After the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, hundreds of thousands of hopeful miners thronged to the West Coast. This influx spurred wealth and technological developments, fast-tracking California’s admission as a state, but it also accelerated environmental degradation and the violent expulsion of Indigenous people.

Many fortune seekers commissioned photographs as mementos of their time, taking advantage of the new, more affordable ambrotype and tintype processes. Although ambrotypes, like daguerreotypes, are unique images often housed in cases, they are darker and rendered in negative, only appearing positive with a dark backing behind them. In this example, 10 placer miners pause their backbreaking labor to stand with their equipment in front of their sluices. The photographer has cleverly added some powdered gold paint to the pan to simulate a discovery, conveying success or perhaps aspirational hope.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).