Lesson Five
LESSON FIVE
Legacies of El Dorado
“Here you can step out of your house and see the
whole world spread out before you”
I.
OBJECTIVES
♦ To identify California’s increasing linkages to a wider world of trade,
commerce, and transportation as encouraged by the Gold Rush.
♦ To trace the explosive development of an urban California, driven by
the Gold-Rush boom.
♦ To comprehend the effects of the Gold Rush on future development
of California.
II. TEACHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION
H
undreds of thousands of sojourners from around the world flocked to
California in search of wealth in this new El Dorado. Finding gold was
always uncertain. Many who came as prospectors found more reliable opportunities for achieving wealth in service industries to support those determined to search for gold. Scarcity of goods, coupled with ever-increasing demand stimulated by new arrivals, produced premium prices and
helped enrich merchants and craftsmen. Entrepreneurs gravitated to mining camps and towns, and towns became magnets for miners working claims
in the surrounding countryside. Restaurants, dry goods stores, and hardware shops shared the main streets of new communities with saloons and
gambling parlors. Frank Marryat, an English traveler, observed that gambling dens proliferated in all mining towns. “Chandeliers threw a brilliant
light on the heaps of gold that lay piled on each monté table, while the
drinking bard held forth inducements that nothing mortal is supposed to
be able to resist.”
Merchants like Collis Huntington found that their greatest difficulty was
not in selling goods but the reverse, being able to obtain merchandise for
sale. Marryat comments that merchants were well served by coming to
California since “the diggins will be replenished by newcomers, and high
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Lesson Five
prices, whether for potatoes or trousers, will still . . . be maintained in a fair
proportion to the yield of gold; . . . for it is an extraordinary fact that, let
the diggins fall off as they will, the miners will still require bread and
breeches, and will find money to pay for them.”
The growth of Gold Rush cities depended on the richness of mineral deposits
in the environs. As quickly as some of these new communities grew, they all
but disappeared as miners, hearing of richer claims, moved overnight to
stake out a new claim. The countryside soon became dotted with ghost towns.
Some communities survived and became thriving urban centers as California’s
population grew. In the summer of 1848, a few months after gold was discovered, California had an estimated population of 15,000. By the end of
1849 the population had increased to 100,000, and by 1852 it had grown to
225,000. Sutter’s New Helvetia became the bustling city of Sacramento, a
supply center for miners in the foothills of the Sierras. San Francisco grew
from a dreary tent city to a terminus of trade, a port of entry for goods
destined to be transported to the mining communities of the interior, and a
place of embarkation for trade between the United States and the Pacific
coast ports of Latin America, the Hawaiian Islands, and Asia.
Many of the sojourners recognized that California’s climate provided opportunities for new wealth in agriculture. As mining became more specialized and large companies were formed to extract deposits through quartz
mining, many argonauts pulled up stakes and rushed to Canada and Nevada on hearing rumors of discovery of gold and silver deposits. The migration to California was far from over. Newly arrived residents wrote home,
urging their families to sell the farm and move to California where the soil
and growing season would produce good returns for honest labor. Entrepreneurs cultivated new business ventures, farmers tilled the soil, and
California continued to grow. In 1874 John S. Hittell wrote the following
preface to his book, The Resources of California: “I am so much attached to
California, that I could not live contentedly elsewhere; and I imagine that
neither the earth, the sky, nor the people of any other country, equal that
of this State.”
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Lesson Five
III.
MATERIALS
Document 1
Memorial of the Senators and Representatives Elect from
California (31st cong. 1st session), Washington, 1850
In this petition for admission to the union, representatives
provided statistics to illustrate the rapid emigration to San
Francisco by sea between April and December, 1850. Note the
male/female ratios.
Document 2
“Street in San Francisco” Joseph Warren Revere, watercolor drawing in manuscript autobiography, 1848
This image is important because of its visual depiction of San
Francisco as a tent city in the early part of the Gold Rush.
