| Abstract: | This is a discussion of the group of journalists working in and around Virginia City during the 1860s and 1870s, when the area became the world centre of the silver mining industry. The so-called Sagebrush writers reported on mining prospects for readerships locally and internationally, as well as writing anecdotes and stories about the life of the highly transient local communities generated by the search for silver. Theirs is writing characterised both by caution in responding to the mining industry and by an aggressive humour in depicting the local life of a cosmopolitan instant city. These newspaper writers have been considered in the local context of the Nevadan frontier. Here, I discuss their engagement with a complex and internationally networked industry, and also their address to the collectivities of the local population. |
