Ohio History Journal

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REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

REVIEWS, NOTES AND COMMENTS

BY THE EDITOR

 

ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT WRITES A $5,000

PRIZE BOOK

Forty-Niners, The Chronicle of the California Trail.

By Archer Butler Hulbert.  (Boston: Little, Brown &

Company. 1931. pp. 340. Price $3.50.)

The past six years have witnessed a growing interest

in the winning of the far West, the overland journeys

to the Pacific Coast--to Oregon and California in the

days of the ox-team and the Conestoga wagon. Perhaps

the most colorful of the migrations to the sunset regions

beyond the Rocky Mountains was the Gold Rush to Cal-

ifornia which reached its culmination in 1849. The

Argonauts in this daring and romantic venture have

long been called Forty-Niners.

There was a somewhat extensive literature of this

enterprise while it was in progress. The excitement at-

tending the discovery of gold in this region which had

recently been acquired from  Mexico, rapidly spread

throughout the entire country. The story grew as it

traveled; it had an irresistible appeal to the adventurous

and the seekers of fortune who were soon organizing

expeditions to this new Eldorado. Newspaper and mag-

azine articles, pamphlets and books descriptive of the

discovery appeared in print and were eagerly sought and

read. An exodus to the Land of Gold was the alluring

prospect of the hour.

In the intervening years sketches and monographs

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