Anglo-Saxonism in the Yukon: The _Klondike Nugget_ and American-British Relations in the ‘Two Wests,’ 1898-1901

Adam Arenson, University of Texas at El Paso

Article comments

Published as “Anglo-Saxonism in the Yukon: The _Klondike Nugget_ and American-British Relations in the ‘Two Wests,’ 1898-1901.” Pacific Historical Review 76.3 (August 2007), 373-403. © 2007 by the Regents of the University of California. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by [the Regents of the University of California/on behalf of the Sponsoring Society] for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on Caliber (http://caliber.ucpress.net/) or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com.

Abstract

During the Klondike Gold Rush, Americans and Britons connected their joint local experiences with the simultaneous colonial conquests in Cuba, the Philippines, South Africa, and China through the ideology of Anglo-Saxonism. From 1898 to 1901 Dawson’s newspapers, memoirs, correspondence, and commercial photography demonstrated the power of this symbolic language of flags and balls, heated rhetoric and dazzling cartoons. <em>The Klondike Nugget</em>, the first newspaper in town and the only one run by Americans, took up the claims of global Anglo-Saxonism with the most fervor, although its sentiments were often echoed in the Canadian-edited <em> Dawson Daily News</em>. Differences re-emerged, especially over the boundary between Alaska and Canada, but this brief episode remained deeply imprinted in narratives of the “two Wests”—both of the North American frontier West and the West as Anglo-Saxon civilization—told at the turn of the twentieth century.