Also, since this image shows the burgeoning diversity of the
city it is a reflection of the diversity in gold country.
Document 3
Lettersheet published by Marvin & Hitchcock, “San Francisco”
San Francisco, as seen in this lettersheet view of the waterfront,
rapidly developed into one of the busiest ports in the world, the
center of what the author Bayard Taylor described as the “dizzy
vortex of bold, spirited, unwearied action.”
Document 4
Lettersheet published by Britton & Rey, “San Francisco,
1858”
Gold seekers who had watched San Francisco’s phenomenal
growth created a market for lettersheets portraying the same
topic. By combining a panoramic view of the city in the late
1850s with an insert depicting it at the beginning of the Gold
Rush, this 1858 lettersheet produced an especially striking
depiction of the changes over time.
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Document 5
Letter from Mary Jane Megquier to “My Dear Children,”
April 8, 1853
Mary Jane Megquier emigrated with her husband from Maine,
arriving in San Francisco in June 1849. She watched San
Francisco explode into a cosmopolitan city where demand for
goods was high and where luxury items such as ice cream and
fancy silk dresses were commonplace.
Document 6
San Francisco Custom Ledger volume for 1854–1855, U.S.
Treasury Department
An alphabetical registry of ships arriving in the port of San
Francisco during these two years that are carrying goods for
import, with each entry containing the name of the ship, its
nautical classification, its date of arrival, its nationality, and
the cargo declared for import—useful because the various
entries highlight the world-wide commercial connections of
California and the incredible variety of goods brought in to
meet the needs of not merely the miners but the urban
population and the new industries of the Golden State.
Document 7
“California, The Cornucopia of the World,” California Immigration Commission, Chicago, 1833 (Broadside)
Despite gold mining’s continued importance to California’s
economy through the 1860s and 1870s, California’s
agricultural possibilities took on greater significance. During
the 1870s and 1880s, broadsides and brochures describing
the marvelous opportunities available for farmers proclaimed
that a new golden age was at hand for the Golden State.
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Lesson Five
Document 8
Alonzo Delano, The Central Pacific Railroad, or ‘49 and
‘69, San Francisco, 1868
A pamphlet published as the first transcontinental railroad
approached completion. This pamphlet is important because of
Delano’s importance as a chronicler of the Gold Rush
experience, and because of his reflections about the great
changes in California and the significance of the soon-to-be
completed railroad.
IV.
LESSON ACTIVITIES
1. Give students copies of Document 1, statistics on emigration to San
Francisco compiled by the Senators and Representatives elect. Based
on this chart, have students create a graph showing the arrival of
emigrants to San Francisco each month. Ask students to add up the
total number of female and male Forty-Niners who arrived during this
period, and to determine the ratio between males and females.
2. Ask students to compare and contrast the images of San Francisco
provided in this lesson. (Documents 2, 3, and 4) Have students work
in groups to design an illustrated lettersheet depicting the growth of
San Francisco in words and images.
3. Show students Documents 5 and 6, Mary Jane Megquier’s letter,
and the U.S. Treasury Department, San Francisco Custom Ledger
Volume for 1854–1855. On the board, work with students to
categorize the types of goods coming in to San Francisco by 1854.
(Luxuries, necessities, etc.). Ask students to comment on the nature
of those goods and what this tells us about life in San Francisco by the
mid-1850s. Does Megquier’s letter provide further evidence about life
in San Francisco? How? Use the “Questions to Consider” as a guide
to this discussion.
4.
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The California seal was designed in 1849. Ask students to draw a
graphic organizer indicating which symbols depict the period prior to
the Gold Rush, which symbols predict the period of the Gold Rush,
and which symbols depict California throughout the ages. In groups
ask students to create a modern seal depicting California today.
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Lesson Five
5.
Using Document 7, have students create an illustrated brochure for
California or their community. Do students still consider California to
be the “Cornucopia of the World”? Do students want to encourage
people to come to California, or keep them away? Why?
