The speck of the future.

Format:

Video

Contributor:

Burns, Ken, 1953-

Ives, Stephen.

Series:

Academic Video Online

Ken Burns's The West ; episode 3

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Frontier and pioneer life--West (U.S.).

Frontier and pioneer life.

California--Gold discoveries.

California.

California--History--1846-1850.

West (U.S.)--Discovery and exploration.

West (U.S.).

West (U.S.)--History--1848-1860.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (86 min.).

Place of Publication:

[Alexandria, VA?] : Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 1996.

Language Note:

In English.

Original language in English.

Summary:

By 1848, the United States claimed virtually all of the West. The Louisiana Purchase, the annexation of Texas and Oregon, and the war with Mexico had stretched the nation's boundaries all the way to the Pacific. But the West was American in name only. Few people east of the Mississippi were anxious to venture into its forbidding interior. It still seemed too distant, too mysterious, too dangerous. Then gold was discovered in California, and everything changed -- for the West, and for the country. Suddenly, gold-seekers rushed in from every corner of the globe: Chinese peasants, pursuing tales of a 'gold mountain' across the ocean, Mexican farmers and clerks from London, tailors from Eastern Europe and South American aristocrats fallen on hard times. The thin stream of American emigrants crossing the continent became a torrent -- thousands upon thousands of optimistic but inexperienced prospectors, willing to leave their homes and families, and set out on the long trail for California, hoping to strike it rich and return in glory. It had taken half a century for the United States to encompass the vast spaces of the West. Now, the lust for gold would animate the nation to begin to fill them up.

Participant:

Produced by Stephen Ives ; created by Kenneth L. Burns.

Notes:

Title from resource description page (viewed Nov. 26, 2010).

OCLC:

701796610

Publisher Number:

ASP1003003119/ahiv