This is a NPR Earplay program, written by Anne Leeton centered on the women of the Golden West, Age, Days... Women who lived where men were panning and digging for Gold. The program features several stories about different women and their experiences in the West at the time of the Gold Rush in CA. Around 1848. There was also the Gold Rush in Alaska that started in 1896 and lasted until 1904 when most of the accessible gold had been mined or claimed.
The Alaska Gold Rush drew about 100,000 people from all over the world... and at the peak of the Rush (1898) there was 40,000 people in Dawson City.