6.
In pairs, ask students to take the role of a reporter interviewing a
shopkeeper or boarding house proprietress in San Francisco to see
how the Gold Rush is affecting their business.
7
Distribute Document 8, the brochure on the Central Pacific
Railroad. Have students draw a Venn diagram comparing and
contrasting how the overland journey to San Francisco had changed
in just a few short years. Have students predict what effects the
proposed railway would have on California.
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Document 1
Lesson Five
Memorial of the Senators and Representatives Elect
from California
(31st cong. 1st session), Washington, 1850
. . . The following statistical table, compiled from the
records of the harbor master’s office at San Francisco,
presents a more reliable and satisfactory account of the
emigration which arived there by sea from the 12th of
April to the 31st of December, 1849, viz:. . . .
[Chart is adapted from the original].
Month(s)
Males
Females
April–June
July
August
September
October
November
December
5,677
3,565
3,806
5,680
3,950
2,155
3,436
209
49
87
122
119
81
133
[*NOTE: The data is replicated from the original document but has been
reformatted for this lesson.]
Questions to Consider
1. What is the total number of emigrants arriving by sea in San
Francisco between April and December, 1849?
2. What is the ratio of males to females?
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Document 2
Lesson Five
“Street in San Francisco”
Joseph Warren Revere, Watercolor Drawing,
in manuscript autobiography, 1848
Questions to Consider
1. What does this drawing show? Describe the scene in detail.
2. What is a “tent city?”
3. What evidence is there of “western,” or American influence?
4. What evidence is there of Chinese influence?
5. What does the illustration show about the settling of San Francisco?
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Document 3
Lesson Five
“San Francisco”
Lettersheet published by Marvin & Hitchcock
Questions to Consider
1. Describe the scene depicted in this lettersheet.
2. What activities are depicted?
3. Why are there so many ships in the port?
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Document 4
Lesson Five
“San Francisco 1858”
California lettersheet
published by Britton & Rey
San Francisco
1858
San Francisco
1849 & 1850
Fr
om TTelegraph
elegraph Hill
From
Questions to Consider
1. Describe the scenes depicted in the 1858 lettersheet.
2. How are the people dressed in the top image?
3. How has San Francisco changed since 1848, as depicted in the
Revere drawing? (Document 2)
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Document 5
Lesson Five
Letter from Mary Jane Megquier to
“My Dear Children”
April 8, 1853
. . . Here you can step out of your house and see the whole world
spread out before you in every shape and form. Your ears are filled
with the most delightful music your eyes are dazzled with everything
that is beautiful the streets are crowded the whole city are in the
street We have near us a splendid ice cream saloon which surpasses
anything I have seen in the states, very large windows with
magnificent buff silk damask curtains with lace like those that
Newhall Sturtevant boasts so much of two large rooms are connected
by an arch hung with the same material, marble tables, floors and
counters and as light as day at all hours of the night, the homeliest
man in the city treated me to an ice cream there a few nights since at
one dollar a glass.
I wish you could be here a short time it is so pleasant to have a plenty
of money we cannot seem to get a thousand together but if I want ten
or twenty it is always ready that I want five dollars to go to P[ortland],
it will be hard work to raise it. I have been making me a brown silk,
and next week I am going to make me a black one, to day I have been
making a pink thibet sack trimmed with velvet ribbon but I am sure
I do not know when I will wear it. I shall send you some pieces of them
by Mr. Adams who has promised to take a package for me, he goes in
May I had a line from Artie one page just the same number of lines and
sentences in every one, Give abundance of love to him and Charlie,
Bettie, Johny and all the Aunts, cousins and the Turner folds,
Mother
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Document 5
Lesson Five
Questions to consider
1. In the few short years between 1849, when San Francisco was a “tent
city,” and 1853, when Mary Jane Megquier wrote this letter, how had
San Francisco changed?
