Spreading the Word: A History of Information in the California Gold Rush (review)

To paraphrase Senator Howard Baker in 1973, "What did the prospective gold miners know, when did they know it, how did they assess its credibility, when did they realize it was wrong, what did they do to compensate, and how did they determine what informants and information to trust?" That is the basic plot of this fascinating tale.

Stillson has provided both an impressive concept of information flows over time and geography and a new way of looking at the gold rush. He demonstrates that experience, location, and time greatly affected the criteria and markers of credibility. That is, the information marketplace for the goldrushers was constrained by numerous factors that limited their decisions. One subtheme is the creativity and flexibility of communication. Whether informal trail "post offices," private messenger firms set up to compete with an overwhelmed federal post office, mapmaking, rumors, or passing letters back east, goldrushers generated as well as demanded information.

The 1849 goldrushers had little knowledge of the West or how to travel there. Initially, books and official titles gave information apparent credibility. The more experience goldrushers acquired, the more skeptical they became and the more important local expertise triumphed over printed materials and official information. In the abstract, these conclusions do not surprise. Stillson's contribution is to show the detailed evolution of these changes.

The newspaper initially was the major way of learning about the discovery of gold and how to get to California. Coverage by newspapers depended on their location and size. Northern city papers published the most information for prospective goldrushers as well as news about the discoveries, reflecting both competitive news markets and interest by their readers. Smaller papers were more likely to publish inaccurate information due to a lack of resources. The question of slavery in California tempered reports in Southern papers.

At the beginning of the gold rush, what guidebooks and maps existed were from earlier periods. By 1851, nearly 200 publications appeared, including maps and guidebooks. Acquisition was easiest in New York and Boston, centers of American publishing and distribution networks. Having a claim of credibility, such as an official source or a well-known name, helped commercial success. Accuracy and usefulness, however, were often secondary to meeting public demand for a guide. Western guidebooks provided better and more useful information, but were not available in the East. Western publishers also produced waybills, detailed trail guides.

Once goldrushers started traveling west in companies in 1849, they encountered increasing discrepancies between their guidebooks and local reality. New types of information and distribution appeared to cushion that gap, often but not always for profit. For the travelers, the challenges were recognizing the discrepancies and developing new ways of assessing new, sometimes contradictory forms of information in order to decide which trailhead town to jump from, which trail to take, and what to take on it.

On the plains in a 1000-mile traffic jam, goldrushers acquired the latest information from "go-backers" (returning goldrushers), eastward bound army units, handwritten guides by local Mormans in Wyoming, and notes and other information left behind by earlier goldrushers. These new data, combined with the often sobering experiences on the trail, led to a downgrading of the written information the goldrushers had earlier relied on. Local expertise began to trump written authority. By the time the goldrushers reached California, personal experience proved the most important criteria for evaluating information, trumping local alleged expertise and the written word. Once in the state, their information challenges did not cease, but the consequences of choosing wrong were rarely so fatal.

By 1850, private letters, newspaper articles and books by goldrushers, journalists, and others greatly increased the amount and reliability of information available in the East and West (now the Midwest). The goldrushers who headed west faced far fewer unknowns then their compatriots a year earlier.

One methodological challenge of this book was...