In the early 1850s, people poured into the goldfields of Victoria in southeastern Australia. Sovereign Hill Education records that miners had to travel to the nearest government office and wait in a queue to buy a mining licence. The licence had to be renewed monthly, and mining without one exposed a person to enforcement.
The gold rush is often remembered as a freewheeling search for sudden fortune, yet its entrance included an administrative counter. Before reaching the ground they hoped to work, miners waited their turn for the same document. Their expectations, means and origins differed, but for a moment the licence queue placed them in one shared order.