"The California Gold Rush was the significant national event of its time" ("California Gold Rush: A Look to the Past"). This legendary story begins with one man. John Sutter, one of the richest people in the area, moved to California 1839 with the intent on building his own private empire. Sutter welcomed newcomers to the area because he viewed them as subjects for his self-styled kingdom. In the late 1840s, James Marshall and about 20 men were sent to the river by Sutter to build a sawmill ("The Gold Rush"). It took him a while to find the right spot because, "nothing but a mule could climb the hills; and when I would find a spot where the hills were not steep, there was no timber to be had" (Holliday). Marshall had finally found an area where he could build a sawmill, and managed to get his team through the steep hills of California. The sawmill was almost complete when Marshall caught a glimpse of something shiny out of the corner of his eye. He took samples back to Sutter and after testing discovered it was gold. Neither of the men was happy about the discovery. Sutter viewed it as competition from gold-seekers, and Marshall viewed the potential gold hunters as an obstacle in building his sawmill. Both decided to keep this discovery a secret.
It was not long before news started to make its way to the east. Many were skeptical about this gossip, but a man by the same of Sam Brannan was this new discovery as a way to make money. Brannan ran through the streets yelling, "gold is in the River." Instead of becoming wealthy by digging for gold, he purchased every tool necessary for gold mining at pennies and sold them at more than triple the cost; within "just nine weeks he made thirty-six thousand dollars" ("The...
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Lewis, Robert. "Photographing the California Gold Rush" History Today 52 (2002) Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., 30 Mar 2005. http://www.galileo.usg.edu/cgi-bin/homepage.cgi.
Quaife, Milo Milton, ed. Pictures of Gold Rush California New York: Citadel, 1967.
"The California Gold Rush" 30 Mar 2005 http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/Goldrush.html
"The Discovery of Gold, by John A Sutter" 30 Mar 2005 http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist2/gold.html
"The Gold Rush" 30 Mar 2005 http://www.pbs.org/goldrush /intro.html
Upham, Samuel. Notes of a Voyage to California via Cape Horn Ed. Ray Billington. New York: Arno, 1973.
When their journey began in 1846, the members of the Donner and Reed families had high hopes of reaching California, and they would settle at nothing less. Their dream of making a new life for themselves represented great determination. When their packed wagons rolled out of Springfield, Missouri, they thought of their future lives in California. The Reed family’s two-story wagon was actually called the “pioneer palace car”, because it was full of everything imaginable including an iron stove and cushioned seats and bunks for sleeping. They didn’t want to leave their materialistic way of life at home.
Unknown, author. "The California Gold Rush." North Carolina Digital History. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Web. 2 Mar 2014. .
At the start of spring in the year 1846 an appealing advertisement appeared in the Springfield, Illinois, Gazette. ''Westward ho,'' it declared. ''Who wants to go to California without costing them anything? As many as eight young men of good character who can drive an ox team will be accommodated. Come, boys, you can have as much land as you want without costing you anything.'' The notice was signed G. Donner, George Donner, leader of what was to become the most famous of all the hundreds of wagon trains to start for the far west, the tragic, now nearly mythic Donner Party.
Smith-Baranzini, Marlene, Richard J. Orsi, and James J. Rawls. A Golden State: Mining And Economic Development In Gold Rush California. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1999. eBook (EBSCOhost). Web. 26 Mar. 2014.
Harvard University Library: Open Collections Program: Home. "Open Collections Program: Immigration to the US, California Gold Rush, 1848-1858." Accessed November 13, 2013. http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/goldrush.html.
As most folks do, when I think of the term “Gold Rush”, it conjures up images of the West! Images of cowboys and crusty old miners ruthlessly and savagely staking their claims. Immigrants coming by boat, folks on foot, horseback, and covered wagon form all over the US to rape and pillage the land that was newly acquired from Mexico through the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo… California. But let me tell you about a gold rush of another kind, in another place, even more significant. It was the actual first documented discovery of gold in the United States! Fifty years earlier…in North Carolina!
[6] Ellis, Henry. From the Kennebec to California; Reminiscences of a California Pioneer. Part 5.
In the interior, the desire to control house herds - a critical resource in California was the reason for American trappers, horse thieves, Mexican soldiers and rancheros congregate. Sutter’s connection to an Indian woman (p. 39)
How would feel to be a multimillionaire in just a couple years, but you have to get the Klondike in Alaska. Many people took this challenge either making their fortune or coming up more broke than they already were. The Klondike Gold Rush played a major role in shaping peoples lives and a time in American history. My paper consists of 3 main topics: first, what people had to go through to get there; second, the harsh conditions they had to endure when they got there; and lastly, the striking at rich part or if at all they did get rich.
California, the place to turn cant’s into cans and dreams into plans. The same situation and scenarios apply to today and even over one hundred and sixty five years ago. Then and now are not so different, people are thriving or failing from the land of plenty, supplying themselves with knowledge, wealth, or skill to either spread their wings and take flight or crash and burn. Each state in the United States of America has a correlating nickname to either why it’s famous or an explanation of its history. California’s state name is The Golden State, and going all the way back to 1849 is why this was such an influential time for California and all of America. This is the period of the Gold Rush. Reasons why this event was so impeccable, to the development of California, are the years leading up to the discovery, the first findings, the journey, and so much more.
The California Gold Rush was discovered accidently. Most of the world’s gold is deep underground and embedded in hard rock. Unlike anywhere else in the world at that time the gold in California was easy to dig up, free for the taking and required little tools to acquire any gold. All that was requires was a pick or shovel and a pan to shift out the gold from the rock, sand and debris. The Gold Rush affected not only California but the outcome of the nation. It created the expansion of our nation into Western America and California. The rush brought hundreds of thousand Americans and foreigners to the Sierra Nevada’s with the hopes of sticking it rich. This impacted the social life and the economy while effected the rest of the country. The
The California gold rush began on January 24, 1848, in the Sacramento Valley. The first sight of gold nuggets found during the Gold Rush was located in the American River, by James W. Marshall. After the news of the gold became known the tidings spread quickly. Information about Jame's discovery caused thousands of immigrants to migrate, changing the nation forever. Citizens living in California were especially provoked with this, due to their homes being intruded on. Before the gold was first found in 1848 the estimated population was less than 1,000 people. Within one year the nations' population had jumped tremendously to approximately 100,000 people. California officially became recognized as a state in 1850, and after two more years had passed almost 250,000 immigrants, businessmen, families, and miners, had traveled to California in hopes of discovering gold. By 1850 more than 300,000 gold questers assailed California.
In 1849, the California Gold Rush attracted the massive people immigrated to gold finding from all over the world. The gold-seekers travelled by the ship boarding in San Francisco port or by feet to leave their hometown and families from west because they believed that they could gain more money and had a better life than their original place. In the early days of California was an unknown place however after the gold-seekers arrived to California growth rapidly with crowded population. Later, the Rocky Mountains establish to be a state which called California. The gold-seekers came over to California because they wanted to achieve their goals for a better life, as they experienced by their hard working and created lots of the potential development in this gold place.
West, Elliott, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, (University Press of Kansas,
The Gold Rush was one of the most influential times in California History. During the four years from 1848-1852, 400,000 new people flooded into the state. People from many countries and social classes moved to California, and many of them settled in San Francisco. All this diversity in one place created a very interesting dynamic. California during the Gold Rush, was a place of colliding ideals. The 49ers came from a very structured kind of life to a place where one was free to make up her own rules.