Weaving a Different World: Women and the California Gold Rush
Author(s): Nancy J. Taniguchi
Source: California History, Vol. 79, No. 2, Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and
Community in Gold Rush California (Summer, 2000), pp. 141-168
Published by: University of California Press in association with the California Historical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25463691 .
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6
Weaving
a
Different
World
Women and the California Gold Rush
Nancy J.Taniguchi
start the rush for gold. That fact was remembered more than twenty
helped
five years later by a feature writer for the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, who
to a hotel in "a quarter where up town ladies seldom visit" for an in
risked venturing
there located "Aunty Jenny" (Eliz
terview. The lady-like reporter, Mary P.Winslow,
A woman
at Coloma.
She and her
former cook for Sutter's workforce
abeth J. Bays Wimmer),
some
relief from the
husband had arrived in the city in 1874 "in the hope of getting
of
Pioneers"
with
the
claim
that
had
Marshall's
society
they
original gold nugget,
in
Winslow
invited
them to dine, and af
from
the
their
millrace,
possession.
plucked
was settled in the
on
ter dinner, when Wimmer
largest available rocking chair sucking
to
her pipe, Winslow
allowed the storytelling
begin. Jenny recounted the day when
came
into
the
her little son, Martin,
here's
house, calling, "'Here, mother,
running
and Pa found, and
something Mr. Marshall
water to see if itwill tarnish.'" Jenny
replied,
. . . and if it is
lye kettle
gold itwill be gold
after her lye soap was removed and cut, she
they want you to put it into the saleratus
"'This is gold, and Iwill throw it into my
when
it comes
out.'" The
next
morning,
recalled, "At the bottom of the pot was a
I lifted in my two hands, and there was my gold as
of potash, which
double-handful
as it could be."1 True story or not, the nugget
toWinslow,
bright
(shaped, according
a
was not
out
of
the
mouth
like "a piece of spruce-gum
of
just
school-girl")
bought by
the Society of California
Pioneers, but did go on display at the 1893 Chicago World's
interest inAunty Jenny's tale.2
Fair, a symbol of continuing
By then "her" gold had become the main catalyst of subsequent California
history.
As Winslow
had revealed "this magic
instrument
that revo
put it, Jenny Wimmer
the world, gave us the Central Pacific Railroad, Emperor Norton,
Bret
cream
Palace
strawberries
and
the
Occident, the Comstock
Hotel,
ledge, [the]
year round, Mark Twain,
earthquakes, James Lick and King Kaiakaua."3
lutionized
Harte,
whole
141
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142
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
so did the lives of itswomen. The world of the Indian
transformed,
set
rancheria and Mexican
rancho became
surrounded
and submerged by Yankee
men from "the States," the
tlement.4 As the society shifted to one commanded
by
As California
of?and
for?women
likewise transformed.
Some groups
position
opportunities
or
of women were discounted
while
others
arrived, taking advantage of
destroyed,
or new labor
either in traditional
fleeting
opportunities,
categories
largely deter
women
as the Yankee men
mined
the
of
the
themselves.
But
desires
by
replicated
women
the
their past society by bringing
from
States,
many such pos
"respectable"
to harden.
evaporated and society began
Of course, none of this was anticipated. Jenny Wimmer
had not come to Coloma
to discover
Her
tasks
included
and
cooking
gold.
specific
washing
laundry for white
laborers, as well as caring for the local Indians also in Sutter's employ. Her husband,
sibilities
to James Marshall,
"had charge of the Indians, [and di
to set them to work for the
particular point
day."5 In 1855, Jenny and
re
for an article in the San Francisco Daily Herald, which
interviewed
Peter Wimmer,
rected] at what
Peter were
according
and Sarah her children, did cooking for the
that "Mrs.W.,
assisted by Martin
in
time
her
shirts for the Indians."6
leisure
party, and employed
making
Then gold was discovered. As the rush started, much of the northern California
ported
to the Mother
flocked
population
handiwork
Lode. The
of Sierra Indian women
earliest gold seekers often utilized the
to get rich. As the San Francisco
in their haste
on
included rockers and
14,1848, extractive methods
reported
August
Californian
or an Indian
use
a
toms. "But far the
but
number
nothing
large tin pan
largest
long
to
the
it
bottom."7
until
the
into
the
dirt
and
shake
which
basket
gold gets
they place
such asMr. Murphy, who had "a small tribe
Indians worked
side by side with miners
of wild Indians who gather gold for him ... in part [due] to the fact that he has mar
attractions."8
of many personal
ried the daughter
of the chief?a
young woman
These
peaceful,
incoming
cooperative,
who
Argonauts,
woven
beautifully
existence
Women's
his battered
THE
baskets
sometimes
routed
with
disappeared
familial
Indian women
in the sea of
foundered
relationships
from the hills and replaced their
of eastern manufacture.
products
mass-produced
in the stock figure of the lone, unshaven
miner
with
tin pan.
UNACCULTURATED
due
men, fresh from the East, set the tone for gold-rush California
on
fe
i860
males
to the sheer weight
outnumbered
the
of numbers. Based
census,
to two. However,
the sex ratio for those under
in San Francisco
males
by three
to
so
was
fifteen
the marriageable
about even,
fifteen
fifty?
population?from
Unacculturated
faced even more
skewed proportions,
wherein
about 47 percent
of the men
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found no
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
143
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Eliza Jane Steen Johnson, a native of County Antrim, Ireland,
who came to California in the Gold Rush with her husband, John,
and opened a dry goods and millinery shop off Portsmouth Square
in San Francisco. A strikingly handsome woman, independent
minded and ambitious, she helped make the enterprise a success
by modeling clothing for the men who crowded the store.With
its overwhelmingly male population, California presented women
with both unique opportunities and challenges. Courtesy Oakland
Museum of California; gift ofBarbara Smith.
so many women
because
stayed in San Francisco
ready marriage partners. Because
or other reasons, the
of
of better amenities, greater work opportunities,
proportion
men ac
in the diggings.9 Consequently,
males to females was even more unbalanced
quired
order
most
to
of the gold. Women
had to find ways
to earn or extract
it from
them
survive.
Furthermore,
although
Forty-niners
came
from
all over
the globe,
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the majority
in
WEAVING
144
were white
men
from
the northern
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
states. Most
had been
reared with
the typical
slice of so
mothers. Their
of the day by good, God-fearing
men went
the
of
the
notion
"separate spheres" in which
ciety
preoccupied
out and swung the ax, killed Indians,
in sordid politics, pursued grasping
engaged
for gain, while women,
and gambled
commerce,
pure vessels of societal morality,
American
conventions
was
with
to re
to nurture havens for embattled males when
they should be able
stayed home
a
return
to
some
turn.10 Before courting such women,
resolutely awaited
Argonauts
the East, such as avid correspondent Horace
Snow, who longed for "old New England
that slipping
believed
and its comely girls!"11 Like Horace, most male Argonauts
into sin, vice, and consorting with "bad" women was the surest road to hell. Not
but they retained ambivalent
that they did not do such things in faraway California,
to revert to type
attitudes about their own behavior and were more or less willing
women
shared the view
their conformity. They
when
showed up to demand
"good"
that "there
articulated by pioneer Eliza Farnham, who wrote
of sacred womanhood
no
but is
honorable woman
that is not an altar;
is no inviolate fireside in California
and peace, to a circle of careworn, trou
of virtue, morality, happiness,
missionary
men."12 She acted on this perceived need by offer
bled, and often, alas, demoralized
of age twenty
to organize a
of highly respectable women
ing
large-scale emigration
It was not a success.13
five or older to San Francisco.
a
Testaments
abound
she feared. For example, an account of
Lee Whipple-Haslam
(her first name is un
to the demoralization
Lode by Mrs.
to a
life worth
"in early days I have seen all that made
that
known)
living
a
in five minutes,
life, destroyed
by man's
young and handsome man, vibrant with
man's
of
another
seduction
the
fists." This observation was occasioned
by
attempted
the southern Mother
revealed
wife. The would-be
seducer
carried
life-long
woman.14
value of at least one gold-rush
eastern men who panned
Many
streams
people other than themselves, but the relative
ness and curiosity. Around
them they found
Roman Catholic Mexicans;
Spanish-speaking,
and
Yokuts; citizens of Pacific nations
Maidu,
scars of his beating,
testimony
to the
little experience with
a
lack of women
spurred
general open
a variety of unfamiliar
types?darker,
in the Sierra had
native peoples as varied as the Hupa,
such as the Chinese,
Peruvians, Chi
had no prescribed
These people, and especially their women,
leans, and Hawaiians.
reactions to these "ex
the Forty-niners'
niche in the Yankee
cosmology. Therefore,
some
otics" had to be based on other notions?sometimes
race, sometimes
religion,
and in
born of novelty. This gold-rush multiethnicity
the pure inventiveness
but opened new
to the disadvantage
of some of the women,
worked
ternationalism
for others, at least until the moral civilizers that the men recognized?
possibilities
eastern
a
in force. Then,
their own Yankee women?arrived
newly reconstructed
times
own dichotomy
of "good" and "bad" women,
of femininity,
style society imposed its
a division that
lesser concerns of race, class, and ethnicity.
superseded
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WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
145
California natives from an interior tribe attend to daily chores in awood engraving of the
mid-i 850s. The Gold Rush disrupted traditional patterns of life for Indians throughout
their
a
and within
California,
numbers
by
couple
three-quarters
of decades,
or more.
warfare,
Even
more
disease,
and
than
the men,
starvation
Indian
had
women
decreased
suffered
from the violence and exploitation that marked the era. From John Russell Bartlett, Per
sonalNarrative ofExplorations and Incidents (1854). California Historical Society, FN-30529.
