Joseph Henry Jackson (1894–1955)
Author of Anybody's Gold: The Story of California's Mining Towns
About the Author
Works by Joseph Henry Jackson
Continent's End: A Collection of California Writing (1944) — Editor; Contributor — 13 copies, 1 review
Tintypes in Gold 3 copies
Associated Works
The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit (1854) — Introduction, some editions — 172 copies, 2 reviews
Mining camps, a study in American frontier government (2010) — Introduction, some editions — 34 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Jackson, Joseph Henry
- Birthdate
- 1894-07-21
- Date of death
- 1955-07-15
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Lafayette College
- Occupations
- book critic
editor - Organizations
- San Francisco Chronicle
NBC Pacific Network
KGO
San Francisco Argonaut
Sunset
United States Ambulance Corps (WWI) - Awards and honors
- Edgar Award (1950)
- Relationships
- Jackson, Charlotte Cobden (wife)
- Short biography
- Joseph Henry Jackson was born in Madison, New Jersey on July 21, 1894, and received his schooling in the East. After World War I he moved to California and began his literary career. He was associate editor and managing editor of Sunset magazine from 1920-1926, and editor from 1926-1928. In 1929 he became literary editor of the San Francisco Argonaut, and in 1931 he joined the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle, also as literary editor. He gained a wide following with his daily book review column, "A Bookman's Notebook", and with his radio program, "The Reader's Guide", broadcast over NBC's Pacific network. In addition to his work on the Chronicle, he wrote a number of books, including Mexican Interlude (1936), Tintypes in Gold (1939), Anybody's Gold (1941), and My San Francisco (1953), and edited several more -- notably Continent's End, a collection of California writing (1944), San Francisco Murders (1947) and The Western Gate: a San Francisco Reader (1952).
- Cause of death
- stroke
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Madison, New Jersey, USA
- Places of residence
- Madison, New Jersey, USA
Berkeley, California, USA - Place of death
- Berkeley, California, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- California, USA
Members
Reviews
This is a brightly written, very well researched and extremely readable history of the California Gold Rush. Jackson was a well-respected California historian and editor, serving as the literary editor for both the San Francisco Argonaut and then the SF Chronicle. (Here's a short biography.) He did an impressive amount of research for this book, delving into the historical archives of several libraries and museums. He was thereby able to find primary resources, including newspapers of the show more mining towns and the personal journals of the miners.
Beginning with a short history of pre-Gold Rush California, Jackson traces the discovery of gold and the at first gradual, and then torrential, growth of the arrival of the fortune seekers and the proliferation of mining camps and towns. We are taken through the evolution of the Gold Rush, starting with the early arrivals, the individualists who panned the relatively easily acquired gold out of the rivers and streams and lived together with a code of etiquette and honorable behavior that could lead to extremes, especially quick use of the hangman's rope. As the gold-rich areas became more populated, these codes would often break down. Later, as getting at the gold became harder, mining cooperatives, and even later relatively well organized large scale companies, ruled the day.
Jackson successfully puts lots of color and movement into all of this. The revels in offering characteristic incidents, gleaned often from those newspapers and journals mentioned above. He also enjoys describing the miners' superstitions, and narrating the prevailing legends and tall tales, some of which were still being offered to visitors when Jackson was doing his research. (The book was published in 1941.) Jackson, however, is not shy about immediately debunking those legends when appropriate, and rightly (in my view) saying he had providing each legend as a way of filling in the color and atmosphere of the times and of how those times have come to be viewed by subsequent generations.
There is a dark side to all of this, which Jackson mentions fairly often but doesn't delve into much or even seem particularly troubled by. That dark side, of course, is the era's racism. Mexican miners were routinely run off their land and their claims. Indians had no rights at all. Chinese people were allowed to work only those claims that whites had already worked over and abandoned and were tolerated in some areas only because they were willing to pay an additional tax for the privilege. For a modern-day reader, these facts will not be dismissed during the reading, and they do take the luster off of Jackson's overall glee in describing the times.
