Hello meimei1965-ga,
I was up at Daffodil Hill outside Volcano a couple of weeks ago and
the hills were velvety green. Spring is a wonderful time for a field
trip to the gold country. Thank you for the opportunity to learn more
about one of my favorite travel destinations. There is such a wealth
of resources available that I got carried away looking for “just one
more” story. I think you’ll enjoy browsing the many sites I’ve found.
Since women were scarce in the Gold Rush, I thought you would have fun
exploring the roles they played. Some of the resources I’ve listed
include pictures that should help you with ideas for costumes. Making
the Jewish connection should be fairly easy and the same is true for
the Chinese option, although the information I’ve collected seems to
indicate that Jewish and Chinese women were very scarce in the West at
the time of the Gold Rush. I was not able to find anything to indicate
Chinese Jews immigrating to California at that time.
I’ve divided the results of my research into categories to make it
easier to browse through the results. I hope you’ll enjoy your
explorations and find a fun role to play on your field trip.
czh
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GOLD RUSH – WOMEN
=================
http://www.calgoldrush.com/
Part 3 – The People -- Women
In the mining towns, women earned as much or more than miners by
baking pies, sewing, cleaning, ironing, washing, running hotels,
dealing cards or pouring drinks in gambling houses. At Sutter Creek,
to earn money for food, Charity Hayward carried her cracked washboard
to the creek each day and washed other miners' shirts, unbeknownst to
her proud miner husband.
Women worked in unconventional roles, as well. Levy's research
revealed a photographer, a French woman barber, a Mexican woman who
ran a string of mules and brought flour to the camps, a woman
bullfighter who was showered with gold dollars for her performances,
and a stagecoach driver who for years disguised herself as a man.
http://www.goldrush.com/~joann/
Women in the Gold Rush
This page is sponsored by award-winning author and recognized
authority on women in the gold rush, JoAnn Levy, whose book, They Saw
the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush, was praised by the
San Francisco Chronicle as "one of the best and most comprehensive
accounts of gold rush life to date." Daughter of Joy, A Novel of Gold
Rush San Francisco, inspired by the Chinese prostitute Ah Toy, won the
1999 WILLA award for Best Historical Fiction.
http://www.columbiagazette.com/books2.html
BOOKS on GOLD RUSH WOMEN.
http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist5/foremoms.html
Gold Rush Stories from Pioneer Women
The Foremothers Tell of Olden Times
The Chronicle, San Francisco
September 9, 1900
When January of 1850 dawned upon California her population had jumped
during the preceding year to approximately 100,000 people, nearly all
of them men and nine-tenths of them gold-fever immigrants. It was not
until these hurried adventurers had rushed to the mines and made their
stake that they sent for their Eastern wives and the girls they’d left
behind them, and the era of women pioneers really began.
http://malakoff.com/tcnpfaw.htm
No Place for a Woman?
The California gold camps were hard on the ladies, but that didn't
stop them
from arriving, surviving, and sometimes thriving.
http://www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html
Gold Rush Women
Females who lived in Northern California during the early years of the
Gold Rush could name their ticket. The census of 1850 places the
female population, by that time increasing, at less than eight percent
of the total inhabitants of the country, while in mining counties the
proportion fell below two percent. Calaveras County showed only 267
women in a total of 16,884; Yuba, 2221 in a total of 9,673; Mariposa,
108 in 4,379, yet here only 80 were white women; Sacramento 615 in
9,087. Likely, in those days, women who were not Caucasian were only
spottily counted. Not until 1855, when a railroad across the Isthmus
of Panama was completed—thus making travel through this
disease-infested region somewhat safer—did more women venture west.
==========================
GOLD RUSH – JEWISH STORIES
==========================
http://wsupress.wayne.edu/judaica/history/kahnjvcg.htm
Jewish Voices of the California Goldrush
A Documentary History, 1849-1880
$39.95s cloth / ISBN 0-8143-2859-8
The cry of instant wealth was also heard and answered by Jewish
communities in Europe and the eastern United States. Jewish Voices of
the California Gold Rush examines the life of California's Jewish
community through letters, diaries, memoirs, court and news reports,
and photographs, as well as institutional, synagogue, and
organizational records.
