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Guide to the Gold Fever! exhibition collection
MS0079  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Processing Information
  • Biography / Administrative History
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Arrangement
  • Indexing Terms

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Gold Fever! exhibition collection
    Dates: 1998-2000
    Bulk Dates: 1999
    Collection number: MS0079
    Collector: City of Sacramento
    Collection Size: 3 linear feet (4 boxes)
    Repository: Center for Sacramento History
    Sacramento, California 95811-0229
    Abstract: The collection documents the exhibition Gold Fever! The Lure and Legacy of the California Gold Rush, which was held at Sacramento’s Memorial Auditorium from August 1 to October 31, 1999. Organized by the Oakland Museum of California, the exhibit commemorated the sesquicentennial of the California gold discovery, documenting both Gold Rush history and the history and growth of California. Material dates from 1998 to 2000 and includes correspondence, legal documents, financial records, tour information, staffing information, security procedures, incident reports, facilities information, promotional and educational materials, audio guide transcripts, exhibition photographs, and videos.
    Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English

    Access

    Collection is open for research use.

    Publication Rights

    All requests to publish or quote from private manuscripts held by the Center for Sacramento History (CSH) must be submitted in writing to csh@cityofsacramento.org. Permission for publication is given on behalf of CSH as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the patron. No permission is necessary to publish or quote from public records.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item and/or item number], [box and folder number], Gold Fever! exhibition collection, MS0079, Center for Sacramento History.

    Acquisition Information

    Acquired from Richard Feinburg, agent of the City of Sacramento, in 2000 (accession number 2000/128).

    Processing Information

    Processing and finding aid by Rachel Markgraf and Jennifer Peterson, 2006. Finding aid edited by Kim Hayden, 2020.

    Biography / Administrative History

    To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, the Oakland Museum of California organized the exhibition Gold Rush! California’s Untold Stories. Gold Rush! consisted of a historical exhibition called Gold Fever! The Lure and Legacy of the California Gold Rush, and three art exhibitions: Art of the Gold Rush: Painters and Prospectors; Silver and Gold: Cased Images; and The Discovery of Gold in California: Paintings by Harry Fonseca.
    The exhibit was first displayed at the Oakland Museum of California from January 24 to July 26, 1998, before traveling to the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles from September 19, 1998, to January 24, 1999, and finally to Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento from August 1 to October 31, 1999. In Sacramento, Gold Fever! ran simultaneously with Silver and Gold: Cased Images at the Crocker Art Museum. Smaller versions of Gold Fever! traveled throughout California from May 1998 until October 2000.
    The $1.4 million exhibition in Sacramento was primarily funded by the City of Sacramento, Sacramento County, and Golden One Credit Union, which each contributed at least $200,000. Gold Fever! organizers, led by project manager Milita Rios-Samaniego and exhibit manager Dick Feinburg, raised the remainder of the required funding from local sources.
    Although Gold Fever! was organized and curated under L. Thomas Frye of the Oakland Museum, only one-third of the 1,600 artifacts used in the Memorial Auditorium exhibit were from the Oakland exhibition, requiring organizers to borrow artifacts from other institutions and private donors. Several local curators and scholars were responsible for acquiring other artifacts, including Janice Driesbach of the Crocker Art Museum, James Henley of the Center for Sacramento History (then known as the Sacramento Archives and Museum Collections Center), Frank La Pena of Sacramento State University, and California State Librarian Kevin Starr.
    The exhibition was designed to tell California’s history starting from the earliest fur trading settlements up to the year of the exhibition. This was achieved by leading visitors through consecutive rooms and using audio guides with actors reading from diaries or newspaper articles of the time. The exhibits and audio guides were supplemented with volunteers dressed in Gold Rush-era attire and interactive components, like gold panning outside the auditorium. One of the highlights of the exhibit was the “Wimmer Nugget,” believed to be one of the nuggets found by James Marshall on January 24, 1848.
    The exhibit included sections on the negative impacts the Gold Rush had on Native Americans, women, and the environment, but it was criticized by the Indigenous Community Outreach Network (ICON) for not fully presenting the Native voice and downplaying what they referred to as the holocaust of California’s Native population during the Gold Rush. ICON staged protests outside of the exhibit, and one of their representatives, Susan Reece (Mohawk and Ottawa) was accused by security of recording the copyrighted audio guide during a visit to the exhibit. Ms. Reese said she was using her recorder for personal notes of the exhibition content and claimed her treatment was racial discrimination. Several meetings were subsequently held with exhibition organizers, city and county officials, the community, and staff of the Oakland Museum. In the end, the exhibition gift shop agreed to sell copies of Pratap Chaterjee’s book Gold, Greed and Genocide, which ICON provided.
    Other publications created in conjunction with the exhibit included Art of the Gold Rush by H. Jones and J. Driesbach, Silver and Gold by Drew Heath Johnson and Marcia Eymann, and Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California by J. S. Holliday. A statewide curriculum, Myth & Reality: The California Gold Rush and Its Legacy, was also created for fourth, fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades.
    Further information and an online exhibition of Gold Fever! is available at http://explore.museumca.org/goldrush/fever.html (still an active URL as of Feb 2021).

    Scope and Content of Collection

    The collection documents the planning, execution, and promotion of Gold Fever! The Lure and Legacy of the California Gold Rush held at Memorial Auditorium from August 1 to October 31, 1999. Material dates from 1998 to 2000, with the bulk dating from August to October 1999. Material includes correspondence, legal documents, financial documents, tour information, staffing information, security procedures, incident reports, facilities information, promotional and educational materials, audio guide transcripts, exhibition photographs, and videos.

    Arrangement

    The collection is arranged into 7 series:
    • Series 1. Administration, 1998-2000
    • Series 2. Staffing and training, 1998-2000
    • Series 3. Security, 1998-2000
    • Series 4. Facilities, 1998-2000
    • Series 5. Public relations, 1998-2000
    • Series 6. Exhibition, 1998-2000
    • Series 7. Audiovisual, 1998-2000

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
    Museum exhibits
    Museum exhibits--Planning
    Exhibitions
    California Gold Rush, 1848-1852
    California--History