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Essay on california gold rush
Essay on california gold rush
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However, there was something else going on in the world. The mass migration of typically young single men making their way to California to look for gold. This was known as the gold rush. Thousands upon thousands of men showed up from all over the world to strike it rich. In august of 1849 some two hundred ships clogged the waterways due to men abandoning them. This led to California creating a trade network linking the pacific coastlines. This opening up the market for new trades. That of cereal from Chile, Mexican coffee and cocoa, potatoes from Australia, and even sugar and rice from china. It was a more even trade because everyone involved had a singular mission, find gold. These mass migrations saw not only natives from san Francisco but
John Augustus Sutter was born in Baden, Switzerland on the 15th of February in 1803. Sutter is the reason for the California Gold Rush that began in 1848. Sutter had a fort called “New Helvetia” beginning in 1842 that ended quickly in 1844. A man named James Wilson Marshall was planning to build John Sutter a water-powered sawmill, when he came across flakes of gold in the American River near Coloma, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This Discovery happened on January 24th in 1848 causing the town to have no till afterwards. Once the discovery got out it was soon the center for merchants and miners. In John Sutter’s earlier years, he claimed to have had a military background being a captain in the Royal Swiss Guard to the French King.
The creation of societies in the West resulted in the blossoming of three new industries: mining, ranching, and farming. Mining began at large with the discovery of gold in California in 1849 and continued with other discoveries and “rushes” later on; these rus...
The government participated in a great "push" to get its citizens to move to west. At first few people moved to the west, but this changed when gold was discovered in California in 1848. This caused a "gold rush" to the west coast which consisted of many prospectors seeking to find their fortunes in the gold mines of California. Many traveled to the west coast, however few actually found their fortunes.
The California Gold Rush in 1849 was the catalyst event for the state that earned them a spot in the U.S. union in 1850. This was not the first gold rush in North America; however, it was one of the most important gold rush events. The story of how the gold was discovered and the stories of the 49ers are well known. Men leaving their families in the East and heading West in hopes of striking it rich are the stories that most of us heard about when we learn about the California Gold Rush. Professors and scholars over the last two decades from various fields of study have taken a deeper look into the Gold Rush phenomena. When California joined the Union in 1850 it helped the U.S. expand westward just as most Americans had intended to do. The event of the Gold Rush can be viewed as important because it led to a national railroad. It also provided the correct circumstances for successful entrepreneurship, capitalism, and the development modern industrialization. The event also had a major influence on agriculture, economics, and politics.
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.
The Gilded Age was was an era that saw rapid immigration. This along with an explosion of Americans moving from farms to the cities, causing more people migrating to urban areas than ever before. The growth of cities gave rise to powerful political machines, that stimulated the economy, and gave birth to an American middle class. It was a time of highs and lows.
The expansion to the western lands of the United States created a number of benefits for the economy and its citizens. With the expansion to these lands, Americans gained the added land area along with the resources that the land possessed. One of these valuable resources that attracted Americans to the West was gold. During the mid-1800s, gold was discovered in northeastern California. This inspired a movement of many Americans to leave their homes to settle in the West in the hope of discovering gold. This gold rush attracted primarily single men into the uncharted western lands.
What do you think of when you hear the term “Gold Rush”? The 1849 gold rush in California?
Gold Rush 1849 was the reason for such a frenzy. It caused people to migrate to California from near and far too dig for gold from the river. According to the film, The Chinese Exclusion Act Explained: US History Review, “This attracted Chinese entrepreneurs to try to make it rich”. The Chinese was one of the cultures that was one of the cultures that left their home to find a better life for their families. However, after being greeted in the United States, they were discriminated against them since they were feared by the Europeans. Racism towards the Chinese immigrant caused a lot of hardship on them in the Western civilization, enabling them to enter or exit without returning to the States.
This mass rush of people all started in the summer of 1897; George Carmack was back from the Klondike with the gold he discovered in the summer of 1896 (SV; SV) (“The Klondike Gold Rush”). There was another ship, named Excelsior, which docked in San Francisco it also brought another miner and their riches from the Klondike (Stefoff). After the ships docked in Seattle and San Francisco, the word was out. “Even in those pre-Twitter days, word spreads fast.” (Martel). Thanks to the telegraph and many newspapers the gold rush drew many people looking for instant wealth (Stefoff). Once the people heard these telegraphs or saw the newspapers the prospectors were off to the Klondike (Glasner). The newspapers wrote an article on the boats coming to town saying “ A Ton of Gold from the Fabulous Klondike” Actually it was closer to two tons (Wharton).
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”, three common goals immigrants came to America seeking with hopes of the promise to prosper and gain success. However, during the Gilded Age it seemed as though these were attainable only for the select few, while others left the land they knew to spend their lives toiling away in pursuit of the American dream, many never understanding how unattainable it really was. While the Gilded Age was a time of an industrial boom and a growing economy, those working by the sweat of their brow to make the success of this time possible, were not actually ever grasping this wealth, but rather putting right back into the pockets of the wealthy. The Gilded Age compromised the American Dream by limiting the chances of the immigrant working class, and thus creating a cycle of missed opportunities keeping the immigrants from progressing much further then when they came to America to begin with.
During the late 1840's California did not show much promise or security. It had an insecure political future, its economic capabilities were severely limited and it had a population, other than Indians, of less than three thousand people. People at this time had no idea of what was to come of the sleepy state in the coming years. California would help boost the nation's economy and entice immigrants to journey to this mystical and promising land in hopes of striking it rich.
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. Americans, inspired by the idea of manifest destiny meaning it was their God given right to rule the entire, mass, amount of land from ocean to ocean. Thanks to this vision, it quickly sent current land occupiers, California, Mexico, and the United States in two completely different directions. In 1846, Mexican soldiers rose up against United States forces.
The Chinese immigrants started flooding in through the West coast to California around the time of the Gold Rush, looking for economic opportunity. With the Chinese immigrants came a whole new cultural group and a whole lot of laborers that were eager to work. The Chinese quickly became involved in all kinds of labor from gold mining and building railroads to agriculture and fishing skills. The new Asian population just kept growing and growing as immigrants spread word of their good fortune in California and swayed more and more of their family to come over to the states. With their growing population they created their own large communities and the first ever Chinatown ...
California started its statehood unlike any other state before or after it succession. California entered the nation as a free state in 1950, during the time of the Gold Rush. From the Gold Rush came the term “California Dream” which is the “psychological motivation to gain fast wealth or fame in a new land” (Manhattan-Institute.org). From the time of the Gold Rush up until recent years, California has been associated with obtaining fast wealth and fame. This encouraged people from all over the world to come to California in hopes of striking it rich, just as people continued to do up until the 90's. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 immensely accelerated certain changes that had been in the making for decades. For instance, California was already filled with different races and cultures, but when the Gold Rush struck, California became an international frontier where people from every continent were joining together. “California also set an important precedent for civil societies with diverse populations” (page 121). By 1850, California was flooded with over 300,000 people seeking gold. The fact that California has always attracted so many different people has created a land filled with many languages, cultures, and social customs. “The arrival and departure of thousan...