The Alaskans

The Old West #20

by Keith Wheeler

Newcomers in the great land, a rich harvest for the taking, probing the unknown interior, a memoir of golden days in Nome, last fling for the lawless, and the perils of exploitation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

240 pages, Leather Bound

First published April 1, 1977

Reviews

[Pat Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time / Life Old West series. A history of the early explorers, the Russians, the Aleutians, Eskimos, and Americans. A colorful account of the sale of Alaska to the U.S. through Russian emissary Eduard De Stoeckl, to William Seward representing the U.S. The gold mining efforts which were wild and a lot of it illegal. Cable laying history, some of which failed, and some worked. The U.S. efforts to try to explore and map Alaska which was a big job seeing how the climate was and the sheer size of the area which dwarfed Texas. Finally, the settling and law making is accounted here. Alaska remained pretty wild and had a lot of criminal activity until the U.S. finally noticed all the value coming from Alaska and the taxes and fees etc. and money was allocated to regulate people's and business behavior.

[Henry Kline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read, I was very surprised how much Alaskan history I did not know.

[Shelley Alongi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice over view

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Old West series, published by Time-Life Books, is pretty consistently good. This work, in my mind, is a kind of pair with the work on the Canadians' Old West. Brutal weather; challenging environment. But the human spirit ends up triumphing. Once the Americans purchased Alaska from the Russians, there was little sense of what had been acquired. The volume, at the outset, notes (Page 6): "Americans, even with a century of westward expansion under their belts, found it hard at first to comprehend the large chunk of wilderness they bought from Russia in 1867."

Real pluses for this volume--and others include: terrific photographs of the era, maps, and sidebar discussions on intriguing aspects of Alaska, and so on. One can get a sense of the context by these add ons.

The Russians began establishing a foothold in Alaska in the mid to later 1700s. By the early decades of the 1800s, American traders has begun doing business with the intrepid settlers. Sitka was the first settlement of significance. Fur trading was the key economic activity at the outset. In 1790, Alexander Baranov became the lead person in the Russian colony--and he was the right person for the job. This chapter lays out his methods and his efforts to build the Russian presence. As the 19th century moved on, Russia had more and more financial difficulties. After the Civil War, the United States--with Secretary of State William Seward aggressively moving the initiative--purchased Alaska from the Russians. "Seward's Folly" eventually became attractive--with gold in the late 1800s as a key point.

The book goes on to consider American governance and the development of the economy. There is ample discussion of efforts to explore the interior of the massive territory. The work concludes with Alaska acquiring home rule, when William Howard Taft signed the bill.

Another fine work in the Time-Life series. . . .