"wretched
creatures"
there were
to this acceptance?most
in the prej
exceptions
persistently
na
udices against California's
earlier inhabitants. Generally,
Yankees
condemned
one band from another, nor
to
tive Californians
without
bothering
distinguish
Of
course,
mission
from "gentile." "One fundamental
difference
between
the
ex-neophyte
a
historian
and the Anglo-American
modern
"has
cultures,"
noted,
always
Hispanic
been the fact
whereas
that
the former
utilized
the latter never did. There
simply
the native
was
no
as its
source of labor
primary
cosmos for
in
the
American
place
the Indian."15
One
of the more
charitable
views
of California
native women
came from "Dame
that she previously
Shirley" in her first letter from Rich Bar in 1851. She admitted
as
in the Leather
"took" to the Indians portrayed
forest
heroes
that
live
"glorious
noted "the extreme beauty of the limbs of the In
Stocking Tales." She consequently
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WEAVING
146
dian women
feature
of California"
... of these wretched
A DIFFERENT
despite the "haggardness
creatures."16
WORLD
of expression,
and ugliness
of
were
as not much different from the animals
people
perceived
and their women, when
their gender was even noticed, usually served
as
or
of
Some
locals even took Indian slaves. In 1846, the
prey, derision,
objects
pity.
to extend
commander
of California,
found it necessary
John Montgomery,
military
a
to persons
to service
addressed
and
proclamation
particularly
"imprisoning
holding
In general,
in the forest,
native
[that] the Indian population must not be regarded as
were
state
sentiments
lofty
directly countermanded
by the
legislature
of 1852, which permitted
the enslavement
of Indian women, men, and children if a
small sum be given as a bond to the county justice of the peace against cruel abuse.
Indians could also be arrested as vagrants and sold to the highest bidder for up to
was
four months'
unpaid labor, their "vagrancy" ensured by the fact that their land
taken up as "unoccupied" by opportunistic
pioneers.18
To some extent, this picture of absolute destruction
is belied by historian Albert
to the survival of Indian women.
But while
Hurtado, who makes
specific reference
"survival" may have been achieved,
it was at a grim cost. In 1853, an official report
Indians
against
slaves."17 These
their will...
acts of
among In
County noted "open and disgusting
prostitution"
so
driven by poverty and misery, to the extent that syphilis had proceeded
far in one camp that the women
"were unable to walk."19 Indian women
also suffered
from El Dorado
dian women
rape aswell as more generalized violence (murder, burning of their rancherias, de
struction of food supplies) that characterized Argonaut-Indian
relations as awhole.20
Men who married
Indians in an attempt to form stable unions could also be dis
from
couraged
or
prevented from doing
policy. Some Argonauts
government
aged these unions.
sometimes
so, sometimes
by social mores,
by
race that discour
of
sectional
ideas
imported
Brewer, a future Yale professor,
depre
example, William
and "poor white
trash'
cated "squaw men," equating them with "rank secessionists"
vio
A
from the frontier slave states, Missouri,
and Texas."21
Arkansas,
particularly
For
to Thomas
1854 among the southern Yokuts. According
"the
raised
the
Yokuts,
Jefferson ("Uncle JefF) Mayfield,
government
partially among
on
and
Fresno
and a
had been trying to establish Indian reservations
Rivers,
Kings
was
to
Indians
of
the
round
all
of
the
of
up
troop
valley." They
attempting
cavalry
who had been living with his
rode up to the cabin of a white man named Mann,
the mokee. Mann
told them that she
Indian wife for several years and "demanded
lent reaction
occurred
about
his wife, that he had provided for her for several years, and that he could con
to do so in the future." The expedition's
be
that the woman
leader demanded
refused to do. The soldier forced his way into the cabin.
brought forth, which Mann
was
tinue
started to drag her out.
the bed, and the cavalryman
ran to her aid and was shot in the back and
for help. Mann
She called to Mann
and took her with
killed by one of the troopers outside. The troopers tied the mokee
"The mokee
had crawled under
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WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
147
them and left Mann
lying where he had fallen." The Indians later buried him, and
saw the woman
Uncle Jeff subsequently
"many times and heard her tell what hap
she
survived, but with what future?
pened."22 Obviously,
LEAD
The
War.
INTO
GOLD
future first intruded
Almost
American
as the last lead bullets were
simultaneously,
gold
belief that a benevolent
of one nation
fired
in the Mexican-American
was
to the rampant
discovered,
lending credence
Protestant God assured the "Manifest Destiny"
over
over Mexicans.
The
earliest views of
another, of Americans
as
accounts
American
such
that of Richard
superiority had been shaped by firsthand
.
. .
who
the
"fondness
for
described
dress
[that] is ex
Henry Dana,
Californias
a
or
a
is
their
ruin.
of
sometimes
A present
fine mantle,
of
necklace or
cessive, and
war itself had
pair of earrings gains the favor of the greater part."23 The
generated
a spate of
as
literature by such famous hacks
Ned Buntline. His formula
potboiler
novels involved heroic American
Catholic
frontiersmen;
backward,
superstitious
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148
A DIFFERENT
WEAVING
WORLD
beautiful
senoritas who
men; and breathtakingly
evil, cowardly Mexican
in
fell
love
with
the
Yankee
frontiersman
his
(and adopted
predictably
ways). The
American
elite as well as the working
class gobbled
up these accounts,
ensuring
priests;
to their encounters with
that many would bring inaccurate, preconceived
notions
in California.24 These views differed
realMexicans
sharply from actual Californio
on the
put strong emphasis
sanctity of family, maintained
a
mission
traditional
the inclusion
elite, supported
system, encouraged
on ranchos as laborers and as house servants, and
carefully chaperoned
a landed
values, which
until
an
early marriage
with
a
stationed
suitably
husband.25
Thus,
of Indians
daughters
conflict was
inevitable.
The most
on
ac
occurred inDownieville
egregious confrontation
July 5,1851. The
count of
for whom
the town was named,
indicated not
Downie,
Major William
on women.
the
racial
but
Downie
the
value
de
only
prevailing
prejudice
placed
scribed aman named Cannon,
drunk after the Independence
Day cel
falling-down
smashed
ebration, who
couple. He apparently
only
insulted
her. The
through
assaulted
next
of an adobe hut occupied by aMexican
the woman,
claimed Cannon
although Downie
the door
day, Cannon
to
apologize.
returned with
his male
of the
companion
in Spanish?not
heated words
previous night, supposedly
Increasingly
understood
between Cannon
and the Mexican
by the companion?passed
couple.
a
to
out
the
knife
and
stabbed
Cannon
death.
woman,
Juanita, pulled
Suddenly,
The companion
rushed back to camp and a lynch mob assembled. Although
cries of
man was
"Hang the greaser devils!" rang out, theMexican
acquitted. Juanita, dressed
in her finest, was led to a hastily erected scaffold. "Big" Bill Logan, notorious
for ad
a vicious
a year earlier, was summoned
as "it took a man like
ministering
flogging
that to hang awoman." Juanita spoke to "the bloodthirsty mob," explaining why she
how many present under
had killed and that she would do it again. (One wonders
she placed the noose
her.) Then
scaffold into eternity. . . .But there was
stood
it took years
over her own
neck
and "leaped from the
of the Yuba which
a blot on the fair name
to wash
out," concluded Downie.26
came
partly from resultant publicity27
Perhaps the Yuba River region's notoriety
woman
died violently with no echoing fanfare. In
A year later, another Hispanic
to facilitate
June 1851, arsonists took flame to San Francisco
looting. They achieved
an
originally from England who kept
so numerous,"
"that they were al
she wrote,
lowed to go at large after giving up the articles they had stolen." She also reported
woman
a poor Mexican
the "horror of the night was increased by a man shooting
looters went free.28
without
named Carmelita
any cause"; this, while
their ends, as reported by Mary Ball,
were
insightful diary. "The robbers
Ball's
account
awidow
of the lack of repercussions
the views ofWilliam
Streeter,
squares with
1850s. He described
the Americans:
for killing
an observer
"the majority
aMexican
woman
of Santa Barbara
of these
rough,
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easily
in the
reckless men
WEAVING
had
little
hospitality
tered them
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
149
of the Californians.
respect for persons or property
. This
.
of the latter was often repaid with
insult.
