Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
1848 California gold rush
California gold rush cause and effects
1848 California gold rush
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: 1848 California gold rush
The Forty-Niners became significant in California in 1849. Forty-niners were the tens of thousands of men, and many fewer women, who migrated to California starting in 1849 after the discovery of gold there in 1848. Thousands of people hurried to California when they heard that gold had been discovered in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It caused hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world to make the long, dangerous journey to California in hopes of striking gold.
To accommodate the needs of the ’49ers, gold mining towns had sprung up all over the region, complete with shops, saloons, brothels and other businesses seeking to make their own Gold Rush fortune. Thousands of would-be gold miners, known as ’49ers, traveled overland
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.
Knowles, Thomas W. They Rode for the Lone Star:The Saga of the Texas Rangers. Dallas:
Some members of the Donner Party were courageous and determined enough to venture over the mountains to California to get relief. A small group set out, along with two Indian guides.
Such talk effectively captures the typical conversation of the Old West and the Gold Rush and gives the reader a feeling of authenticity. Tennessee’s speech is similar, though not nearly as rough. Although not one hand of poker was played throughout the entire story, Tennessee revealed, through his use of words in his every...
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 gold rush not only attracted miners but people in search of new starts, whether that was from love affairs gone wrong, or debts. Some see this rush as a way to make an easy profit or fortune and settle down with new everything. Pikes Peak Gold Rush is one of the most known features in the region. It became a stepping stone that drew as many as 100,000 prospectors. With these prospectors, they brought over the slogan, “Pikes Peak or Bust,” in 1859–60.
...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.
In the early 1900s, the United States had an increase of settlers leaving their hometowns to the west in the faith of being able to live in a more catholic freedom world, others also joined by the inspiration of Manifest Destiny, a thought in which the Americans thought that everything between the Atlantic and the Pacific ocean is theirs and should therefore settled by them. A group, that was on the way to the western U.S., for those reasons in 1846, had a tragic loss of 34 settlers due to many tragic events. This group was led by George Donner, which was elected the leader of this group on 19 July 1846, this group inherited his name, called the Donner Party. The Donner Party consisted of the families of George Donner, his brother Jacob and James F. Reed of Springfield, Illinois, and a few hired workers, a total of 87 persons. Most groups usually followed the Oregon Trail, which brought them from East to West within 4 to 6 months. But then a guide called 'The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California' was released by Lansword Hasting, a lawyer who thought he has to remigrate Americans to California, this guide would lead them through a shorter way to the west, but was never traveled by anyone for this purpose, not even by himself. In the following, the diaries of the Donner Party will be cited and combined with the information known about the situations.
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.
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!
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).
California was becoming known for its entrepreneurial opportunities; soon many were coming to California, not to work in the mining filed, rather to set up business and cater to the mining communities. Soon there were saloons, hotels, and red light districts spread throughout San Francisco and outer mining communities. Women who were forced to rely on men to support them back home, came to California and were able to work and support themselves in these towns.
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 ...