http://www.leeandlow.com/books/fhill.html
THE LEGEND OF FREEDOM HILL
by Linda Jacobs Altman
illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu
In the 1850s, during the time of the California Gold Rush, Rosabel and
Sophie become best friends because they are both outsiders. Rosabel is
African American and Sophie is Jewish. Rosabel has freedom papers, but
her mother, Miz Violet, is a runaway slave. They have escaped to
California, where slavery is against the law. But Miz Violet is not
completely safe. The Fugitive Slave Act allows runaway slaves to be
captured and returned to their owners.
http://www.calgoldrush.com/
Part 2 – A Way of Life
Religion reclaimed souls as mining camps expanded
Temple B'nai Israel also traces its past to the Gold Rush. Moses Hyman
gathered a handful of Jews in his Sacramento store for the High Holy
Days in 1849. Three years later, Temple B'nai Israel was consecrated.
Jewish immigrants from Europe became merchants and prominent citizens,
but they also tried their hand at gold mining.
Robert E. Levinson, author of "The Jews in the California Gold Rush,"
cites newspaper clippings to show that Jewish immigrants mined gold as
late as the 1860s:
"Mr. A. Levy washed out eighteen pans of dirt, on Thursday last, and
obtained $6.50 in gold."
For the most part, Jews in the Gold Rush were accepted as citizens of
their towns -- on equal footing with other European immigrants,
concluded Levinson.
http://www.jewishsf.com/bk961206/bnagold.htm
Gold Rush history unveiled in book on Jewish cemeteries
Susan Morris' new book, "A Traveler's Guide to Pioneer Jewish
Cemeteries of the California Gold Rush." … The paperback offers a
detailed glimpse into the lives of the more than 210 Jews buried in
seven graveyards under the care of the museum's Commission for the
Preservation of Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries and Landmarks.
http://www.iajgs.org/bibliography.html
Bibliography of North American Jewish Community Books California
List o f 51 book – several on the Gold Rush
http://www.greatwestbooks.com/ourcity.htm
Book -- OUR CITY
Few of the initial Jewish immigrants were swept up in the prevailing
gold fever. Surer fortunes were to be made on the mercantile and money
exchanges than in the diggings, and the majority opted for being
merchants rather than miners. The Jews usually had not burned all
their bridges behind them, but were family men, so their wives and
children accompanied them to mining settlements. Jews were among the
first merchants, who, to circumvent constant fires, built brick
structures, lending mining camps an air of permanence and transforming
temporary abodes into real towns. Their feeling for history,
continuity of tradition, and strong family ties had a civilizing
effect on the freewheeling climate of America's last frontier. . . .
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0295982756/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/104-4229660-5750328
Jewish Life in the American West: Perspectives on Migration,
Settlement, and Community
by Ava Fran Kahn (Editor), Autry Museum of Western Heritage
This beautifully illustrated book provides new perspectives on life in
the West from the 1840s to the 1920s, as well as on the Jewish
experience in America.
===========================
GOLD RUSH – CHINESE STORIES
===========================
http://www.calgoldrush.com/
Part 3 – The People -- Chinese
Chinese transformed 'Gold Mountain'
Few struck it rich, but their work left an indelible mark
When news of the Gold Rush reached Canton in 1848, thousands of young
Chinese mortgaged their futures and boarded boats to "Gum Shan," or
"Gold Mountain," as California was known. … By 1852, 25,000 Chinese
had reached Gold Mountain. The 1852 census showed 804 Chinese males
and 10 females in Sacramento.
http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Chinese.html
Immigration – The Journey to America – The Chinese
By the year 1851, there were 25,000 Chinese working in California,
mostly centered in and out of the "Gold Rush" area and around San
Francisco. During that time, more than half the Chinese in the U.S.
lived in that region. These Chinese clustered into groups, working
hard and living frugally. As the populations of these groups
increased, they formed large cities of ethnic enclaves called
"Chinatowns" all over the country.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/chinhate.html
The Gold Rush and Anti-Chinese Race Hatred
THE CHINESE by Henry Kittredge Norton
Like every other nation in the world, the Chinese Empire was
represented in the great rush for California which took place during
the gold excitement. At the beginning of the year 1849 there were in
the state only fifty-four Chinamen. At the news of the gold discovery
a steady immigration commenced which continued until 1876, at which
time the Chinese in the United States numbered 151,000 of whom 116,000
were in the state of California.