The final third of the book is a travelogue through the mining country, section by section, starting in the area's southernmost towns and moving north. Of course, this driving trip was taken in around 1940, pre-Interstate and pre-fast food restaurants and other chains. Jackson was driving 2-land roads, and the towns he was describing I'm sure are mostly far different today than they were 80 years ago when Jackson was describing them. There are small long-abandoned camps that Jackson describes as having only some tumbled-down buildings left to see. Those ruins are most likely by now long gone. The small cities have no-doubt grown and the relatively isolated towns either expanded or shriveled, depending on how close the Interstates came to them. I live in Mendocino County, CA, not within the Gold Rush territories but enough, and I have driven through most of Gold Rush country over the years. My wife and I spent time in the northernmost town described here, Weaverville, in northern Trinity County, and it is still a small, charming town. show less
Beginning with a short history of pre-Gold Rush California, Jackson traces the discovery of gold and the at first gradual, and then torrential, growth of the arrival of the fortune seekers and the proliferation of mining camps and towns. We are taken through the evolution of the Gold Rush, starting with the early arrivals, the individualists who panned the relatively easily acquired gold out of the rivers and streams and lived together with a code of etiquette and honorable behavior that could lead to extremes, especially quick use of the hangman's rope. As the gold-rich areas became more populated, these codes would often break down. Later, as getting at the gold became harder, mining cooperatives, and even later relatively well organized large scale companies, ruled the day.
Jackson successfully puts lots of color and movement into all of this. The revels in offering characteristic incidents, gleaned often from those newspapers and journals mentioned above. He also enjoys describing the miners' superstitions, and narrating the prevailing legends and tall tales, some of which were still being offered to visitors when Jackson was doing his research. (The book was published in 1941.) Jackson, however, is not shy about immediately debunking those legends when appropriate, and rightly (in my view) saying he had providing each legend as a way of filling in the color and atmosphere of the times and of how those times have come to be viewed by subsequent generations.
There is a dark side to all of this, which Jackson mentions fairly often but doesn't delve into much or even seem particularly troubled by. That dark side, of course, is the era's racism. Mexican miners were routinely run off their land and their claims. Indians had no rights at all. Chinese people were allowed to work only those claims that whites had already worked over and abandoned and were tolerated in some areas only because they were willing to pay an additional tax for the privilege. For a modern-day reader, these facts will not be dismissed during the reading, and they do take the luster off of Jackson's overall glee in describing the times.
The final third of the book is a travelogue through the mining country, section by section, starting in the area's southernmost towns and moving north. Of course, this driving trip was taken in around 1940, pre-Interstate and pre-fast food restaurants and other chains. Jackson was driving 2-land roads, and the towns he was describing I'm sure are mostly far different today than they were 80 years ago when Jackson was describing them. There are small long-abandoned camps that Jackson describes as having only some tumbled-down buildings left to see. Those ruins are most likely by now long gone. The small cities have no-doubt grown and the relatively isolated towns either expanded or shriveled, depending on how close the Interstates came to them. I live in Mendocino County, CA, not within the Gold Rush territories but enough, and I have driven through most of Gold Rush country over the years. My wife and I spent time in the northernmost town described here, Weaverville, in northern Trinity County, and it is still a small, charming town. show less
Back in the 1940s (and perhaps earlier too), The Viking Press released a series of “Portable” collections; these were small hard-cover books collecting short stories by specific authors (Steinbeck, for example) or by genre (“Novels of Science”). The “Murder Book” in the series comprises re-tellings of actual historical murders, in this instance grouped by geography. The book is divided into three sections: the US, the British Isles, and “France, Germany, Hungary, the show more Antipodes,” and full re-tellings of the crimes under discussion, along with speculation, are provided. What’s interesting is who is doing the re-telling; many are names long out of the public consciousness, but we do remember people like William Bolitho, Christopher Morley, Alexander Woollcott and, most clearly, Dorothy Sayers (who writes of the murder of Julia Wallace). One story, “Constance Kent” by John Rhode, recounts a murder recently described at book length in Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (which I reviewed favourably in November 2011), but all of the entries here are at the very least interesting and in some cases quite fascinating. I think I found this in a used book store or library sale, as I very much doubt it’s still widely available, but an interesting read if one can find it, keeping in mind the prejudices of the day of course. show less
I found this at a book sale in our library. Picked it up because my grandmother told me stories of taking my mother and brother to the Exposition. I was hoping it would jog some memories from my mother who was only eight at the time. The book is quaint and delightful. Boys and girls aren't like this anymore (if they ever were). Some of the references to people of color and "midgets" are absolutely outdated and make one cringe, yet none of them were meant to be distasteful or disrespectful. show more Different times. show less
I don't normally read true crime but the connection to the area where I now live was enough for me the book. I wish the writing style of these crimes was a little less flippant and a little more coherant. My favorite of the set was the last one in the group. I have to wonder if Jerome von Selz was in the back of Bob Kane's mind when he created the Joker.
Lists
Edgar Award (1)
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 21
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 283
- Popularity
- #82,294
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 12
- ISBNs
- 9