Gold Rush Port

San Francisco's Gold Rush waterfront, a "forest of masts," was a floating economy of ships and wharves where a dazzling array of global goods was traded and transported. Drawing on decades of excavations in buried ships and collapsed buildings from this period, James Delgado recreates San Francisco's unique maritime landscape, shedding new light on the city's remarkable rise from a small village to a boomtown of thousands in the three short years from 1848 to 1851. Gleaning history from artifacts-preserves and liquors in bottles, leather boots and jackets, hulls of ships, even crocks of butter lying alongside discarded guns-and drawing from documentary sources,Gold Rush Portpaints a fascinating picture of how ships and global connections created the port and the city of San Francisco. Setting the city's history into the wider web of international relationships and trade, Delgado finds that San Francisco was a carefully planned center of commerce-the outpost of American ambitions on the Pacific. This engaging blend of history and urban archaeology reshapes our understanding of developments in the Pacific that would lead to a world system of trading and explores San Francisco's pivotal place in this emerging system.