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Reviews
Reviews
Tells a powerful story that merits greater attention.
In this work on California's agricultural history, Vaught also provides a social history of the development of the Putah Creek region in the wake of the California gold rush... Libraries with collections focusing on California, the Pacific slope, the western US, and agricultural history will want this book.
An excellent history of farming in the Sacramento Valley in the late nineteenth century.
Vaught tells a riveting story of two generations of farmers who 'committed themselves not only to the market but to community life as well.' He argues that these twin commitments, born of their failures in the gold fields, were an essential part of the culture of American capitalism that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century.
A rich account of a rural world that has been overlooked by historians, and it is an important addition to recent work on rural life that has, to date, focused exclusively on the Midwest... very accessible to general and specialist readers alike.
Useful for those seeking to understand the relationship between California's gold rush and its agricultural communities.
Vaught set himself the goal of writing a 'new' rural history of California, examining the state's wheat farmers in their social and cultural contexts. In After the Gold Rush, he achieves his goal admirably.
An agricultural history that weaves together an unpredictable creek, a fluctuating market, and the perseverance of the American Dream.
Ambitious, richly detailed.
A detailed and focused study that advances our understanding of nineteenth-century California rural history.
In providing such a rich story within a unique context, After the Gold Rush does for Putah Creek what John Mack Faragher did for Sugar Creek and similarly will stand as an insightful and model work for years to come.
Vaught has written an informative and very readable narrative study.
I was delighted, even slightly overwhelmed, by the extraordinary scholarship and elegant writing of this book. Because Vaught writes so well, his study reads like a novel in its rich detail and narrative pace. It offers us a unique insight into the environmental history of the Sacramento Valley, banking and credit in California in the mid-nineteenth century, the entrepreneurial spirit of the times, community on the California frontier, the legal culture of the times, and a number of other important topics. It will appeal to scholars of American history, of American social and agricultural history, of the newly developing field of American business history, and Californianists of every sort.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
328
ISBN
9780801892578
Illustration Description
4 halftones, 5 line drawings
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue: "Glorious"
Part One: Making a Settlement
1. Removals
2. Seduced
3. Farms without Titles
4. "A Very Public Place"
Part Two: Disaster and Persistence
5. "To Begin Again"
6. Favorite Son
Acknowledgments
Prologue: "Glorious"
Part One: Making a Settlement
1. Removals
2. Seduced
3. Farms without Titles
4. "A Very Public Place"
Part Two: Disaster and Persistence
5. "To Begin Again"
6. Favorite Son
7. Prominent Citizens
Part Three: The Second Gold Rush
8. "As Good As Wheat"
9. "A Devil's Opportunity"
10. Looking Back
Part Four: The New Generation Emerges
11. Gold—Wheat—Fruit
12. Legacies
Epilogue: Remnants
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
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