Fortune’s Frenzy: A California Gold Rush Odyssey
Don’t miss this true story about desperately poor Indiana farmers using shady financing to make their way to California during the gold rush, and the devastating impacts to their families and their futures.
When Henry Jenkins, a new grandfather, decides gold will salvage his declining fortunes, he leaves his wife Abby to manage the family farm and feed her large family. Just getting to California is not a sure thing, and finding gold is harder than he ever imagined.
Fortune’s Frenzy relates previously untold aspects of the gold rush: how the wealthy took advantage of gold fever by offering usurious loans, and how the cold calculus of transporting people to California became a deadly game for profit.
Eilene Lyon immersed herself in American history from an early age, when her parents took her to iconic sites such as Williamsburg, Philadelphia, and Gettysburg. She has been putting history into context through studying the lives of her ancestors for over twenty years.
Her work has appeared in various history journals, and can be found on her blog at Myricopia.com. She speaks on genealogy and family history writing at regional and national conferences. Eilene lives in Durango, Colorado, with her husband and husky-lab Sterling (named for a great-grandfather, naturally).
Follow Eilene on her blog and facebook. Her book Fortune’s Frenzy can be found on her website, Maria’s Bookstore, and Women Writing the West Book Corral.
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