Good as Gold

The absence of formal government on the American frontier emboldened miners to take powers usually reserved to the state, subjecting criminals to their own brand of vigilante justice.

Andrea McDowell | Published in History Today Volume 72 Issue 9 September 2022

Left: a California gold miner with his pick and shovel. Below: a water flume and surveyors in El Dorado County, California. All 1850-55. Right: portrait of a California miner with pan of gold, c.1852. — Left: a California gold miner with his pick and shovel. Right: portrait of a California miner with pan of gold, c.1852. All images from the exhibition ‘Golden Prospects: Californian Gold Rush Daguerreotypes’. Courtesy of The Nelson- Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

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