The California Gold Rush

Throughout history, humans have been in search of ways to get rich quick. All around the world, people have been looking for and coming up with ways to make money quickly and easily. In the 1800’s that way was panning for gold. Nowadays, the lottery, and the stock market prove as a way to get rich quick, if the odds are in your favor! In California during what’s known as the California Gold Rush, men from all around the world traveled there in search of gold. Unfortunately, almost all of the men who went panning for gold returned home poor, only a few actually struck it rich.

On January 24, 1848, James Marshall struck gold on Sutter’s Mill. “I have found it!”(qtd in Shoup 21) Marshall famously exclaimed. This quote became famous because

it it shows the excitement of Marshall as he quickly realizes the rich and abundance that could soon fill his life. James Marshall was an American carpenter and he worked for John Sutter in the Sacramento Valley. He worked on Sutter’s Mill, a sawmill owned by John Sutter, a German pioneer and land owner.
Sam Brannan, a Mormon publisher and the creator of The Prophet newspaper wrote an article on Marshall’s finds.

This first article was published in March, but it sparked little reaction. In May, he gathered more evidence and published another article telling of the finds of gold. This article attracted lots of people’s attention. By mid May, Gold Fever hit San Francisco and Sam Brannan’s mining business made $36,000 from incoming miners. At this time, people were starting to live better lives and get more comfortable. But they still had work extremely hard for daily things. The gold rush, and the findings of gold was a perfect way to live extravagant and comfortable lives. The Californian newspaper, the May 29, 1848 edition says: “The whole country, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from seashore to the base of the sierra Nevada is resounds with this sordid cry, ‘gold, gold, gold!’ While the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes.”(qtd in Gildenstein and O’Donnell 16). This quote from the newspaper showed people really believed that they could get rich quick with this search of gold. The problem is, almost all of them did not get

rich.
An estimated 300,000 people came to California in search of gold. Half of these people came by sea, and they were called Argonauts, The other half arrived by land on the Oregon or California trail. People who travel to California from the East Coast had an extremely long journey ahead of them. Some would sail from the East Coast around the tip of South America and then into California. This trip would take 5 to 8 months and it covered about 18,000 nautical miles(about 20,700 miles).
Another way that people sailed was to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama and then take canoes and mules for a week through the jungle over to the Pacific side of the isthmus where they would wait for ship that would take them to San Francisco.
For those who traveled overland, the trip was no less exhausting . Nowadays we can make it across the country in a matter of hours. Back then these trips would take months. From Missouri, the trip was 1,800 Miles. A wagon only moved about 15 Miles each day; so needless to say, those who traveled overland arrived later than those who traveled by sea. The terrain and conditions people had to go through are unimaginable today. They traveled through rivers and rapid currents. These currents swept people and animals under the water and drowned them. In addition to the terrible water challenges, prairies that had to be crossed sometimes were on fire because of lightning and storms. Along the trail, there was 40 miles of the burning desert to cross before the winter snows set it.
Not only did the environment and the terrain of the trail make the trip difficult , but there was many health problems as well. Cholera killed 4000 overland travelers in 1849. In addition to this, food was not always available and neither was water. For the thousands of people that traveled, either overland or by sea, very few actually struck it rich. The struggles and hardships they went through make us wonder if the slight chance of getting rich quick is actually enough to risk our lives, physically and emotionally.
Not only did the gold attract people in the United States, but it also attracted people from China, Australia, Latin America and Europe. Foreigners to the country, especially Latin Americans, faced very much racism from the Americans who were in search of gold. The California state legislature passed a law that said all foreign miners had to pay a $20 tax per month. Nowadays, that is equal to about $580. By 1852, 25,000 Chinese had come to America in search of gold. Most of the Chinese immigrants who came to California lived in poverty. They found work building the Central Pacific Railroad which would change the shape of the country as they knew it.
The life of a minor was extremely difficult because they dropped everything: their homes, their families, and their lives for the slight possibility that they might get rich. The people that left their homes to come to California where extremely hopeful. But they had no real way of knowing if they will actually get rich. In fact, most of them did not. Most of them returned home poorer than they already were.
Miners lived in mining camps that were cramped sometimes unsafe. Most miners lived in tents and cooked their food on open fires. Because the mining camps in town were made of canvas tents and Wooden buildings, the towns caught on fire very easily. In fact, sometimes it happened multiple times to the same town. Rain and snow during the winter months made life even more miserable for the miners. Because they were not a real buildings with heat, they had to make more fires to keep warm. In addition to the terrible weather, sickness was very common with the minors. Not only did the cold weather and dampness make them sick, but the poor sanitation, and the unfit nutrition for a working man made them sick as well.
We already know the quality of life for the minors in California was downright awful. But the cost-of-living was also problematic. Many men, such as Sam Brannan, opened up shops that sold all sorts of mining equipment. Because there was such a high demand for these tools, the price with hiked up to an extremely high point. The minors did not have the ability to carry their own tools to California, they bought new ones when they were there. Sam Brannan became the first millionaire in the country, partly because of his mining supplies store.
The name 49ers popped up and was used to describe the miners who had come to California in 1849 in search of gold. There was a universal set of rules called the Miners 10 Commandments that the miners followed. Although it was meant to be a joke in someway, some of the punishments sounded extremely harsh. “ Thou shall not steal a pic, or shovel, or a pan from thy fellow minor, nor take away his tools without his leave… for he will be sure to discover what thou hast done, and with straightway call his fellow minors together and if the law hinder them not, they will hang thee, or give the 50 lashes, or shave thy head and brand thee like a horse thief…”(qtd in Gildenstein and O’Donnell 40). This is the eighth commandment in the Miners 10 Commandments. These commandments were written in 1853 by James M. Hutchings.
Mining and panning for gold itself was extremely difficult act. Panning for gold was similar to what you would do with the beach today. You would take the tool, what is known as a pan, dip it in the river get all that soil and then shake it out to see if there was any gold in it. This was time-consuming and back breaking work. After time, hydraulic mining was used to get gold. Although it was the most efficient method, it destroy the environment. The way hydraulic mining worked was pressurized water would be directed against a bank of gravel which would wash away really quickly into a series of boxes called sluices that would catch the gold. Hydraulic mining wasn’t introduced until 1853, so up until that point, 49ers have used very hands on ways to mine.
Of all of the men who did not find success in the California gold rush, a few did.

One of these men was Levi Strauss. You may recognize the name Levi, because he founded the company Levi Strauss & Co. Strauss opened his business Levi Strauss & Co. and imported all sorts of materials from bedding, to purses. He Also sold lots of clothing and products that use fabrics. He was an immigrant from Bavaria if he wanted to find a way to get rich and make it in the New World. Little did he know, it would not be by panning for gold. One of his customers, Jacob W. Davis was one of the inventors of riveted denim pants, which we now know as jeans. Davis and Strauss went to business together and patented the new style of pants with rivets in 1873. Rivets are little pieces of metal, that almost look like buttons on various parts of your jeans . The reason they are used is to prevent ripping because of a hard days work. The rivets hold together the fabric in places the jeans would normally rip because of wear and tear. Almost all jeans worn nowadays have these rivets, if they didn’t, the pants would rip very

easily.
The California Gold Rush changed the face of the United States forever. It introduced greediness and desire. Not only this, but it made our country a diverse place with people of all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. The Gold Rush made America a land of hope and opportunity that some people could only dream about.