WSP-127
John Jenkins Designs
Not yet released - expected in mid-August.
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in the United States, Canada, Australia, Greece, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, and South Africa.
Gold rushes were typically marked by a general buoyant feeling of a “free for all”, in which any single individual might become abundantly wealthy almost instantly, as expressed in the California Dream!
Gold rushes helped spur waves of immigration that often led to the permanent settlement of new regions. Activities propelled by gold rushes define significant aspects of the culture of the Australian and North American frontiers.
At a time when the world’s money supply was based on gold, the newly mined gold provided economic stimulus far beyond the goldfields, feeding into local and wider economic booms.
These were highly significant to their respective colonies political and economic development as they brought many immigrants, and promoted massive government spending on infrastructure to support the new arrivals who came looking for gold.
While some found their fortune, those who did not often remained in the colonies and took advantage of extremely liberal land laws to take up farming.
One of the last “great gold rushes” was the Klondike gold rush in the Yukon Territory in 1896 – 1899. This gold rush is featured in the novels of Jack London, and in Charlie Chaplin’s film “The Gold Rush”.
The main goldfield was along the south flank of the Klondike River near its confluence with the Yukon River, close to what was to become Dawson city in the Yukon Territory. It also helped to open up the relatively new US possession of Alaska to exploration and settlement, and promoted the discovery of other gold finds.