix led to “the most multiracial, multiethnic, multinational events that had yet occurred within the boundaries of the United States.”[1]

Johnson tells the story of the Southern Mines, and its inhabitants, by following the cycle of rush, boom, and bust that the region experienced. Within this larger framework, Johnson takes a look at various aspects of the social...