***** This is a long article that chronicles the increasing hatred
toward Chinese immigrants.
http://www.newton.mec.edu/Angier/DimSum/Gold%20Rush%20Pix.html
The California Gold Rush
***** Pictures from the gold rush, including several Chinese
http://www.historichwy49.com/ethnic/chinese.html
The Nevada City, California Chinese Quarter
The discovery of gold in California attracted miners from diverse
backgrounds, all with the goal of striking it rich. Among them were
the Chinese who, drawn together by a common language, settled in camps
scattered along the tributaries of the Yuba and Bear Rivers. The 1852
census showed 3,396 Chinese living in Nevada County. By 1880, they
constituted 22% of California's mining population making them the
largest single nationality engaged in mining.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/chin/foot.html
“Chinese Girl with Bound Feet”
Nineteenth-century photograph of a San Francisco child who wears
beautifully embroidered three-inch “lotus shoes.”
http://www.needham.mec.edu/high_school/cur/kane98/kane_p3_immig/China/china.html
Chinese Immigration to the United States
In many respects, the motivations for the Chinese to come to the
United States are similar to those of most immigrants. Some came to
"The Gold Mountain," and others came to the United States to seek
better economic opportunity. Yet there were others that were compelled
to leave China either as contract laborers or refugees.
==================================
GOLD RUSH – CHINESE JEWISH STORIES
==================================
http://www.haruth.com/JewsChina1907.html
THE CHINESE JEWS
***** This site offers several stories from National Geographic
magazine about Chinese Jews but none of them have any indication of
Chinese Jews participating in the California Gold Rush.
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/chinesejews1.html
Ancient Legacy of Chinese Jews
Highlighting one thousand years of history
http://www.jewishpeople.net/chinesejews.html
China's historic Jews, synagogue honored in `Silk Road' exhibit
=============================
GOLD RUSH – GENERAL RESOURCES
=============================
http://www.calgoldrush.com/
The Sacramento Bee -- Sesquicentennial Commemoration
This is a wonderful Web site full of stories about all aspects of the
Gold Rush. It includes maps and resources and a comprehensive
bibliography.
http://bookhandler.com/California_Gold_Rush.html
The Bookhandler specializes in carefully-selected resources about
California history, California Indians, and US history that supplement
the social studies curriculum for elementary and middle schools.
Offers 25+ books on Gold Rush themes.
http://www.museumca.org/goldrush/index.html
http://www.museumca.org/goldrush/map.html
Oakland Museum of California.
On January 24, 1848 James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill,
touching off the California gold rush. On the 150th anniversary of
Marshall's discovery, the Oakland Museum of California unveiled a
series of exhibitions titled Gold Rush! California's Untold Stories.
They are now closed at the Oakland Museum.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage/
The California Heritage Collection is an online archive of more than
30,000 images illustrating California's history and culture, from the
collections of the Bancroft Library at the University of California,
Berkeley. Selected from nearly two hundred individual collections,
this unique resource uses the latest online archiving techniques to
highlight the rich themes of California's history. The California
Heritage Collection is part of the Online Archive of California, a
compilation of finding aids, or guides, to archival collections at
more than 30 institutions.
http://www.colapublib.org/libs/rosemead/wanted.html
County of Los Angeles Public Library à Rosemead Library à Californiana
Collection
http://www.rbookshop.com/unusual_subjects/c/California_Gold_Rush/California_Gold_Rush_Books.htm
California Gold Rush Store
Buy California Gold Rush books and other Interesting Subjects here at
discount prices! Choose from a total of 82 California Gold Rush items
sorted alphabetically. Click on any item for reviews, product
descriptions, prices, and more information.
http://www.malakoff.com/goldcountry/maintcgc.htm
If you're interested in the California Gold Country, the Virtual Tour
starts here. Browse through the online version of The California Gold
Country: Highway 49 Revisited....visit the old mining camps, see the
sights, learn their history, all without leaving the comfort of your
desktop.
***** This is a huge collection of links on all aspects of the Gold
Rush.
http://www.educationplanet.com/articles/goldrush.html
California Gold Rush!
Huge collection of links
http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist1/index0.1.html#gold
History by Subject -- San Francisco - Gold Rush
Another huge collection of excellent Gold Rush links.
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SEARCH STRATEGY
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california gold rush jewish
california gold rush jews
california gold rush Chinese
california gold rush chinese women
chinese jews "gold rush" |