. . .The
treatment
generous
embit
and together with other causes
towards the Americans
[the Californios]
to American
their
reconciliation
Similar opinions
pep
occupation."29
prevented
for
the
of
interviewed
later
Hubert
Howe
Bancroft's
testimony
pered
Californias
histories.
of familial loyalty.
stressed the centrality of family and importance
They
as
a
was
man
who "left a wife and
chastised by Rosalia Vallejo de Leese
John Sutter
was
two black
in
several children
with
[in Europe
and]
open concubinage
living
women
in his vessel from the Sandwich
whom
he had brought
is
[Hawaiians]
land."30 Those
women
who
encountered
as barbarians
the Bear
hated and despised
Flaggers
as
and saw the Americans
Californios,
the civilized
assaulting
both
and literally.31 Finally, Angustias
de la Guerra
figuratively
lacking
a
no
nos
los californios, y mucho menos
de Ord asserted, "La toma del pats
gusto nada
a las mujeres"32 Earlier
an
translation
rendered
apparent double negative
faulty
.
.
.
a
into
didn't mind the Amer
("no
nada)
is, that the Californios
positive?that
them
in virility,
ican takeover, and it bothered
the women
least of all?instead
of recognizing
the
use of nada as
to
Spanish
emphatic
language, equivalent
"they really didn't like. ..."
The saying should thus be more properly translated: "The Californios
really didn't
like the [American]
takeover [literally, the taking of the country],
and the women
liked
it even
less."33
the already civilized nature of the very dons who constituted
the main tar
of
Bear
Fremont's
Mariano
and
(headed by John
get
Flagger displeasure
prisoners,
Salvador Vallejo, and Jacob Leese, the husband of Rosalia Vallejo) and their own an
Given
government,
imosity to the Mexican
gos were really after. Diarist Mary
Californios
no doubt wondered
Ball, who
in 1851 was managing
Hotel in San Francisco, had this insight: "Julio [July] 15Martes
what
the grin
the Oriental
[Tuesday].Had a
some
party last night for the Vallejo family who have been
days with us. All the men
of the army seem crazy after California
Senoritas or their Padres' land, I think too
often it must be the land and not the women."34 Vallejo had his own views of this
road to acculturation.
from
southern
ried Yankees
Historian
Leonard Pitt specified four Yankee-Hispanic
unions
California
and noted that "two of Mariano
Vallejo's daughters mar
. . . and his son Platon returned from aNew York medical
school with
a bride born
Yankee
WOMEN
in Syracuse."35 Most
remained
however,
Californias,
segregated
most
better
Besides,
society.
prospects mining
Argonauts
anticipated
IN THE
From
the beginning,
remarked
Monterey,
diggings
forty-six
from
gold.
MINES
women
mined.
In August
the alcalde of
1848,Walter
Colton,
of Sonoranian
who
has
worked
in the dry
birth,
and brought back two thousand one hundred and twenty
on "awoman,
days,
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150
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
the gold fields himself, Colton
remarked on a nearby dis
five dollars."36 Touring
a curious stone,
covery, where "a little girl this morning
picked up what she thought
on
to
it
the extraneous matter, found it a
and brought
her mother, who,
removing
six and seven pounds."37 A general rush for the
between
lump of pure gold, weighing
a half dollar worth
of
Sonoran woman,
finding only about
place ensued. Another
. . . strode
gold in the bottom of her bowl, "hurled it back again into the water, and
insulted. Poor woman!" he con
off with the indignant air of one who feels himself
tinued.
make
in our large cities
"[H]ow little thou knowest of those patient females, who
a shirt or vest for ten cents!"38 This
sad scenario, the result of male control of
was
soon
at inflated prices.
in California,
although
replicated
women
still dug gold for themselves
and their families. Mining
Intermittently,
at the [1850] census re
that
"the
briefest
historian
glance
Sally Zanjani
reported
women
listed as miners'?
veals several possible combinations
among the gold rush
capital,
daughters
working
with
a mother
or a father
and women
on their own
came
as friends
the rumor of a
as lone
inevitably
teenagers."39 Almost
working
together and
as a man to
woman who had
in the diggings?
herself
join her husband
disguised
a pay
so many
women who
reported
lonely males.40 Two
perhaps fearing attack from
.
earned particular notice because "both . . were
streak near Marysville
seventy years
on the streets of Paris for
who traded homelessness
old."41 A famous Frenchwoman,
She soon
had arrived in 1850 seeking work as a maid.
opportunities,
name
of Marie
"cut off her hair, donned men's clothes, took the
turned to mining,
went
in
the
and
Pantalon,
gold country."42
prospecting
of dig
Women
who had first adopted other pursuits soon realized the possibilities
California's
to it. For
their own gold, or at least increasing their proximity
example, by Au
and had
San Francisco's Oriental Hotel
gust of 1852,Mary Ball had quit managing
and dealt with cholera and
she boarded miners
gone north to Barton's Bar. There
ging
a
illnesses using remedies in Good's Study ofMedicine,
gift she had received be
she noted, "I have received over $120 and have as
fore leaving the East. In October
and no doubt can make more as I get more
much more on my book for medacine,
other
. . .No
rest, a man has just come for me to dress his leg."43
to pay well for scarce feminine services could be height
The Argonaut's willingness
woman
a
reminded him of female relatives he had left at home
ened when
working
was
this phenomenon
with no financial
reported by the
support.44 An example of
known.
a
mystified Louise Clappe (Dame Shirley), who described widow who had lost her
no one to accompany her
back to the States, she pressed on to California with her eight sons and one daughter,
the oldest apparently a teenager. "She used to wash shirts, and iron them on a chair?
success. But the gentlemen
in the open air, of course; and you can fancy with what
husband
to cholera after a few weeks
on the trail west. With
too generous
to be critical, and as they paid her three or four times as much as
sum in a few
Poor woman!
She
she asked, she accumulated quite a handsome
days....
were
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WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
151
A woman joins a party of miners working a long torn atAuburn Ravine in 1852.Women
found a range of opportunities for earning money in the diggings, from washing clothes
to preparing meals to dealing monte, and despite the hard labor entailed in
placer mining,
some toiled with
pick and shovel and pan alongside men. Courtesy California State Library.
told me
she seldom gave them as much as they could eat, at any one meal."45 Her chil
rated "as healthy looking a set
dren, with the exception of the eldest, were nonetheless
as
ever
of ragged little wretches
I saw."46Dame
about the economic
Shirley's myopia
difficulties
Her
of women
a doctor,
alone can be partially excused by her own lack of need to work.
at the local hotel fixed their meals, and
supported her; the cook
husband,
the one time she tried gold panning: "Iwet my feet, tore my dress, spoilt a pair of new
. . . and lost a valuable
in this my labor of love."47
gloves
breastpin,
Poorer women
took gold panning much more seriously. Hard-working
Mary Bal
a
woman
at
from New Hampshire
lou,
slightly educated white
Negro Bar,
living
took a holiday break from her boardinghouse
chores to pan. As she wrote home to
her sons, "I just washed
out about a Dollars
worth
of gold dust
the fourth
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of July in
WEAVING
152
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
a little
so you see that I am
mining
doing
to rock the [miner's] cradle to wash out gold
in the States."48 California's
the Babies
opportunities
the cradle
it harder
in this gold region but I think
than it is to rock the cradle for
always
came at a
price.
EXOTICS
UNPREDICTABLE
a Frenchwoman
in trousers, or two septuagenarians
pay
shoveling
sight of
ex
most
a
so
seem
not
in
the
where
land
outlandish
did
dirt,
elephant" (that
"seeing
for life in general. In fluc
served as a handy metaphor
otic of beastly adventures)
as well as individual taste, dic
circumstance
and
setting,
society,
tuating gold-rush
Yankee
tated the judgments placed on women,
particularly where Americans?and
most
not
of
the
The
dominate.
sensibilities?did
settlements,
gold-rush
Hispanic
Pe
had
also
attracted
but
from
that
Mexicans
been
founded
had
state,
Sonora,
by
Perkins
diarist
William
American
and
French, predominately.
ruvians, Chileans,
a difference
at
wrote
his
of
there, including one evening when
experiences
length
to a cold-blooded
over
a Frenchwoman,
led
over a game of
by
presided
lansquenet,
. . .
