Research Catalog

The northern gold fleet : twentieth-century gold dredging in Alaska

Title: The northern gold fleet : twentieth-century gold dredging in Alaska / Clark C. Spence.
Author: Spence, Clark C.
Publication: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [1996], ©1996.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	TN423.A7 S74 1996	Off-site

Details

Description

x, 302 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map; 24 cm

Summary

The Northern Gold Fleet is the story of how new gold-dredging technology was applied to the rich placers of the Far North from 1899 to the present, leading to mass production and economies of scale that made previously unprofitable resources profitable. The bucket-ladder dredge was a single, complex apparatus that rivaled ocean freighters in size. At once ugly, spectacular, and awesome, the dredges dug, classified materials, and performed gold-saving and tailing-disposal functions.
A richly illustrated and comprehensive history. The Northern Gold Fleet is part environmental, part technological, part corporate, part labor, and part Alaskan in its thrust, offering a picture - both dazzling and absorbing - of how new technology simultaneously helped build the economy and lay waste the resources of Alaska.

Subjects

Gold dredging > Alaska > History > 20th century
Alaska > Gold discoveries > 20th century
Gold mines and mining > Alaska > History > 20th century

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-288) and index.

Contents

1. "Jackass Machinery" at Nome: The Early Years -- 2. Small Dredges and Small Profits: The Pre-World War I Boom -- 3. "It Takes a Little More than 'Hot Air' to Thaw Some of That Ground": The Hammon Consolidated Gold Fields at Nome -- 4. The Gold Dredging Operation Par Excellence: The Fairbanks Exploration Company -- 5. Between the Wars -- 6. Fairbanks Exploration Goes to War -- 7. The Postwar World of Dredging -- 8. Steam, Diesel, or Electric Power? -- 9. Winchmen, Point Doctors, and Bull Cooks -- 10. Navigating the Northern Waters.

ISBN

0252022181 (acid-free)

LCCN

95032474

OCLC

ocm32924859

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries