The Kodak "Brownie" camera was just coming on the scene in the Gold Rush. |
In 1885, George Eastman invented the flexible roll of film. This had replaced cumbersome, easy to break glass plates that required careful handling, and large cameras. The large cameras gave excellent quality photographs, and we know it mainly because it was first used extensively "in the field" to document the Civil War.
Miners in the 1898 Gold Rush. |
We who followed the Gold Rush have benefited greatly from the invention of those little cameras. Many of the photographs we now have available to us, documenting the Gold Rush, were taken on the fly, by the miners themselves.