"the beautiful Mile. Virginie
murder. He returned to the gaming
table, where
a
me with
"Ah Monsieur,
smile." After
quel
exclaiming
fascinating
greeted
horreur!'" she described recent events "with all the calmness she would have evinced
The
had
she been
smeared with
a scene from a novel. To me, her delicate white hands
relating
. . ."49Also
in Sonora, Englishman
blood and I left in disgust.
seemed
Frank
saw "a
herself,
sings in Italian and accompanies
lady in black velvet who
Marryat
and applause on account of the scarcity of the fair
and who elicits great admiration
sex in this region."50 In another saloon, Marryat
remarked upon "a very interesting
con
at a part of the bar where
and well-looking
young girl [who] was attending
in her
was sold. I should not have supposed her to have black blood
fectionery
once
at
a
New
me
been
sold
that she had been
slave, and had
veins, but J. B. assured
a Yankee woman,
at a very high price."51 Even
in Sonora's
to
survive
conventions
in her social
somewhat
Orleans
Elizabeth
isolation.
bent
Gunn,
Seldom able to
lived five miles
female, who
away, she made other
England
and a Catholic,
New
from
Mrs.
included
friends
Orleans,
Yancey
Mrs. Lane. Even her French neighbor, who
sister,
younger
supported her mother,
to
out
the
cards
the
and
to
houses
the gambling
and brother "by going
play
dealing
visit
the nearest New
in town. These
ers," did not receive her censure.52
future for Cal
The social dynamics of female loneliness also shaped a distinctive
Seise arrived in 1848 with the Gille
ifornia's first female Chinese
immigrant. Marie
New
York.53 Her name had been ac
from
traders originally
spie family, Hong Kong
to a Portuguese
sailor inMacao, who had later been lost
her marriage
quired upon
as a
was
hired by Sarah Bentner Gillespie
she
sea.
at
After
serving another family,
as
as a servant but above a servant?rather
to live "not...
personal maid, and grew
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WEAVING
a
WORLD
A DIFFERENT
[Sarah's] fullest confidence."
in 1854 in the first such ceremony
her
companion?enjoying
even confirmed
together
153
The
two women
at San Francisco's
were
Trin
side by side.54
Church,
kneeling
ity Episcopal
women were
most
Chinese
Unlike Marie
slaves, procured for
Seise,
gold-rush
an
tradition
cultural
Chinese
regarded daughters from
prostitution.
Long-standing
sons
were
not
in
than
because
valued less
economic perspective. They
they could
to
in
them
work
their
husband's
that
raised
and
left
the
herit,
family
family upon
marriage,
corrected,
especially
family. One
other
mui
no return on investment. This
could be
imbalance
essentially
providing
were sold or bartered to pay
to some extent, if the
family debts,
daughter
earn
an
to her
income
that
be
could
remanded
if she could, after transferal,
nations,
could be useful,
ways a daughter
skills. Daughters
through her womanly
"little sister" in Cantonese?to
provide
of the main
was
tsai?literally
as were women
just
could be indentured
domestic
service
of
as
on a
to amore
this system, the
basis
prosperous Chinese
family. Under
twenty-four-hour
so she could
was
at
to be freed through an arranged marriage
eighteen
girl
supposed
were
own
start her
well-treated
household.55 Like Seise, sometimes mui tsai
by their
in faraway America,
if the wife beat them or the husband
was
tsai could also, despite
there
very little recourse.56 Mui
which made
them the slaves of
be sold into prostitution,
host
families, although,
sexually assaulted them,
their original agreement,
their owners for life.57
The
combination
men
Chinese
of Chinese
attitudes
toward
to Gum San
the sizable influx of
daughters,
and the American
fascination with
("Gold Mountain"),
was said to be four
and girls (the ideal age for a Chinese
prostitute
a
for Chinese
Ah Toy, San Francisco's
teen) created
high demand
prostitution.58
come in 1849 to "better her condition"
most famous Chinese
in this
had
prostitute,
exotic women
pursuit. Men
ounce
of
gold
thronged
dust
"to
to gaze on this
fascinating
gaze
upon
her
countenance,"
creature.
as
the
In 1849, sne charged
newspaper
put
an
it, un
more
than just her uncovered
face.59 This fact emerged only
doubtedly meaning
because she had filed suit in court against those who paid her in brass shavings in
stead of gold, a course of action practical only because
she was a free woman
(not
or
a
a
suc
combination.60
She
married,
indentured,
slave) and spoke English,
unique
an attempt
status in court,
her independent
cessfully maintained
despite
by local
men
an
to
return
to
Chinese
who wished
her
alleged "husband" inHong Kong.61 In
1850, she was again in court as a public nuisance, and in 1851 to repel an attempt by
Chinatown
leaders to control her and the two other Chinese
she had re
prostitutes
on her
to maintain
her status, and was
employed.62 She relied partly
beauty
a Frenchman
as
one
in 1851
of the "few girls who are attractive if not ac
appraised by
.
. . with
slender
her
and
tually pretty
body
laughing eyes."63 Her rivalry with the lo
structure
cal Chinese
male power
escalated,
(also
especially
against Yuen Sheng
called Norman As-sing),
who headed a local benevolent
association
and protection
cently
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WEAVING
154
men
were
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
as indicated
their influence,
by the export of
to
in
in
far up the
1852 Weaverville,
eighteen
prostitutes
Trinity County,
Sacramento Valley.64 As their business expanded, the men's power increased vis-a-vis
a female
like Ah Toy. Nonetheless,
the growing wealth
of the Chinese
independent
ring. The
able
to extend
Chinese
also opened a new niche for Chinese women
inAmerica?as
wife. In an
to
of
feminine
Ah
took this
example
society,
adaptation
changing
Toy apparently
a
in Santa Clara, where
husband
she died in 1928 just
route, settling down with
short of her hundredth
birthday.65
merchants
EXPANDING
ROLES
the Gold Rush, California was larger than life, in its appetites,
its tastes, and
During
successes and downfalls.
its spectacular
in Ire
Lola Montez
Eliza
Gilbert
(born
a
of risk and the risque, found
land), the perfect embodiment
temporary home on
She
stage and cut another niche in the edifice of gold-rush California.
in
in
of
arrived
San Francisco
the discarded mistress
of
1853 bearing the reputation
the
the mad king of Bavaria and the title his love-struck
had
bestowed,
highness
tour de force, the
Her
and
Countess
of Landsfeld.
spider dance, both fascinated
the California
to Mary
the wife of San Francisco
Jane Megquier,
physician
repelled, according
a
Thomas Megquier
San Francisco boardinghouse. Megquier
and the proprietress of
a stir here now but many
wrote
is making
that "Lola Montes
say that her
quite
to
not
attend but I do
ladies
proper for respectable
playing is of that character that is
want to see her very much. Mr Clark said that in dancing
the spider dance . . . she
was proper in so public a place."66 Whether
was
obliged to look rather higher than
or not
ever attended the
(she
performance
Megquier
Francisco did, captivated by Lola's self-constructed
those
Yankee women,
entertained. While
especially
serve
outside
those
truly (or willfully)
proprieties,
more
relatively
Lola Montez
never wrote
identity,
without
of it), much of San
and from a desire to be
protectors,
eastern
recognized
had
to ob
circles
had
freedom.
on that freedom,
charging five dollars for the
literally capitalized
a dollar in New York.
as
to
best seats in the San Francisco
theater,
only
opposed
chats over the footlights with
From her perch onstage she carried on characteristic
or
the front-row
sojourn?
patrons, whether
jeered. Her California
they cheered
Lode?
theMother
in Sacramento
and throughout
including additional appearances
a new
was
(she had already had two, and several lovers) and with
marriage
capped by
fell
marital
drawal to a cottage in Grass Valley after her three-month
relationship
star
Lotta
of the California
another future
she befriended
stage, young
apart.67 There
to dance.68
not
Montez
whom
(but
Crabtree,
very probably)
taught
allegedly
a
more
was
entertainer
than the divine
of
much
Lotta Crabtree
home-grown
Montez,
and appealed
to a different
side of the gold-rush
culture. While
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Lola was
"
:./
if
f
, ^"'
^
^
^
':''
I
As famed for her numerous
enormous
acclaim
ft.
when
love affairs as for her talents an actress, Lola Montez
in 1853
she burst
onto
the
San
Francisco
stage.
She
caused
met with
a sen
sation with her spider dance, "married" a journalist, and retreated to the
mining commu
of
Grass
where
she
actress
the
Lotta
Crabtree. Her
nity
young, budding
Valley,
encouraged
was
as
in
was
California
her
and
she
made
her
farewell
brief, though,
life,
stay
appearance
in 1856. Courtesy Bancroft Library.
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156
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
the miners of that little sister or daughter
scandalous, Lotta reminded
they had left
one
at home. Lotta
of her earliest appearances
in The Gaieties,
reportedly made
a "bit" theater
a hard
and
Mirth
Rowena
Granice,
Temple of
managed
by
Song,
a
sons.
saddled with
alcoholic husband
and two young
working wife
controlling,
That Granice was able to support her children, defend herself against her husband's
and physical intimidation,
and go on to a respectable career as Cal
ifornia's first novelist and as a journalist
inMerced
says much for the vari
County
women
available to hardworking
of the era.69
ety of economic
opportunities
In California,
theater seemed a more natural environment
for women
than in
financial
schemes
more
staid eastern America,
another female occupational
niche: theater
opening
over
to
The
first
this
Sarah
the
took
refurbished
manager.
Kirby,
adopt
employment,
It had flooded
embarcadero.
(renamed the Tehama,) near Sacramento's
Eagle Theatre
out on Christmas
hung
when
1849,as miners first stood on the benches and then allegedly
as the waters
rose.
from the balcony to enjoy the performance
1850,
By March
Sarah Kirby took over, the emphasis was on classical plays for respectable
Eve
women
(and men),
including Othello, Richard III, and Don Caesar de Bazan. She also
benefit
for such causes as the Odd Fellows
and Masons
sponsored
performances
the slighdy shady world
of the theater to objectives
of good,
Hospital,
wedding
feminine
a cholera
virtue. When
and her partner, James Stark,
impresario Tom Maguire's
of
despite
the devastations
that November,
Kirby
epidemic closed the Tehama
traveled to San Francisco
and assumed management
in both arenas
She continued
Jenny Lind Theater.
of fire, marrying
Stark after the death of her first husband,
some
two the
spending
enjoying friendship and
rivalry with other theater managers,
in Australia,
for good for the New York
atrical interludes
and leaving California
women
in
theater managers,
in
Her
activities
the
for
other
way
1869.70
stage
paved
in Sacramento, Marysville,
served her apprenticeship
cluding Laura Keene. Keene
a national
and San Francisco,
afterward making
Stockton,
impact in New York,
a
at the pinnacle
of
niche for "lady managers"
where
she established
respectable
American
RECOURSE
theater.71
TO
RESPECTABILITY
that kept Mary Jane
with the "proper" role for respectable women
preoccupation
mo
came
from
Montez
Lola
from
competitive
pardy
viewing
guildessly
Megquier
earn so much more ready money
than "good"
tives. Since "exotics" could generally
mores
in
could
women
Yankee
virtues
embedded
less
effort), stressing
(often with
The
help balance the scale. In such circumstances,
their own society.
own
Protected
respectability,
largely by her
respectable
widow Mary
women
carefully
Ball, who
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policed
first operated
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
157
a San Francisco
woman
took umbrage when one of her boarders "invited a
boardinghouse,
to dine here today. As she is not a respectable woman,
I shall
called Helen
to the insult, but go out to dinner." Ball went
visiting that evening, and
to Helen,
in reference
but as it
my conduct
reported that "everyone commends
were
turned out, she did not come." Three
days later her boarder and his friend
not submit
awoman
at my
to refuse to countenance
"still in high indignation
that nei
daring
to their wives."72 Yet, as will be shown, Ball
ther would
introduce as a companion
knew from previous experience with would-be
seducers the price exacted for moral
laxity.
In a similar
situation,
a Benevolent
highly respectable Sarah Royce had attended
and "conducted by the ladies of different churches, of which
Society Ball, organized
there were, in the city, already four." Although
diversions were
Forty-niners,
only wholesome
the ladies were
bent on diverting
the
allowed. Then arrived a "man, promi
nent for wealth
arm a
and business-power,
bearing upon his
splendidly-dressed
of her wealthy
escort."
woman, well known in the city as the disreputable
companion
sent some
to invite them both to leave. "Of
good church ladies
"gentlemen"
was
to do but
course," she concluded
smugly, "there
nothing for him
comply; and all
went on
in gold-rush
San Francisco,
the force of female
again pleasantly."73 Even
moral suasion overruled the world of vice.
The
were all of Protestant
led
denominations,
Royce referred
the
in
had
six
with
members,
1849
Presbyterians.
by
organized
They
May
including
two women,
the previously mentioned
Sarah B. Gillespie
of Hong Kong andMacao,
The
churches
to which
and Ann Hodghton,
come to
of the missionary
church at Valparaiso, Chile
(evidendy
save
a
to
sort
were
different
California
of heathen).74 They
quickly followed by the
women
and
Unitarians,
Baptists, Congregationalists,
Episcopalians,
involving
through
out.75 Just as the Gillespies
Episcopal minister brought
Mrs.
Peters),
race, adding
to California,
had brought the first Chinese woman
the
the first woman
of African descent, Annie Garrick
(later
of St. Croix,
in the Caribbean.76 Again
religion superseded
originally
to
feminine
gold-rush
the Spanish-speaking
Although
atMission
worship
diversity.
Catholics
of San Francisco
had
continued
to
the influx of Irish and French Catholics,
Dolores,
particularly the
to
led
the
establishment
of
the
named
St.
Patrick's
in 1851.The
Church
former,
aptly
came under the administration
attached
school and orphanage
of five Sisters of
led by Sister Frances Assisium McEnnis.77 While
Charity,
culturally marginalized,
the Californios
found some stability in religious
continuity,
supported by women's
orders.
religious
the presence of Catholic
eastern-based
Protestantism
be
Despite
congregations,
came the dominant
in
a
California.
It
role
persuasion
gold-rush
prescribed
particular
as noted
for women,
the
first
first
minister
in San
(and
Protestant)
by
Presbyterian
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158
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
"not till loved ones are here and the charms
sweet home' adorn
ofWeet,
...
our
men
the shores of
will
for
[San Francisco]
bay
plant and cherish institutions
remote
and
the
live
for
benefit
of
immediate
and
He
coming time,
generations."78
Francisco:
need hardly have added that without
feminine presence, any chance for "immediate
scant.
and remote generations" was mighty
While
much of gold-rush
virtue, the Jew
society might have pined for Christian
not. In common with other
men
ish Argonauts
did
certainly
gold seekers, Jewish
but the establishment
of religious institutions
Jewish women,
greatly outnumbered
on them, the
shared
solely
depended
requisite gathering being ten adult males. They
the common problem of providing
future generations,
however, and, in the local ab
sence of Jewish females, a man had to send for awife, "whom he knew
only by rep
or because
her brother or friend recommended
her, and he did not be
or
the
the
outfit."79
The
Jewish women
passage money
grudge
costly
brought
own separate
into this distinctive
then
formed
their
and, in
society
organizations
own
established
their
institutions
for
themselves
their
and
children.
cases,
many
utation,
either
a Jewish school with
to
stu
For example, in 1854, San Francisco
supported
forty
fifty
dents.80 By 1855, San Francisco's Jewish population had grown enough to support two
female societies,
the Ladies' United
Benevolent
Society for so-called Polish Jews
from
the
Prussian
of
Der
for
and
Israelitische Frauenverein
Posen)
(mostly
province
to assist poor He
Both were allegedly organized
Jewish women.
German-speaking
as
brew women,
"It
be
historian
Rudolf
Glanz
assumed
that these
noted,
but,
may
.
.
no
women
were
in want
in San
societies
there were
Jewish
chiefly social, for.
at that time and, indeed, few Jewish women."81
Francisco
a
of the Jews were merchants
and observed
Saturday Sabbath, their
on
rhetoric when
This
anti-Semitic
open
Sunday.
practice prompted
state
in
law for Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties passed the
assembly
Since most
stores remained
a
Sunday
1855, a bill that reflected moral
ilar law in New
York
sensibilities
of Protestant
and some other Northern
women.82
"There
is a sim
noted Daniel
States,"
Levy, proba
a
clause
allows the
in
the
"but
French
California,
Jew
special
gold-rush
bly
leading
on
to
observe
their
The
if
Sabbath.
their
establishments
open
Jews
they
Sunday,
keep
at the very least would
safe
law does not permit this exception, which
California
the principle of religious freedom."83
women
the Sunday-closing
this ideal, other Protestant
brought
Disregarding
minister
the Presbyterian
in 1856. In Columbia,
where
Lode
issue to the Mother
eas
a
in this matter, women
had so far been ineffectual
petition and
"passed around
to
a
the
observe
who
of
merchants
of
the
promised
majority
signatures
ily collected
guard
Ben
those affected were probably Jewish merchant
Sabbath."84 Among
[Christian]
This
in
his
F.
Butterfield
and
wife, Malvina,
couple, with
nearby Jamestown.
jamin
values crept
isolated as Protestant
their partner, Mr. Klein, must have felt doubly
California.85
into
carefree
formerly
deeper
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WEAVING
THE
Even
VALUE
OF
A
DIFFERENT
WORLD
159
DOMESTICITY
notion of female purity gave respect
of the churches, the entrenched
wrote home of her actions
in
increased power. Mary Ballou,
Negro Bar,
a
store
to the
connected
(evidently
fight took place in the
boardinghouse
never
she worked).
She had
she saw one man
gone in there before, but when
outside
able women
when
where
draw a pistol on another, "I ran into the store and Beged and plead with him not to
not to take his life for the sake of his wife and three
kill him for eight or ten minutes
at supper she learned of her own success, as the assailant
night
not
that "if it had
been for what that Lady said to him Scheles would have
grumbled
been a dead man."86 She also described how she earned her money:
"the first week
little children." That
earnt 23 dollars
sewing for the Spanish Ladies the second week earnt 26 dollars."87
later she was given a "present" of a fifty-dollar
Eight months
gold piece for nursing
one
a
went
to
"a French
in boardinghouse
work
for one
week," and then she
lady
hundred dollars a month
for five months.
(Her husband made
only seventy-five
a month
at the same establishment.)88
came to the at
A similar experience
was hailed
tention of Sarah Royce, who during her 1849 stav inWeaverville
by the
woman
an
me
in the camp: "[I]n quite
exultant mood
that the
[she] told
only other
dollars
man who
to
had offered her a hundred dollars a month
kept the boarding-house
was
cook three meals a day for his boarders, that she was to do no
and
dishwashing
. . Her
.
was
to have someone to
all
time
she
her
the
husband, also was
help
cooking.
earn
so
that
his
wife could
much."89
highly pleased
This high value placed on chores that women
did for free at home helped many
women
to prosper,
who could count on a man to back them up
although married
ones. Married
sometimes
wrote
did better than unmarried
to
Mary Jane Megquier
a
at
her daughter about
her San Francisco
It started at
typical day
boardinghouse.
"seven o'clock when
I get up and fry the potatoes
then broil three pounds of steak,
liver . . . ,"continuing with other great quantities of food for each meal
. . . beef, and
radishes, sallad,
including "lamb
pork, baked, turnips, beets, potatoes,
. . . [of
and that everlasting
I
have
cooked
mouthful
that has
which]
soup.
every
eaten
one
a half that we were on a steamboat
been
excursion."90
excepting
day and
and as much
She also made
"six beds every day and do the washing
and ironing," although
she
woman
set
the
of
had
who swept,
another
the table, and washed
"the dishes and
help
to
which
be
have
washed
for
carpets
every day," presumably
wages.91 By January of
more
take
in one month
here than I
1853, she reported, "[o]n the whole
money
could
in the states
in two years."92
was not so
Ball, proprietress of a rival boardinghouse,
lucky. She
in
debts
from
her
boarders
and
worried
experienced
frequent difficulty
collecting
some
men
about her reputation when
(both single and married) made advances to
ward her and women
about
the
results. "When I think of this
gossiped
mortifying
The widow Mary
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l6o
WEAVING
A
DIFFERENT
WORLD
The artist-Argonaut Leonardo Barbieri painted Jane Bushton
in the early 1850s.A native
Allen while on a visit toMonterey
of England who had gone to live inAustralia, she arrived in
1850 at the old Pacific capital, where she supported herself and
her children by running a boardinghouse, an occupation pur
sued by numerous women in California. It is not unlikely that
Barbieri executed the portrait in exchange for room and board.
Courtesy Colton Hall Museum,
City ofMonterey.
as clear
affair," Ball lamented in one instance, "I am sick at heart, all the women
keep
to them,
of my parlor as they would
of the pest house. I shall never humble myself
Iwould not
for where
there is no sin there should be no shame. If I had my money
to suffer as I do, and as I have, one month
longer."93 Still unable
some debts, she overcame
the gossip and was again mixing
socially when
at
of
the
she
assumed
the
manager
ary 1851
position
partially completed
be here
Hotel.
wrote,
to collect
in Febru
Oriental
she
her chambermaid,
left for a place in a private home,
Bridget,
we
to sew very late at night to get
for
the
have
"I am obliged
beds,
things
When
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WEAVING
A
DIFFERENT
WORLD
l6l
re
to
many more arrivals and not half the necessaries
complete the house."94 Bridget
as
turned aweek later, seeking reinstatement
through the good offices of Jane, Ball's
so
did
that very morning,
sistant, but Ball refused. "Fortunately I got a chambermaid
at
not want her."95
least
three
all
these
independent
reported difficulties,
Despite
women
were
Domestic
a
at the Oriental Hotel.
living
making
respectable
for African
work offered even more poignant
opportunities
American
slaves, although cen
slaveholders
agreement,
Rush were
came west
women.
in the Gold
of those who
Many
sus records remain silent on exact numbers. By mutual
their "Freedom Papers," after laying up a
purchase
as
sum for an indolent master. For
example, the slave George Dennis worked
tidy
a porter for his white master
"a tent measuring
(and father) in the Eldorado Hotel,
sometimes
allowed
30 by 100 feet.
lishment offered
slaves
to
. .
estab
from New Orleans." This flimsy San Francisco
brought
women
monte
tables by day and
faro and
swept
by night. George
at
he
the
end
of
three
the
"and
months,
up periodically,
saving
sweepings,
paid, in
own
sum
two of
of $1000" for his
bill of sale.When
five and ten cent pieces, the
to bring cattle to California
from Ohio
and
gaming partners decided
an
to
for
her
additional
offered
fetch George's mother, he paid his father
pur
$950
tables at $40 per day for the
"rented one of the [Eldorado] gambling
chase. George
his father's
in the gambling
house on it. Eggs were
a loaf of bread $1.While
at $12 per dozen,
cents
her ex
apiece, and
selling
apples 25
a
or
were
what
words
looks
penses
day."96 One wonders
heavy, she averaged $225
master. The
between
her
and
the
father
of
her
their
former
son,
passed
grand
of his mother
privilege
serving
hot meals
of this enterprising
later Mrs. Margaret
L. Dennis-Benston,
woman,
daughter
became an honors high school graduate, "efficient in the Spanish and Chinese
lan
a
in
Such racial inter
guages, and afterward taught
private school for Chinese."97
was
one
of
of
the
color,
among people
mingling,
particularly
legacies of gold-rush
California.
Domestic
free woman
skills also benefited
of African
descent.
the most famous
Mary Ellen Pleasant,
probably
in 1849 witn inherited
She arrived in San Francisco
and an enviable
as a cook. A
reputation
so
the
she
auctioned
off her culi
dock,
seeking
employ
no
not even dish
"with the stipulation
that she should do
washing,
was $500, "the
a
to
The
bid
cook, although several
washing."
high
highest wage paid
as
as
a
others received
much
three hundred dollars
month."98 She allegedly
invested
money
from
group of men
nary services
the death
of her first husband
to
her savings with an accounting
and influence.99
prosperity
her crowded
firm, West
and Harper,
and went
on to much
greater
to African Americans,
as illustrated
This firm proved particularly
sympathetic
by
the enslaved Mrs. Jane Elizabeth Whiting
to San
and her three children, brought
aMrs.
Francisco
in 1856. They
their mistress,
who was
accompanied
Thompson,
to meet her husband on his ranch in Petaluma,
going
guided by their oldest son,
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l62
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
The Whitings
maintained
the fiction that they were free servants all the
otherwise
have granted manumission)
but re
(which would
way across Panama
on board the boat
vealed their secret to abolitionists
the
Pacific
Coast.
steaming up
Howard.
The
abolitionists
convinced
them
that since California
(a very problematic
assertion, at best),
first to disembark. Mrs. Whiting
and her children were
ensured
freedom
... which
was
a free state, their arrival
them to be
and convinced
then husded
to "a colored
..
as the
boarding
'Harper & West
Boarding House.'.
The colored people
in San Francisco
to protect
held a mass meeting
and decided
them in everyway possible." They changed the family name from
to Free
Whiting
man, found work for the mother, and instructed the children to stay indoors with the
shutters closed. But after many long weeks the children ventured outside to
play. An
house
was
known
steamer passengers
them as the escaped slaves and
recognized
their mistress, Mrs. Thompson,
who had settled on her ranch in Petaluma.
she never tried to reclaim them, and "fifteen years afterwards Aunt
Interestingly,
other
of the former
alerted
and recognized
Jane' and her former mistress met on the streets of San Francisco,
each other and talked together, learning that for five weeks, while Mrs.
Thompson
was in search of these slaves, that
were
a short distance of them
they
boarding within
all the time."100
Other
slave women
obtained
freedom
in different ways. Mary Ann Harris worked
stationed with his family on Alcatraz
Island.
as a "nurse
a
was
girl" for Dr. Ross, who
to pay for her freedom when
She was earning four dollars a month
"an old colored
woman
name of Aunt
by the
Lucy Evans stole her off the island" and freed her.101
The most famous of California's
had to go to court
enslaved women,
Biddy Mason,
to
all the way from Han
herself and her family. In 1850, she had walked
emancipate
a
caravan
oxen
behind
of
three
hundred
drawn
cock, Mississippi,
wagons
by
(imag
ine the dust!), driving cattle while minding
her own three daughters, Ellen, Ann, and
to take
in San Bernardino,
her owner decided
After four years of residence
to catch
to Texas, a slave state. They went westward
his family and slave entourage
news reached Los
a
a few
Angeles,
days "when the
ship, and had been gone only
...
were
aMrs. Rowen, of San Bernardino,
that
slaves
these
going back into
through
Harriet.
arrested their master. Biddy Mason
sheriff of Los Angeles
County
slavery." The
own children but with six of the
at the trial not
her
with
eight chil
only
appeared
dren of her fellow slave?a
seventh being at work and the eighth, a newborn babe,
the
her
side
of
recovering mother. The judge freed all of them, and Mason
lying by
went on to become a "confinement
nurse." She bought property well outside the Los
sold parcels at a profit and used the
the city boomed,
city limits, but, when
for the good of her race and other downtrodden,
including paying "taxes
proceeds
and all expenses on church property to hold it for her people."102 Her efforts not only
Angeles
ensured
ter how
the uplift
of her race, but added
segregated?in
changing
to the
weight
of Protestantism?no
California.
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mat
WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
163
PLACE
were trans
the transplantation
of so much of Yankee
society, certain values
as befitted the
of
the
moral
female direction,
flame.
keepers
Marriage
itself became more fleeting, as women, much more often than men, sought to change
or to unload a vicious spouse. In part,
partners to increase their financial well-being
Despite
formed
under
law allowed easier divorces, and women were not reticent
a group of western
this opportunity.
California
of
vantage
joined
of divorce cases were
overwhelming
majority
instigated by wives,
California
counties
and Santa Clara
One
sensational
California
Gold
led the nation
in divorces
from
about taking ad
states where
the
and San Mateo
1850 to 1890.103
case
societal changes spawned by the
myriad
highlighted
In 1899, Lucy Hite
sued aging multimillionaire
John Hite for
as settlement. This
case was unusual because
half his property
divorce
Rush.
divorce, claiming
was a southern Miwok,
fortune was apparently built on
and Hite's gold-rush
Lucy
of Lucy and her sister. As the story goes, Argonaut
the care and goodwill
John
Hite had survived a snowstorm
of a southern Miwok
under the protection
named
waters of the
Maresa, who, after they became
lovers, led him to the gold-bearing
South Fork of the Merced
River. When Maresa
Hite
married
her
died,
sister, Lucy,
according
1886 while
to Indian
Hite's
"quietly married"
rites. They
lived together continuously
from 1871 until about
in 1897 sixty-seven-year-old
swelled. When
John Hite
a
white widow, Lucy took John to court. De
thirty-six-year-old
fortune
asso
American
spite Lucy's adoption of (out-of-date)
clothing and her long-term
ciation with whites
she was not accepted by
rather than Indians at John's insistence,
most white Californians. With
blue tattoos on her chin and forehead, Lucy hardly
fit into the society that ate off porcelain plates on linen tablecloths. Although
the
for Lucy, the death of the judge led to a retrial and an out-of-court
to Indian Peak Ranch above
settlement. Lucy withdrew
in the southern
Mariposa
Mother
then
miners.
deserted
died
in
San
Francisco
in
Lode, by
John
virtually
by
trial court found
of the earthquake. His remains were incinerated
in the ensu
1906 on the morning
the funeral parlor that would
have buried him, but his heirs
ing fire along with
over his estate for years.
benefited
little
and lived simply, returning to
haggled
Lucy
her Indian associations
and older ways. She wove traditional baskets, some of which
now
Park Service.104
belong to the National
The collection and preservation
of Lucy Hite's baskets illustrates not
only the de
struction of the Miwok
in absolute numbers, but of much of the culture that
they
carried. Like
other groups present in the California Gold Rush,
they still persist, but
circumstances.
On the coast, Indians had been succeeded
by Californios,
own traditional views and
whose
differed
from
those
in
feelings
widely
portrayed
waves
American
Both
fiction.
foundered
under
of
groups
pulp
Argonauts?male
and female?from
almost every continent on earth: adventurers and
gamblers; slaves
in altered
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WEAVING
164
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
artistic nonconformists;
individuals
seeking survival, then freedom;
hardworking
to
who sometimes
chafed against the strait-laced
that
had
society
they
transplanted
over the Mother
California. This tidal wave of settlement
first
Lode, where
surged
once sewed shirts for the natives.
or were
Jenny Wimmer
Indigenous
peoples died
a
and
the
Indian
woman's
basket
became
displaced,
carefully preserved artifact rather
than a utilitarian mining
tool.
Women
the eastern
were
forced
states,
as men,
adaptation,
specifically Yankees from
the
monopolized
gold. They ventured various strate
tactics, partly through innovation. Increasing numbers
into economic
increasingly
gies, partly using transplanted
of respectable Yankee women
stratified and hardened California's
once-fluid
society
based on their own religious and ethical standards, yet many changes could never be
to the Gold
reversed. Throughout
these events, women
acted upon and responded
in varied, subtle, and significant ways. Weaving
Rush
women's
diversity, adversity,
into gold-rush California
and opportunity
enriches our history even more than did
Aunty
Jenny's gold.
NOTES
i. Mary
sNarrative of the First Piece of Gold Discovered
P.Winslow,
in
"Mrs.Wimmer
From
Francisco
December
the
San
California, Dec,
19,
1847 frfVL
Daily Evening Bulletin,
1874," quoted in Rodman W. Paul, The California Gold Discovery (Georgetown, Calif: The
Talisman Press, 1967), 174-76; hereinafter Discovery. In Hubert Howe Bancroft, California
s
Pioneer Register, 1542-1848 (Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1964) 386,Wimmer
full name is noted.
2. Paul, Discovery, 177,46.
3.
Ibid.,
4. The
fer
to those
5.
174.
term "Yankee" is being used throughout
who
"Marshall's
came
from
Narrative,"
the
eastern
in Paul,
United
Discovery,
this essay in preference
to "Anglo" to re
States.
199.
6. "Discovery of Gold at Coloma," San Francisco Daily Herald, December 31,1855, quoted
in Paul, Discovery, 134.
7. Quoted in Paul, Discovery, 73.
8.Walter Colton, Three Years in California (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1949),
9. Michelle Jolly, "Inventing the City: Gender and the Politics of Everyday Life inGold
Rush San Francisco, 1848-1869" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Diego,
1998),
59-62.
10. A very good discussion of these attitudes, based on the works of Alexis de Toc
Horrors of theHalf-Known Life:Male Attitudes
queville, is found inG.J. Barker-Benfield, The
America (New York: Harper 8c Row,
Toward Women and Sexuality inNineteenth-Century
inHubert Howe Bancroft, California
is
view
found
male
A
historical
3-57.
1976), especially
Inter Pocula (San Francisco: The History Company, 1888), 305-14; hereinafter California In
ter Pocula.
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WEAVING
ii. Horace
Snow,
1979), 84.
12. Eliza Woodson
Co.,
1856),
A DIFFERENT
'Dear Charlie"Letters
WORLD
165
(Mariposa, Calif: Mariposa
Historical
Society,
Farnham, California, In-doors and Out (New York: Dix, Edwards
6c
275.
13. Bancroft, California Inter Pocula, 312.
"Turbulence and evil of every description," in SoMuch to
14. Mrs. Lee Whipple-Haslam,
Susan
Be Done: Women Settlers on theMining and Ranching Frontier, ed. Ruth B. Moynihan,
Armitage, and Christiane Fischer Dichamp (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 29.
in Cal
of the California Indian," inMinorities
15. Sherburne F. Cook, "The Destruction
B.
E.
and
Curtis
York:
Frakes
Random
House,
Solberg (New
iforniaHistory, ed. George
1971), 46.
16. "Dame Shirley" (Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe), The Shirley Letters: Being Let
tersWritten in i8$i-i8pfrom
introduced by Richard E. Oglesby (Salt
the California Mines,
Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1992), 13,12; italics in original.
17. Quoted inDelilah Beasley, The Negro Trailblazers of California (Los Angeles, 1919), 68.
18. George H. Tinkham, Men and Events (Stockton: Record Publishing Company, 1915),
158;Martha Menchaca, TheMexican Outsiders (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 10.
19. Albert L. Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier, 1820-1860 (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1988), 179, quoting E. A. Stevenson to Thomas J.Henley, December
31,1853.
20.
See Hurtado,
21. Quoted
Indian
Survival,
180-92.
stresses the power of the anti
Indian Survival, 176. Hurtado
southern invective, but misses the overtones of racial miscegenation
then associated with "de
graded"
in Hurtado,
southern
society.
22. Frank F. Latta, Tailholt Tales (Santa Cruz: Bear State Books, 1976), 93-94.
23. Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before theMast
(New York: Washington
Square
Press, 1968), 73.
24. Robert W. Johannsen, To theHalls of theMontezumas: TheMexican War in theAmer
ican Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 175-91.
Personal Narratives from
25. Genaro Padilla, "Yb Sola Aprendi': Mexican Women's
in
the
California,"
Nineteenth-Century
Writing
Range: Race, Class, and Culture in theWomens
West, ed. Elizabeth Jameson and Susan Armitage
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1997), 194-95
26. William
pany,
1971),
Downie,
Hunting for Gold (Palo Alto: American West
Publishing
Com
I47-53
27. See Albert L. Hurtado, Intimate Frontiers: Sex, Gender, and Culture in Old California
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), 134-36, for a discussion of the pub
licity and the event's interpretation by historian Hubert Howe Bancroft.
28. Mary Ball, "The Journal ofMary Ball, A California Gold Rush Woman,"
transcribed
and annotated by Norma B. Morris
(M.A. thesis, Sonoma State University, 1993), 184.
29. William H. Ellison, ed., "'Recollections of Historical Events inCalifornia, 1843-1878'
ofWilliam A. Streeter," California Historical Society
Quarterly 18 (March, June, and Sep
tember 1939): 273, quoted inAlbert Camarillo, Chicanos in a
Changing Society (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1979), 18.
30. Quoted inMichelle E. Morton,
"Excavating Mexican American Voice in California
The
California
Testimonials"
(M.A. thesis, University of New Mexico,
History:
1996), 85.
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WEAVING
l66
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
31. On the Bear Flaggers, see the views of Vallejo de Leese inMorton,
"Excavating
on fertility, see
Mexican American Voice," 83-84,87-88;
quotations from Dorotea Valdez and
Isidora Filomena de Solano, quoted in ibid., 91, 96.
32. Ord manuscript, 143, quoted inMorton,
"Excavating Mexican American Voice," 99.
"Yo
Revised
See
Sola
translation is by the author.
^.
Padilla,
Aprendi," 198.
34. Ball, "Journal," 217.
35. Leonard Pitt, Decline of the Californios: SocialHistory of the Spanish-Speaking
nians, 1846-1890 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 267-68.
36. Colton, Three Years in California, 252-53.
yj.
Califor
292.
Ibid.,
38. Ibid., 276.
39. Sally Zanjani, AMine ofHer Own: Women Prospectors in theAmerican West, 1850-1950
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 25.
40. Malcolm J. Rohrbough, Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and theAmerican Na
tion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997),1^1
41. Zanjani, Mine ofHer Own, 25-26.
42.
Ibid.
43. Ball, "Journal," 273.
at home is Linda Peavy and Ursula
book on women
44. The most comprehensive
on theHome Frontier (Norman:
Movement:
Women
in
in
the
Westward
Smith,
Life
Waiting
and Ann Page Stecker, in
Heffernan
of
Oklahoma
Press, 1994). Nancy Coffey
University
Press of New England,
Sisters of Fortune (Hanover, N.H.: University
1993), write of a
single family.
45. Clappe, Shirley Letters, 184.
46. Ibid., 185.
47. Ibid., 74.
48. Mary B. Ballou, "IHear theHogs
Beinecke,
1962),
inMy Kitchen" (New Haven: Yale University
Presses,
11.
of California, Berkeley,
Perkins, "Journal," Bancroft Library, University
49. William
Indian
Head Books, 1992;
York:
Women
in
Gold
Rush
Elisabeth
the
(New
Margo,
of
quoted
as
Elisabeth
the
1955, by
Margo Freidel), 50-51.
Forty-Niner,
originally published
Taming
Stanford
Mountains
and
Molehills
Frank
(Stanford:
50.
University Press, 1952),
Marryat,
235.
51.
Ibid.,
238.
(New York:
52. Julie Roy Jeffrey, Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-1880
Hill andWang,
131.
1979),
Press, 1986), 14.
53. Judy Yung, Chinese Women ofAmerica (Seattle: University ofWashington
Links Between Hong Kong and Cal
54. Carl T Smith, "The Gillespie Brothers?Early
ifornia," Chung Chi Hsiao Kan {Chung Chi Bulletin) 47 (1969): 28.
55. Judy Yung, Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berke
ley:University of California Press, 1995), 37-39.
races. See Hurtado, In
56. The possibility of sexual assault dogged female servants of all
timate
Frontiers,
especially
115-28.
57. Yung, Unbound Feet, 38-39.
58. Herbert Asbury, The Barbary Coast: An Informal History
Alfred A. Knopf, 1933), 180-81.
ground(NewYork:
of the San Francisco Under
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WEAVING
A DIFFERENT
WORLD
167
inYung, Unbound Feet, 33. Italics in the original.
59- Quoted
60. JoAnn Levy, They Saw theElephant (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992),
167. See also JoAnn Levy's novel based on the life of Ah Toy: Daughter ofJoy (New York Tom
1998).
Doherty Associates,
61. Yung, Unbound Feet, 33; Levy, They Saw theElephant, 166.
62. Benson Tong, Unsubmissive Women: Chinese Prostitutes in
San
Nineteenth-Century
Francisco (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 6-8.
63. Albert Benard de Russailh, quoted inYung, Unbound Feet, 33.
64. Tong, Unsubmissive Women, 14.
65.
Ibid.,
11-12.
66. Robert Glass Cleland, ed., Apron Full of Gold: The Letters ofMary Jane
Megquier from
San Francisco, 1849-1856 (SanMarino, Calif: Huntington
Library, 1949), 80.
in By
67. Janet R. Fireman, "Beautiful Deceiver: The Absolutely Divine Lola Montez,"
Grit and Grace: Eleven Women Who Shaped theWest, ed. Glenda Riley and Richard W. Etu
lain (Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing, 1997), 45"~6i.
68. Ibid., 62.
69. Jane Kathleen Curry, Nineteenth-Century American Women Theatre Managers
Press, 1994), 46-48; Delores J. Cabezut-Ortiz, Merced
port, Conn.: Greenwood
N.C.:
Windsor
Publications,
(Northridge,
1987), 73-75,78.
70.
Curry,
Nineteenth-Century
American
Women
Theatre
Managers,
(West
County
36-41.
71. Ibid., 45,51-76.
72. Ball, "Journal," 162,163.
73. Sarah Royce, A Frontier Lady (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932), 113-14.
74. Frank Soule, John H. Gihon, and James Nisbet, The Annals of San Francisco (New
York: D. Appleton &cCo., 1854), 690.
shifted her allegiance from the Presbyterians to the
75. Ibid., 692-95. Sarah Gillespie
as
a
result
of
her
husband's
Episcopalians
Episcopal faith, which led to her confirmation, pre
recounted.
See
Smith, "Gillespie Brothers," 28.
viously
76.
Beasley,
Negro
Trailblazers,
yy. Ibid., 697.
78. [Timothy Dwight
in Laurie F.Maffly-Kipp,
121.
"Haste to Be Rich," Pacific 1, no. 1 (August 1,1851), quoted
Religion and Society inFrontier California (New Haven: Yale Uni
Hunt],
versity Press, 1994), 153.
79. Rudolf Glanz, The Jews of California, From theDiscovery
Walson
Press,
i960),
of Gold until 1880 (New York:
112.
80. Glanz, Jews of
California, yj.
81.
Ibid.,
35.
82.
Ibid.,
41.
...
83. Daniel Levy, "Letters About the Jews of California
1855-1858," trans. Marlene
Rainman, Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 3, no. 2 (January 1971): in.
84. Maffly-Kipp,
Religion and Society, 160.
85. Ghnz,Jews
of California, 51.
86. Ballou, "IHear the Hogs inmy Kitchen," 11.
87. Ibid., 6.
88. Ibid.
89. Royce, Frontier Lady, 83.
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A DIFFERENT
WEAVING
l68
WORLD
90. Cleland, Apron Full of Gold, 46.
91. Ibid., 46-47.
92. Ibid., 69.
93.
Ball,
"Journal,"
94.
Ibid.,
180.
95.
Ibid.,
181.
202.
96. Beasley, Negro Trailblazers,
97.
Ibid.,
120.
121.
"ANew Look, or Tm Not
98. Asbury, Barbary Coast, 11, quoted in Lynn M. Hudson,
to Everybody in California': Mary Ellen Pleasant, Black Entrepreneur," Journal of
Mammy
theWest 32 (July 1993): 36.
99. Hudson, "ANew Look," 36.
100.
101.
Beasley,
Ibid.,
Negro
Trailblazers,
91-92.
91.
102. Ibid., 90-91, 109. See also Joan M. Jensen and Gloria Ricci Lothrop, California
Women: A History (San Francisco: Boyd and Fraser, 1987), 32.
103. Glenda Riley, Divorce: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press,
1991), 90; Robert L. Griswold, Family and Divorce in California, 1850-1890: Victorian Illusions
and Everyday Realities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982), 23-28.
Treasures of the South Fork (Fresno: Panorama West Books,
104. Ralph R. Mendershausen,
r983)> 35-36,57-70.
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