John Steinbeck was born in 1902. He lived and grew up during the Great Depression near Salinas Valley and wrote many novels based on his experiences and backgrounds. Due to conditions such as nice weather and good agricultural industry, many people settled there. There was a gold rush around the 1850s which attracted many people to this region. The Salinas Valley was a very significant and essential place in the 1930s. In Salinas Valley around the 1850s, gold was found by a man named James W. Marshall in California. The first people to hear and be familiar with the “Gold Rush” were the people in Oregon, Hawaii, and Latin America who started to flock to the state. Everyone told and the word spread which led around 300,000 people to California from the US. At first, gold was found on the ground and was to be picked up. Later on, gold was discovered from streams and riverbeds. There were many effects of the Gold Rush which included a small settlement from about 200 residents to a nice and large settlement with around 36,000 residents. Roads, churches, and schools were starting to be bu...
Many people spend their whole lives trying to make money and become rich. One imagines a lifestyle where they do not have to work to provide for their families and they can enjoy the finer things in life. Some may go to great lengths to find this source of richness, even if this involves packing up and moving far away. Many people found a way to make this dream of being rich a reality on January 24, 1848. While constructing a sawmill for John Sutter, James W. Marshall discovered gold in the American River. Many people flocked to California in search of the golden treasure and to follow their dream. This was the start of the California Gold Rush. The California Gold Rush was an important part of the history of the United States; it helped to settle the western United States, increased the economy of California, and negatively impacted the Native Americans living in the west.
What do you think of when you hear the term “Gold Rush”? The 1849 gold rush in California?
From the period between the 1870’s through the 1890’s, it became an era known as the Gilded Age. The term was characterized by a famous American Literature author named Mark Twain. The writer tried to point out that the term means that while on the outside society may seem perfect and in order, underneath there is poverty, crime, corruption, and many other issues between American society’s rich and poor. This era’s gild is thicker than the cheaper material it’s covering. This can be shown through the countless numbers of achievements and advances America has made during the period of reconstruction and expansion, industrialization, and foreign affairs.
On January 24, 1848, James Wilson Marshall made the discovery of gold in the foothills of Sierra Nevada Mountains near Coloma, California. The discovery by the American carpenter lead to the “greatest mass migration in the history of the United States, . . . (98).” Despite the efforts of keeping the news from leaking out to the public, the news rapidly spread out, and by mid-March a newspaper reported with obvious lack of credibility that gold was found at Sutter’s Mill. At first the people from town didn’t quite found credible such discovery for the lack of evidence, but on May 12, Samuel Brannan proved the scarcity of the resource wrong by show casting a bottle full of gold dust, from there on the beginning of the
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.
The United States acquired Alaska in 1867, but it was basically unknown and unsettled until the late 1890's, when a large number people from Canada and America had gathered there in search of gold. (Alaska's Gold) Juneau, Alaska had been established in 1880 after gold was found there, but the major strike occurred in August 1896, when the son of a California forty-niner, John Muir, found gold while panning in Rabbit Creek, which had soon become Bonanza Creek. Several men during this initial period enjoyed gold patches that had brought them all more then one-million dollars. News about this particular gold strike did not reach California and the rest of the West Coast until the summer of 1897. This gold rush had followed the pattern of the California gold rush of 1849. (Poynter 79)
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.
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. Between 1919 and 1925 Steinbeck was acknowledged as a special student at Stanford University. According to Peter Lisac, “Variously employed as a had-carrier, fruit-picker, apprentice printer, laboratory assistant, caretaker, surveyor, reporter, writer, and foreign correspondent let him acquire knowledge in many areas.” (1) Even in his youth, Steinbeck developed a love of the natural world and diverse cultures. Steinbeck produced two children from his second wife, Elaine Scott. The early 1930’s became a struggle for Steinbeck, both in his
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
A famous writer by the name of John Steinbeck, who was also born in California, is the
find gold in Colorado and Oregon because they wanted to strike rich. Also, people that didn't have a lot of money, saw this as an opportunity to become more wealthy. So most people ended up trying to go and strike it rich. So people found the “hot spots”, and others found the “crap spots”. The creeks near Jacksonville, Illinois River, and Josephine Creek was where gold was found in Oregon. Once the news about the gold near Oregon spread, miners from California and Willamette Valley came. People trusted that they would find gold because Oregon was supposed to have mild weather and very rich soil. The faster you came, the better for two reasons. First, if you came early you could claim land where the gold was. So the earliest people claimed land with a lot of gold on it. Second, the earlier you came the more gold there would of been. So more opportunity for the early people to strike rich. Most men ...
...iches? Evidence from the California Gold Rush." The Journal of Economic History 68.04 (2008): 997-1027. Print.
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.
He discovered this while he was engaged in a project on a road along the Fish River. This was not the start of the “gold rush”, the gold rush began when Edward Hammond Hargaves discovered payable gold in 1851. Gold was mined with picks and pans until the surface gold depleted.
Works Cited http://www.history.com/topics/gold-rush-of-1849 http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/goldrush.html http://lessons.ctaponline.org/dbaker/dbaker/A%20folder/theimpactofgold.html http://www.calgoldrush.com/ http://www.malakoff.com/sutter.htm http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/calcultures/eras/era4.html. http://www.coloma.com/california-gold-discovery/history/california-gold-rush/ http://ceres.ca.gov/ceres/calweb/geology/goldrush.html http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbforty.html