| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Richard T. Stillson. Spreading the Word: A History of Information in the California Gold Rush. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2006. Pp. viii, 274. $55.00.

Although the persistent appeal of the California Gold Rush as a subject of historical inquiry among a broad readership may reflect the unique character of that phenomenal event, recent scholarship insists upon the value of Gold Rush history for studying more general (and less extraordinary) features of antebellum life. If the discovery of mineral deposits in the Sierra foothills was in some sense fortuitous, the convergence of particular people and expectations in the wake of that discovery makes sense only within the context of a range of contemporary developments: social stratification, urbanization, immigration, imperial expansion, slavery, and middle-class formation, to name just a few. One compelling historical context within which the Gold Rush can be understood is the expanding world of communication in nineteenth-century America. Although gold seekers came from all over the globe, the largest and most powerful groups of migrants arrived after significant exposure to a burgeoning American print culture and with recently intensified optimism about the possibility of long-distance contact. For Richard T. Stillson, this is part of what makes the events of 1849–1851 a suitable case for studying information exchange. His book asks readers to think about the Gold Rush as a particular kind of news event, mediated for both participants and observers by a heterogeneous and incomplete communications system. Relying uneasily upon a motley assortment of newspapers, maps, guidebooks, personal correspondence, travel reports, and rumors, Americans (the principal group considered here) experienced the Gold Rush in sudden fits and false starts.

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