Gold Rush Thesis

In the textbook reading, “The Gold Rush and Economic Development,” reads about the discovery of gold in early 1848 that lead to the Gold Rush; one of the most significant events to shape American political, social, and cultural history during the 19th century. As the news of the discovery of gold spread in the San Francisco mines, thousands of people migrated by sea or by land to the state and the surrounding areas. By the end of 1849, the non-native population of the California territory increase with the arrival of Anglo- American and people from all over the word, becoming a multicultural state. 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

I had never been very fond of American history less likely about topics as such, but this chapter was quite very interesting. It gave me a better perspective of all the things that happened in the state of California during this prosperous period. I would have never thought that people would begin leaving their everyday working tools in order to form part of this gold fever epidemic. I even laughed a little when the book said that even handicapped people wanted part in it. The Gold Rush did help to bust the state’s economic follow, but it also brought with it work