Charles Warren Haskins (1825–1904) is a classic author whose works are in the public domain.
Haskins' first-person account captures the California Gold Rush in raw, unglamorous detail—the backbreaking labor, the moral dissolution, the rapid boom-and-bust cycles—written by someone who lived through it rather than mythologized it later. These reminiscences strip the gold rush of romantic legend to show what actually motivated men to abandon civilization.