2. According to Mary Jane Megquier, how did the delights of San
Francisco compare to those of Maine?
3. How do you imagine Mary Jane’s children felt about Mary’s life in
California?
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Questions to consider
1. Describe the goods aboard these ships.
2. What items would you consider to be
luxury items?
3. What do these shipments suggest
about how life had changed in San
Francisco since 1849?
Document 6
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Lesson Five
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San Francisco Custom Ledger, Volume for 1854–1855
U.S. Treasury Department
Lesson Five
Document 6
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Document 7
Lesson Five
“California, The Cornucopia of the World”
California Immigration Commission, Chicago, 1833 (Broadside)
Questions to Consider
1.
Describe this broadside in detail. What does it say about California?
2.
What does “cornucopia” mean?
3.
What part of the Californian economy does this poster describe?
4.
Why do you think the immigration commission decided to make
this broadside?
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Document 8
Lesson Five
The Central Pacific Railroad, or ‘49 and ‘69
Alonzo Delano, San Francisco, 1868
A pamphlet published as the first trans-continental railroad approached completion.
. . . from the length of time consumed in making our way across
arid deserts, in building rafts and bridges to cross streams, or making
roads over mountains, where floods drove us from river valleys to the
hills. At that period our march resembled in some measure that of an
army. Owing to the hostility of the Indians we were under the
necessity of traveling in large companies, and of establishing guards
at night to protect our animals and property from midnight forays of
these mountain robbers, who, in spite of all our care, would
sometimes swoop down and stampede our stock. Cases occurred
where families were shipwrecked from this cause alone, and were
dependent for further locomotion upon other and more fortunate
emigrants.
Six months upon the Plains, nineteen years ago, and California a
wilderness. What is it now? The Californian has only to cast his eye
over our land, and see its growing cities, its beautiful towns, its
immense commerce with the whole world, its magnificent farms, its
thousands of neat and comfortable homes, its manufactories, its
railroads and its overflowing abundance of comforts and luxuries of
life, the produce of its rich soil through the energies of our people. To
an old pioneer, whose memory of his early trials is still fresh, these
changes seem like the enchantment of the magician’s wand.
But a few years had passed before the growing condition of our
State made the necessity apparent of having a more direct and speedy
communication with the Atlantic States. In all business matters, and
for an important part of our emigration, we were forced to pass over a
foreign territory, subject to such restrictions as the caprice of a foreign
government might impose upon our people; and it required nearly
thirty days, through the slow steamers of those days, for letters and
business advices to reach their destination, while it took another
month to get a reply, however urgent the business might be. We were
in comparative isolation with the world. As California increased in
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Document 8
Lesson Five
population, and in prosperity, this need was more severely felt, and by
degrees a railroad across the continent began to be earnestly talked of,
and its feasibility considered. The General Government, foreseeing
that in case of war, our Pacific possessions would be in a great measure
at the mercy of a foreign fleet, which might blockade our harbors, and
do immense damage, even if they could not overrun our territory,
earnestly set about investigating the possibility of opening a direct
communication with the Pacific coast, and in the years 1853 and 1854
instituted a commission to survey the uninhabited country between
the Missouri river and the Pacific Ocean, to ascertain the feasibility of
constructing a railroad over its own territory. It was found by surveys
continued to 1856, that no serious obstacle to a great national work (for
this was worthy of being the work of the whole nation) existed, until
they came to the bold front and stupendous wall of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains; the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains afforded an easy
gateway through that rocky barrier, while the track across the desert
of the Great Basin opposed no obstacle as great as many of the roads
already built on the Atlantic board; but the snowy mountains with their
summits covered with eternal snows, and reaching to the clouds—
could they be passed?
Questions to Consider
1. How had the journey to San Francisco changed with the coming of the
railroad?
2. What were the obstacles to laying the railroad across the nation?
3. Predict how commerce and communication across the nation would
change with the transcontinental railroad.
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